A happy birthday dinner for the boyfriend

My boyfriend is not keen on having his photos up on the blog.  If he was, I would do a photo montage of him enjoying all the great eats and drinks we’ve had together.  So there would be pictures of him drinking wine in the hills of the Russian River Valley, eating clams at a dive seafood shack in Massachusetts, and perhaps even enjoying a meal of my home cooking.  But he doesn’t like having his pictures put up on Facebook, much less the blog, so instead I’ll focus on the food I made him for dinner.

My boyfriend is the typical guy who loves his meat so I knew meat would be at the center of the plate.  I decided I wanted to cook duck because it’s something we both enjoy a lot and it also happened to be what we ate when he took me out for my last birthday.   I served Spice Glazed Duck out of the fabulous cookbook Urban Italian.  The recipe called for cooking duck breasts over the stove until the skin is crispy and golden.  From there they were finished off in the oven while a pan sauce was made with honey, red wine, and a symphony of spices.  In order to make it extra special I used blueberry honey and a fine cabernet vinegar.  On the side I served some A-M-A-Z-I-N-G broccoli with cheese sauce.  The recipe was actually very simple.  I made the cheese sauce that I also use for my Maine Lobster Mac & Cheese that I blogged about here the only difference is that I use steamed broccoli in place of the pasta and lobster and then bake off in the oven.  I tend to leave my broccoli just a tad crisp after steaming so it doesn’t become mushy in the oven.  This meal was tremendously indulgent but my boyfriend and I both agreed it was perfect.  The glaze on the duck was the perfect combination of savory and sweet and the spices did a lovely job of complementing the duck without overwhelming its natural flavors.  The broccoli was also sinful.  This cheese sauce is seriously amazing.  It could make cardboard taste good.  It’s rich and creamy and the standard I judge my cheese sauces by.

Because the main course was definitely on the heavy side I knew I wanted to finish the meal with something lighter.  Because of this I had planned a dessert based on the mystery creation I alluded to in my blog post earlier in the week.  Actually, it wasn’t a mystery for long because Victoria of The Idle Loaf guessed it right off the bat.  (She’s cooking up some drool-worth sandwiches straight out of  ‘Wichcraft this week which is definitely worth checking out.)  Yes, there is actually a method of making yogurt that involves using a heating pad.  I’ll blog about that tomorrow, but for now I’ll focus on the end product which was a duo of fruity frozen yogurts, one strawberry and one melon.  They were both lovely, cooling, sweet, and true to their flavors.  The recipe for the strawberry frozen yogurt came from David Leibovitz’ blog and can be found here.  The melon recipe was more of an improvisation that originally started with yogurt, sugar and a reduction of melon juice.  However the end flavor wasn’t strong enough so I added in some additional (unreduced) melon juice until it had enough melony flavor.

All and all it was a pretty great meal and a lovely way to celebrate my boyfriend’s 28th birthday.  I’m just glad the weekend’s almost here because there are so many yummy recipes floating around the blogging community.  I’ve been obsessed with chocolate chip cookies since Carolyn of Food Gal posted the Ad Hoc Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.  The Spicy Chicken Burgers featured on Tri to Cook also sound like a fun inspiration for a unique and healthy meatloaf.  Happy birthday Ben and one of my interns as well whose birthday was also today.

What about you, if you were going to pick a favorite meal to have as your birthday feast what would it be?

Tagged as: Dessert, Duck, Frozen Yogurt, Main dish, Side Dish, Vegetables, Yogurt