So, Kate came over last night for my meal-of-the-year re-enactment, courtesy of the amazing leftovers I was lucky enough to snag at Tuesday night’s Electrolux ICON event. After sharing the leftovers with my coworkers earlier in the day, I still had about 1/2 cup of risotto and a hefty segment of lamb tenderloin left … not to mention the seared tuna and molten lava cakes hanging out in my fridge. I was worried about the damage I might do if left to my own devices, so Kate popped over to relieve some of the expansion responsibility (because, oh, what a heavy burden it is).
I started us off with fancy apps:
OK, so my seared tuna atop wasabi-infused guacamole and a white cheddar soy crisp is not exactly on level with the giant-spoon classiness I experienced Tuesday, but I think it is a close approximation … and it tasted delicious. Kate and I had two each.
Kate and I both prefer our meat closer to well-done than to rare, so I fired up the oven to give the lamb a few more minutes. While that was cooking, I worked on the risotto. Since I brought such a small amount of it home from work, I decided it needed (1) bulking and (2) healthing. I sauteed the veggie scraps I salvaged from the event (asparagus peels, mushroom stems, and spinach) with garlic and olive oil and then immersion blended them into a paste (another non-classy variation of the Chef’s method). The paste went into a pot with 1/2 cup cooked brown rice, the remaining 1/2 cup of risotto, and lots and lots of freshly grated parmesan cheese.
The result: enough food for two! Colorado Lamb Roast, Spring Asparagus Risotto, and Carmelized Onions:
I think I am most excited about those onions!! Thank goodness I still have a bunch more in the fridge 😀
Can you guess what came after dinner????
Yes, the chocolate molten cakes!! I tried to keep presentation as true to the original as possible. Sadly, I had no gold dust on hand.
I heated the lava cakes in their tins for about 10 minutes at 350. When they were warm, I slid a knife around the edges and inverted them onto the plates. In lieu of the magical chocolate disk, I topped each cake with a square of Newman’s Own Organics orange dark chocolate. Ohhh, yum. I daresay this chocolate actually improved the cake (which I didn’t think was possible before I took a bite!). Seriously, look at the melt-action taking place here:
The “ice cream” was actually about 1/2 cup each of lemon curd-infused healthy cream cheese icing which I iced via the freeze-for-20-stir-freeze-for-20-stir method. It needed color for photography’s sake, so I topped it off with a blueberry sauce I made by simmering a couple tbsp of Brigitte’s homegrown frozen blueberries until the juice thickened.
One last look at the whole package:
As much as I could eat molten lava cake every night for the rest of my life, I am relieved that Kate helped me so that I do not have to! Expansion does have its limits, even for me 😛
In case you would like to try your hand at re-enacting this meal from scratch (something I haven’t even attempted yet!), I have created a page of Chef Steelman’s very own recipes right here!
Have you re-enacted anything (food or non-food) lately?
And have you entered my Bob’s Red Mill giveaway?
Anyway, that breakfast kept me so full all morning (as it should have — holy protein plus no cardio in days!) that I didn’t even need my typical morning snack. Plus, I was racing around crazily what with my visits and work to make up from Monday. My “injury” was kind of giving me a lot of pain today — I think I overdid it with the hobnobbing around town 
Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition 