An oven & steamed broccoli!

I will start a new quest from today on. In the apartment I used to call my home we had a very nice oven: in fact, I may even call it the best electric oven I ever used in my entire life. I absolutely love baking cakes and I like the occassional deep fried pizza as well (a shame, I know!) so an oven is absolutely a must-have. So flash forward to when I moved into my new place. A somewhat larger (though messier) kitchen, gas instead of induction, and a microwave I can actually get along with. But no oven! Gah! Apparently, one of the former inhabitants of this apartment brought along a very fine oven that was used often by the housemates as well. But when she moved out she took the oven with her. Probably because it was a very useful oven, and an oven I would have loved to be able to use today. No oven dishes, no pizza... :(
So I am thinking of buying myself an oven. I just had a tax return so I might pull it off with that money, though I actually wanted to buy a new computer as well (luxury choices, how I hate those). I imagine the kind of things I would be able to do with my very own oven. Roasted shrimps? Baked salmon with a little bit of lemon? Potatoes and garlic with some more lemon? And the cakes! Especially the cakes I could make!

For now, however, I had to stick with just plain old boring cooking. Aside from the sumptuous dinner Sir G. & I had last Tuesday, I ate some jalapenos flavored beef (with coriander, some jalapenos) with lemon flavored risotto & broccoli steamed in garlic oil on Monday & the same jalapenos flavored beef but this time with a Japanese version of potato salad yesterday (= Wednesday).
The broccoli in garlic oil was one of my own ideas. For this, you need broccoli, some olive oil, some garlic, and some salt. Chop the broccoli while the water boils. Salt the water, then cook the broccoli for about three to four minutes. Heat the oil in a pan, put some chopped garlic in it and let it simmer for a while before throwing the broccoli in the pan and closing the pan off with a lid. Steam for about four minutes and you're done.
Now you're probably wondering why I cooked the broccoli first: well, I honestly had no idea what I was doing, and I thought that while experiments are great, you at least need to make sure the food is well heated to prevent bacteria from spreading. Sometimes when I only steam vegetables such as broccoli I seem not to take enough time, and it is still raw on the inside. So if I can prevent this by cooking it first, why not do exactly that? I hope that if anyone reads this they actually try to prepare this because I thought it was great! The garlic oil adds a little spice to the broccoli and if you finish it with some pepper it's even better.

Until next time!

Out for dinner again!?

Yes sir! My dear boyfriend, sir G., took me out to dinner yet again. I am such a lucky girl. And one prone for some weight gain too, after the number of courses I tasted yesterday. We made a reservation at the same Italian restaurant we went to last week for their themed dinner party and it was absolutely lovely!
First, we started with an appetizer of beans with pecorino cheese, served with a glass of prosecco and strawberries. The cheese was of really good quality and it was a perfect match with the beans. Our starter consisted of three smaller dishes. We had a roasted bean and tomato soup, with a tomato stuffed with rice, and a fig with parma ham. Served with it was a glass of dry white wine. The soup was absolutely lovely and I loved the combination of the fig and parma ham. I wasn't sold on the stuffed tomato, though. Overall, a good starter.
Then we had two seperate pasta dishes. Course #3 (because I do count the appetizer as a course since it was quite a lot) was a papardelle with a kind of stew. It tasted familiar so I am sure I have the name of the particular dish stored somewhere. It was delicious, I can tell you!
Course #4 was a variation on the classic spaghetti carbonara. It was a little salty, because the cook had used pecorino cheese in the sauce instead of an egg. Even though, it was still nice and I finished my plate with delight.
The main course was a lamb chomb, with roasted potatoes with rosemary, spinach with raisins and pine nuts, and saltimbocca. To complement it, the main course was served with a bardolino.
After this, both sir G. & I were feeling a little overwhelmed. So the sorbet with limoncello that came after the main course was a welcome diversion from the feast we had just consumed.
To complete the meal, we had almond cookies with fresh food and a dessert wine that luckily wasn't as sweet as I had expected.
We both felt very happy after dinner, so we took a nice walk home, talking to each other and looking at random bunnies playing in a field, and a strange cat that kept staring at us. How I love life at moments like these!