As Time Goes By

I don't really know how I haven't posted anything in the past week! We have been eating, rest assured but I will admit it has been a lot of eating out! At any rate, a few Saturdays ago we had our good friends Laura and Carl over for dinner. Previously we had told them we would share half of our half of a cow. Too bad for them I decided not to share! To make it up to them we had them over for the 4 remaining t-bones grilled out with fixings. They brought the great wine and I did the following food:

App:

Warm Blue Cheese Bacon Dip

Main:

Grilled T-Bones

Garlic Feta Mashed Potatoes

Gruyere Onions

Rolls

Dessert(that we didn't even make it to!):

Easy Ice Cream Pie with Caramel Sauce

Let's eat!

Warm Blue Cheese Bacon Dip

8 slices hickory-smoked bacon, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup heavy cream
4 oz. crumbled blue cheese
2 tbs. chopped fresh chives
2 tbs. chopped almonds
Crackers, trimmed fresh vegetables, or sliced baguette, for serving

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In nonstick skillet, cook bacon over medium-high heat about 8 minutes or until nearly crisp. Drain bacon and wipe skillet dry.

Return bacon to pan, add garlic, and cook over medium heat until bacon is crisp, about 3 minutes. Make sure garlic doesn't burn. Drain on paper towels.

Using paddle attachment of electric mixer, beat cream cheese in bowl until smooth. Add cream; beat well to mix. Fold in bacon, garlic, blue cheese, and chives.

Transfer to 2-cup baking dish; top evenly with almonds. Bake about 30 minutes or until heated through. Serve with crackers, baguette slices, or vegetables.

*this was REALLY good but REALLY rich. I said it would feed 8-10 people, who must be really small. Four of us almost polished off the whole thing.

T-Bones:

The t-bones were sprinkled with sea salt about three hours before grilling. The Dude is the grill master so I don't know what he did but I thought they were great!

Garlic Feta Mashed Potatoes:

6 baking potatoes, peeled, cubed

1/4 cream

1 c. feta cheese crumbles

2 T. garlic salt

Boil potatoes until tender. Strain and place back in pot. Add cream, feta cheese and garlic salt. Mash until smooth. Add more garlic to taste.

*I love smashed potatoes and this was just a richer version.

Bakes Onions with Gruyere:

5 medium sweet white onions, such as Vidalia
2 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup low-sodium beef broth
2 tsp. low-sodium soy sauce
1 cup (about 4 oz.) finely shredded Gruyère cheese
2 tsp. finely chopped fresh sage

Preheat oven to 400°F. Coat large, shallow baking dish with cooking spray. Baking dish should be large enough to hold 10 onion halves.

Trim about 1/4 inch off top and bottom of onions so that halves sit flat on a plate. Cut onions in half crosswise and then peel them. Arrange onion halves, cut sides up, in baking dish.

Brush exposed onion tops with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake about 35 minutes.

In glass measuring cup, mix beef broth and soy sauce. Remove dish from oven and pour sauce over onions. Return to oven and continue baking about 1 hour, basting occasionally. If liquid evaporates, add a little water.

Remove dish from oven and sprinkle cheese and sage evenly over onions. Bake 5 to 7 minutes more or until cheese melts.

*This was rich but my fault partly because I didn't get low sodium broth and used sea salt, oops. They were good but a bit salty!

Dessert:

Once again from Pioneer Woman!

*I found nothing easy about the caramel sauce. I didn't know if I didn't whisk enough, if its because it was 1/2 and 1/2 and not cream but two failed attempts later we have just been eating the ice cream only. Still good!

Rolls:

Well, somehow I forgot about bread which isn't really like me. So, at the last minute I pulled some Sister Schubert rolls out of the freezer.