V-Day - Menu and Table of Contents

This a the Wordle for the V-Day adventures

The Story of Young Love and Ambitious Cooking

The Menu Consisted of:

• Tangy Citrus Chicken
• Glazed Sweet Potatoes
• Spinach Leek Tart
• and Virgin Mojitos

Dessert was:

• Peanut Butter- Chocolate Mousse Terrine
• and Cappuccino
• We put all the recipes into the story of how he made the meal.

This is how we told the story in the order that we told it:

1. V-Day The Boy, His Girl and His Coffee Poppet

The Boy decided to make a Meal for his Girl and the Coffee Poppets helped him get started

2. V-Day - Like Water for Peanut Butter Chocolate Mousse Terrine

The Boy starts the Terrine with the help of the Choco Poppets

3. V-Day- Learning About Why Sweet Potatoes like Whiskey

The Drunken Poppet approves when the Boy makes the Glazed Sweet Potatoes - The Pumpkin Spice Poppets help too

4. V-Day - The Ineffable Lightness of Spinache Leek Tart

Coffee Poppets assist in making the most romantic Spinach Leek Tart Ever

5. V-Day - Tangy Citrus Chicken and the Elements of Timing

The Boy makes the Tangy Citrus Chicken, learns how to cut flowers and sets the table for His Girl.

Ta Da!

With thanks to Susie Fishbein for making kosher recipes that don't suck.

V-Day - Tangy Citrus Chicken and the Element of Timing

I think I've figured it out, I have somehow made mortal enemies with some form of intelligent virus, and every time I have three or four days of health and productivity, my enemy lies in wait lulling me into an ambush where I suddenly find I am host for a new round of microbial battle.

But sieges are won through persistance and I don't care how long it takes, I'm finishing The Valentine's Day Menu Saga - So there! Hah! Ha hah! Fie on you tiny battalions. True Love and Tangy Citrus Chicken will still be shared with the world!

Or at least True Love for Tangy Citrus Chicken because it was really, really good.

A recap:

The Boy of the House wanted to do something special for His Girl, but he didn't want her to think he just bought her things. He wanted to DO something for her, and he decided to cook her a Valentine's Day meal. In order to do this after he had chosen his menu, he had to get through religious dietary restrictions, 2 blizzards, learning a few new cooking techniques and the actual cooking itself. He enlisted me as coach and the Poppets as assistants. I didn't sous chef for him much, because he wanted to do it himself, but I did help him keep track of timing, because one of the most difficult parts of meal planning is making sure everything gets to the table served at the right temperature.

So part of that is figuring out how long things take to make and working your preparation plan accordingly. It was a wonderful week working on this and I wanted to keep the memory with all it's details and special insights and recipes, so I'm putting it here in the Dreamtime, for me, for His Girl and our families, because happy things are easy to make smaller and this way we can keep pieces of it as large and adventurous and as loving as it actually was. This is the final entry in the story.

The menu consisted of Tangy Citrus Chicken, Spinach Leek Tart, and Glazed Sweet Potatoes. He was serving non-alcoholic mojitos to drink with dinner and dessert was a Peanut Butter and Chocolate Mousse Terrine with Cappuccino.

So this is the order that things were learned and made:

We learned how to use the Bialetti Mukka Express first. The Coffee Poppets were strong enablers . . I mean supporters of this effort. You can read about that here, f you haven't already. We did that at the beginning of the week before the dinner.

Then the Peanut Butter Chocolate Mousse Terrine takes a couple of days so that was started the Thursday before Valentine's Day with the Choco Poppets. You can read about that here.

That entry was when I realized there were two ways to tell the story: Linearly for the date, or each entry could hold the recipe and tell the story of the dish from decision to delivery on the table. I chose the story of each dish with the date story mixed in so that each entry has the full recipe.

Which meant that I told the story of the Glazed Sweet Potatoes next, which includes the appearance of the Drunken Poppet and the participation of the Pumpkin Spice Poppets. It was supposed to be made in advance on Saturday, but had gotten moved to Sunday morning, as you can see here.

This is when The Skeleton Who Wants to Run a Flower Shop reminded The Boy that he had to do things like set the table and that tables should have fresh flowers. The Boy had never arranged his own flowers so that was another thing he was going to have to learn.

But first The Boy had to make the truly romantic and highly work intensive Spinach Leek Tart. The recipe for which is here, and the entry also includes the slightly manic digression on buying mushrooms before a blizzard.

As you see from the photo that opens this entry, the Skeleton will not be denied. He was waiting, as are we all, for the Tangy Citrus Chicken, the keystone of this V-Day meal, to get underway.

You may remember that the whole thing began with this as the centerpiece recipe. It had his two required elements; it was a meat meal, and it looked "tasty". It has some heat to it which is something His Girl likes, but wasn't so spicy that he wouldn't like it. This was actually the recipe that we really wanted to make in advance to make sure it worked, but circumstances prevented it.

There was also the timing-to-be-hot issue. Tangy Citrus Chicken cooks in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour and 15 minutes and then gets finished off with a quick broil. Spinach Leek Tart gets cooked at 400 degrees but it doesn't cook very long, only 15 minutes for the last step. The glazed sweet potatoes would have needed about 20 minutes at 350 degrees if it were the whole batch but we were only going to replate enough for the dinner, because the original recipe serves 8-10, so it would probably be about 15 minutes too.

His Girl was due over by 5:00, which we meant that the chicken had to be in by 4:00 at the latest. Then the potatoes would go back in the oven at 4:55 and the tart by 5, moving the temperature to 375, with them sitting down to dinner at 5:25. At least that was how it was supposed to work when we started that morning.

INGREDIENT LIST FOR TANGY CITRUS CHICKEN

3/4 of a cup of lemonade concentrate, defrosted

1/4 of a cup of ketchup

3 tablepoons of brown sugar

3 tablespoons of white vinegar

1 teaspoon of soy sauce

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoonn freshly ground black pepper

1 chicken cut into 1/8ths

1/2 cup of flour

1/4 cup of canola oil

On the day before the blizzard the biggest concern we had was finding a full kosher chicken or even better one pre-cut into eighths. Turkey everyone had, but chicken, not so much. I found one and only one pre-packaged chicken ( no way was I going to the butcher on such short notice). It was one chicken, in eighths - obviously meant to be, but it also meant that we couldn't do a test run on the recipe.

Instructions for Tangy Citrus Chicken

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl mix the lemonade concentrate, ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, soy sauce ginger, paprika, chili powder . . . . . .

"Umm wait a minute did we already say chili powder? I put in Garlic Powder I think?"

"Are you having the Drunken Poppet call out the list?"

"No."

"Here let me teach you a system." here is the system. We put out all of our ingredients on an area of the counter. That does 2 things. You know that you have all your ingredients so you don't suddenly find out you are missing something, and you can keep track of what you have used.

As soon as you use the ingredient,if you are done with it then you can put it away ( shortens cleanup time) if you can't put it away because you need to tend to the recipie, you move "included" ingredients to a different counter or counter area on the other side of your body so you know what you used and what you didn't use yet. We lined the spices up, topped off the Drunken Poppet's cup and sent him to help elsewhere and let the Highly Caffinated Poppet help line up and inventory the spices. As you can see your starter counter gets clearer and clearer as you go along.

So to continue:

. . . . garlic powder,onion powder, thyme , oregano, basil salt and pepper. Mix and set aside

The simpler way to say that would have been "take everything but the last three ingredients on the list mix together in a medium bowl and set aside." But it really was handy having each spice listed in the recipe. It acted like a check list.

And so that's what we did.

Well, that took longer than we were expecting. Hmmn.

Now we went to the next item which was:

Dredge the chicken in the flour.

Well our chicken was packaged and it was going to feed a lot more than the two people the dinner was planned for, so when we unpacked the chicken to clean and prep it for dredging we decided to butcher it a little bit more so that it would be easier to serve and eat. Which meant the boy had to learn these things since it was him that was making the meal. We were overshooting our window. We had thought that starting this part by 3pm would give us plenty of time, but there was some shuffling of other family members and we were about a half hour off schedule. Luckily it ended up that His Girl was going to need us to come get her. This meant The Boy could concentrate on doing things in the right order rather than trying to stall or take shortcuts.

So the meat was dressed and he learned how to dredge the chicken which is a way of lightly taking damp chicken through flour.

In a large pot ( yeah it said pot - you don't need a pot, you do need a super big frying pan with deep sides. ) heat the oil over medium high heat. Brown the chicken until the skin is crisp on all sides.

Remove the chicken pieces to a baking pan in a single layer.

Pour the spice mixture over the chicken. Bake covered for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

"Awesome - now it's my turn! You have an hour to set the table and clean up!"

Apparently the Skeleton Poppet had been waiting patiently. He taught the boy how to mix the preservation cut flower food into water by measuring into a large bowl and mixing it there.

Helpful tip - slightly warm or room temperature water works best for the mixing.

The other Poppets that had been helping in the kitchen were helping to take out the good fleishig (meat) china and silverware. The boy set up the mint garnish for the mojitos as well as a water glass in case she didn't like mojitos as much as he did.

The Skeleton Who Wants to Run a Flower shop taught the boy how to cut flowers to the right height, and use a funnel to fill or refill vases once the flowers were arranged. ( It keeps the water from getting everywhere and you don't have to change the position of the flowers)

The best way to cut flowers : Cut with a sharp knife on a diagonal. Remove leaves that would be underwater on the arrangement, but keep the thorns on the roses, because taking them off shortens the life of a cut rose.

Here is the first arrangement. It went on the painted chest in the dining room.

You always arrange flowers for color and balance. Here is the Skeleton helping The Boy to settle a pink rose into the centerpiece. Fun fact, that is a Waterford crystal bowl that Spook ( the poppet) usually lives inside when it is on the shelf because he likes the disortion of looking through the cut crystal. Hmmmn, I'm letting The Boy use my good knives, the good china and my real crystal - some people might look askance at this, but these things are meant to be used, they're better that way.

With some fussing the table was set. He lit candles.

The chicken had made it in by 4:30. The potatoes were replated in an oven to table ceramic and went in at 5:20.

The temperature was moved to 375 and the tart was put in at 5:30. The Boy muddled the mint and mixed the mojiotos, so they were ready for when His Girl arrived. The Perfectly Normal Husband had left to pick her up before and brought her over by 5:40.

The Chicken came out at 5:45 and cooled down while the Tart finished at 5:55, which is also when the sweet potatoes came out. (Please note that the sweet potatoes were basted every 10 minutes during the second session in the oven, just like when they were cooked originally.)

Everything was served at the table and The Boy served His Girl by 6pm.

Like all good staff I ate in the kitchen. My kitchen has a swinging door so I kept it shut, so the kids had some semblance of privacy. The Perfectly Normal Husband was upstairs - slogged down with work. It was actually surprising that he was home at all this time of tax season. I took a plate up to him. Except for the sweet potatoes, he doesn't like them and I figured why waste them. So I can say honestly not only was the meal excellent, but all of these recipes will be going into the regular rotation.

The Spinach Leek Tart was, not surprisingly, a huge hit with His Girl. However, surprisingly indeed, The Boy really liked it too and asked for us to have it again.

The Poppets were as proud of him as if he were their own Boy, which I suppose he is, at least he's Pumpkin Spice and Cappy and The Skeleton Who Wants to Run a Flower Shop's Boy, since they are His Poppets, and these relationships are always reciprocal. Oh and Spook. He's Spook's Boy too.

When the dinner was over and the Penut Butter - Chocolate Mousse Terrine was served with the Choco Poppet adding a little caramel before it left the kitchen. She loved the dessert.

We discovered that the picture above is a really big serving of that particular dessert. The Boy also made His Girl cappuccino with Silk soy milk which wasn't half bad, but not as good as milk would have been (silly rabbis) and then they sat in the living room looking at the Poppet Circus. . .

. . . and talking for a good long while. I told The Boy he could stay with His Girl and I'd clear the table (because the living room and dining room are open to each other through an arch so it's some nice, unobtrusive chaperoning that way) and when I was just about done with the clean up and the repackaging, they came and asked about curfew - which was ten. So they had about another hour and half. Then they behaved just like a regular couple who were 15 and 14, and played video games and watched TV until it was time for her to go home.

I love them for that, as much as I love them for being unlike a regular couple who are 15 and 14.

The Spinach Leek Tart had been cut and served in a way to keep the heart with her initial intact, and the remaining Tangy Citrus Chicken still had enough to feed another four people - which is more or less the number of people at His Girl's house. Because we followed the strictest of the rules when we were preparing things, we were able to send these things home with her. So even though it was a meal, she still got to show off what her boyfriend gave her for Valentine's Day. Which isn't supposed to matter of course, but I remember being 14 and 15 and maybe even 16, when it's nice to be able to show someone else that you are loved and admired, and that someone put some effort into letting you know.

She is definitely loved and admired.

The boy certainly thinks she's worth every minute of it.

The End of the V-Day Celebration Menu

V-Day - The Ineffable Lightness of Spinach Leek Tart

The next Holiday Marathon starts this week. And here I am still catching up with Valentine's Day! Purim is this weekend - A complicated holiday that looks like something simple. It's also the starter's gun for Passover. Passover will have shades of the things that have completely derailed me since Thanksgiving. I am not going to repeat what I did at the High Holy Days however and I WILL finish posting the full V-Day Epic, before my personal trip into the Wonderland of Purim.

We are up to recipe #4 the Spinach Leek Tart, plus the mojitos

His final menu was

• Tangy Citrus Chicken
• Glazed Sweet Potatoes
• Spinach Leek Tart
• Peanut Butter Chocolate Mousse Terrine
• Virgin Mojitos
• Cappuccino

The links go to the recipes already written about in case you missed them and the tale of The Boy cooking a Valentine's day dinner for His Girl

*****

So here is the story of the most romantic spinach dish I've ever participated in.

The Boy does not hate all green things, but he does have strong opinions about many of them. Most of those opinions can be compromised with Bernaise Sauce.

When he sat down to make the menu he had a mental list of His Girl's favorite things. Among her favorite things were spinach and mushrooms. He hates mushrooms. He really only likes spinach in a souffle. He showed me the page in the book. "I want to make this."

"Are you sure? Will you eat it? There's no point in making a meal for two people if you're not going to eat the most complicated dish in it."

"I think she'll like it, it's got all her favorite things so I'll eat it with her."

The boy is not one for flowery poetry or emo declarations from rooftops. He is the absolute opposite of drama.

He really loves His Girl. The proof is in the Tart.

The other thing I will point out is that his understanding of the interaction of different flavors is evident in his selection of this as the vegetable side dish for the meal. The chicken was going to be citrusy and tangy, the sweet potatoes would be "dark" and sweet. He had specifically chosen this side dish to compliment the other two without being too heavy. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. He's good at chemistry, he's been a bit of a foodie for the last couple of years and I suppose I'm just actually surprised that he's listened to us discuss the finer points of great meals and menu planning and absorbed it. Aren't we always just a little surprised when we discover our kids really listened to us after all? Or maybe it's just me.

Even though the whole meal was planned around the chicken; because he wanted to make her a meat meal, because you don't eat meat as often when you keep kosher, and even though the showstopper for V-Day is always supposed to be dessert, which was certainly epic, this part of the meal was truly his gift to her. From start to finish.

The Coffee Poppets had learned a love of mushrooms when we did the Longwood Gardens Mushroom Soup while on vacation. They popped right in when he decided to make this.

INGREDIENTS FOR SPINACH LEEK TART

1 17 1/2 ounce package frozen puff pastry divided

2 large eggs divided

4 tablespoons margarine divided

3 garlic cloves minced

2 shallots, minced

4 oz or 1.5 cups of cremini mushrooms, stems removed, sliced

1 tablespoon of Port, Maderia, sherry or other red wine

2 leeks, thinly sliced use white and pale green part only

1 10 oz box of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 teaspoon rosemary ( which reminds me - I have to buy more rosemary)

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

juice from 1/2 lemon

pinch of Kosher Salt

pinch of freshly ground black pepper

3-4 tablespoons of bread crumbs

A brief digression about finding mushrooms in the lull between two storms

Let me just tell you that getting the ingredients was a saga. We had gotten a 2 foot snowstorm about a week before. The Tuesday before Valentines Day they were predicting another foot and a half to two feet. The Boy and I were originally thinking that we would make this for Friday night to test it, but we were pretty sure that there would be no going anywhere on Wednesday and Thursday. So we preemptively decided we were going to shop for everything on Tuesday. If we needed something really fresh everything would probably be operational by Sunday morning. I made the executive decision to shop while he was at school - lucky I did!

The one thing I've learned this year is that I live by the Mushroom Capital of the world. I try to buy my produce locally and luckily my local Acme uses many of the same suppliers as my local Whole Foods and Trader Joe's.

The other thing I've learned is that in this area, which doesn't usually get a lot of snow, the hint of snow sends people stampeding to the nearest market to buy up milk, bread and eggs. I've never figured it out. I now have a standing assumption that when snow falls from the sky the locals ritually make french toast.

So I was a little concerned that I might have trouble finding eggs, but I was pretty sure that the rest of my ingredient list was going to be easy. The other reason I needed to go shopping ASAP is that the kosher stuff is not universally available in one place and sometimes you need to hit several places to get all the things you need. Whole Foods is great for vegan versions of things like the cream-cheese-that-isn't and stuff like that, so I figured I would pick up the mushrooms there.

The first thing that surprised me was that the Whole Foods was packed at 10 am on a Tuesday morning - were there really that many unemployed or SAHMs (or SAHDs, we're pretty liberal here) in the area with so much disposable income that they were getting their mandatory milk, bread and eggs at Whole Foods?

The strip mall was empty except for Whole-Food-going denizens who were parking all the way into the next "zone" for all the other stores and shlepping over to find carts. I was practically in a dazed state when a parking spot opened up between a cart stop and a row close to the door. I grabbed a cart and went in, completely focused on mushrooms.

The Mushroom Division at our whole foods is a connoisseurs delight. It's five rows high, it has eight standard varieties of mushrooms. Plus whatever the cool kids are buying that week. Loose. Prepackaged. Prepared mushroomy things you can just heat up. You half expect the Caterpillar from Alice to be smoking something herbal and looking at you smugly when you approach it.

It's the very first thing on the right hand side as you enter the store.

It was empty.

I had no idea that the shelves were green before that moment. Dark Green.

Irrational panic set in and I looked around the rest of the green grocer section. Packed, yes. Stripped bared like Mother Hubbard's pantry? Hell no. Except for the mushrooms. I found a guy with a green apron restocking something and fought my way through to him. There must have been an edge of hysteria in my voice, because he was uber calming as he explained that there had been interruptions in their mushroom deliveries because of the last storm and they were supposed to get some on Thursday but that was now looking very doubtful. There might be mushrooms on Saturday but they had just gotten a bunch in on Monday and well, I could see the vast yawning emptiness for myself.

OK, I thought, Why are people lying in wait and pouncing on mushroom deliveries at the Whole Foods? Maybe if you move upscale in our area people make mushroom omelets or mushroom quiches instead of french toast when it snows? Just in case the nice man made me a list of all the potential mushroom delivery dates and introduced me to the manager, who confided in me that she didn't really get it either. I was relieved to find out that vegans were not rushing the shelves for dairy free whipped creams and cream cheeses. All the rest of my vegetative needs were easily met.

I moved on to Trader Joe's. There I ran into a more localized phenomena. This particular storm was going to hit and possibly immobilize us for Wedsday and Thursday. Friday is when observant Jews prepare for Shabbat, so you have to get everything done before sundown, including the cooking. Which means a lot of Jewish cooks who usually have a few days to buy thing fresh before they have to make meals in advance were rushing the shelves for enough food to last them the entire week. They weren't going to be able to go shopping, regardless of the weather, until Sunday. Trader Joe's carries a lot of kosher items and is very popular with the local community. I was there to buy some back up frozen side dishes and dessert just in case something when terribly wrong with any of the recipes. I know they usually buy locally too, but I checked the mushrooms just in case. Devastated! Barren! Post apocalyptic! Except for three packages on the uppermost shelving with a tiny little old Jewish lady desperately trying to reach the shelf, which wouldn't have helped her because the three packages were deeply set toward the back of said shelf. She would have needed to grow about a foot and a half. And frankly Trader Joe's doesn't look like they keep the Caterpillar around with his size distorting 'shrooms.

The package she was reaching for was one with two large portobellos. Hamburger sized ones. Not what I needed, but I offered to get them for her and warned her there was a local run on mushrooms if she needed more. After all, I am a foot and a half taller than her - no 'shrooms needed. She just needed the one package. I got it down for her. Behind it, lo and behold were two 10 ounce packages of cremini mushrooms which apparently have recently become known as "baby portobellos" and so this package had both names.

I thanked the universe for the benefits of instant karma, assumed it had more to do with The Boy's karma than mine, and grabbed both packages chuckling madly to myself and going to checkout muttering "I'm rich! I'm a happy miser. . . . . "

Good thing too - all Acme had were button mushrooms - which you can use in a pinch but the flavor is different and lighter.

So now I know. If I need mushrooms before a snowstorm, I'm going out at dawn . . . . .

End of maniacal mushroom digression . . . .

Recipe

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out each of the puff pastry sheets into a 10x10 inch square.

Uh yeah . . . we had made the Glazed Sweet Potatoes at the start of the day and had started defrosting the puff pastry sheets about two hours before we needed them. This is officially Not Enough Time.

So we took the sheets out and they had defrosted enough to make a kind of tent structure out of each of them and put them on the heated stove. We used the necessary defrosting time to prep all of the other ingredients. The Boy learned how to wash and slice leeks. It's a little like dissecting a frog. You remove wilted leaves, cut off the roots and make an incision lengthwise to separate it and rinse of sandy particles that may have settled in the layer. Leeks as we learned on the Longwood Garden's recipe are onionlike and we needed both googles and gloves. We may have had trouble with the mushrooms but Whole Foods leeks are powerful good.

The end results of thinly slicing the 2 leeks:

We saved the darker green parts to use in a chicken soup later that week.

Then we moved on to zesting the lemon. We needed a teaspoon of zest. I have a zester. Owning a zester is one of those moments when you realize you cook a lot more than the rest of your social circle, because if you don't have a zester you end up using the cheese grating side of your cheese grater, which becomes massively annoying when you do it with citrus fruit.

When you do it often enough that you are dancing with joy because you found a zester so now you won't need your grater and it's accompanying torn finger skin complete with instant addition of citrus acid, you have crossed a line. It's OK though, my friends still love me, as long as I invite them over for dinner.

So The Boy learned how to use a zester, now he will start his own kitchen someday and assume that a zester is a necessary thing, like a garlic press and and french press.

Zesting takes a long time.

The pastry thawed.

Place 1 puff pastry sheet on an un greased baking sheet.

I use Silpats for pastry now. Any pastry. It's a vast improvement and keeps the pastry fluffy and cleans up super quick. I use it for frozen pastry based snacks too. I have a silpat and a newer brand from Bed Bath and Beyond. Because you need separate ones for meat and dairy and they have two different colors that way. But I admit I think I slightly prefer the silpat for dairy baking anyway.

The writer of the recipe, Susie Fishbein, also recommends using parchment paper for easy clean up.

So you have one square puff pastry sheet spread out. You cut the other sheet into 8 one inch wide strips. Brush the edges of the flat sheet with cold water ( this recipe gave me an excuse to finally buy a silicone based pastry brush - which is also making my life better since all of my cheap paintbrushes that I'd been using before kept being used for poppet projects). Lay 4 of the strips around the edges to form a flat rim, like a picture frame. Brush this rim with cold water. Lay the other four strips on top of those to form a higher rim. Trim the corners as necessary so it is a neat square.

Beat 1 egg lightly and brush on the pastry frame. Prick the tart all over the bottom with a fork. Place in the oven about 7-10 minute until puffed and golden.

So we did that and then we discovered that when you make a 10 x 10 square and cut 8 one inch strips from it, you will always end up with extra dough. So The Boy and The Poppets had an idea:

Which they worked out while the tart was doing this;

You don't actually use the whole egg - you use about 2/3 of it. Put it aside. You'll need it later.

Melt 2 tablespoons of margarine in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and the shallots (both of which the boy learned how to peel and mince while the tart was cooking) and saute 3-4 minutes until soft.

We had a slight mishap because he put the leeks in with the garlic and margarine and when he went to add the shallots he realized he shouldn't have them in yet. So he separated them as best he could - added another tablespoon of margarine and then added the shallots putting the partially cooked leeks to the side.

Then he got back to the core instructions.

Add the mushrooms and sauté 7-8 minutes or until they are soft, add the wine and scrape up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan.

We may have used slightly more mushrooms than technically needed. We revel in our hedonistic gluttonous use of mushrooms during The Great Mushroom Shortage of Twenty Ten. Mwahhhahhhahhahhahha . . .

He was very good at popping the mushroom stalks and he learned how to slice, but I finished up for speed's sake. He had already done a lot of knife work that day and we didn't want the shallots to overcook.

Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of margarine - or in our case add another 2 tablespoons of margarine, which for us made 5 instead of 4. When it is melted add the leeks (Oh! That's where they come in!) and spinach and saute for about 10 minutes until the leeks are soft and shiny. So it was cool, they just had a 3 minute head start.

Add the chicken broth and simmer until the liquid is mostly evaporated ( this doesn't take nearly as long as you think it will so keep an eye on it.) Stir in the rosemary, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

I taught him how to fling his dash of salt and pepper with panache. The hidden panache is a vital ingredient. In almost everything really, if you think about it.

Remove from heat.

Lightly beat the remaining egg and and combine it with any egg you might have put aside earlier - add it to the spinach-leek mixture, mixing well. Carefully spoon the mixture into the prebaked tart, keeping the rim clean.

Sprinkle the bread crumbs,

This is where he added the heart, and now you all know His Girl's first initial. He coated the heart lightly with only two coats of egg wash.

Now here's where the first lesson from when we started planning kicks in.

Bake for 15 mintues. Serve warm.

The tart was done except for the final baking- the Tangy citrus chicken was next, but it would take an hour and fifteen minutes to cook. The most important thing in planning a meal is to make sure that the food gets to the table all at the same temperature it's supposed to be served at. I'll discuss how we managed to oven settings when I write about the chicken recipe but the tart was set aside while the chicken was cooking.

During that time we mixed up the mojitos, hand muddling the fresh mint and determining that Sprite is way better in virgin mojitos than club soda. (So why is the rum always gone? Oh right - they're underage and possibly the Drunken Poppet got there first).

He taste tested it with the sweet potatoes and declared the mojitos the drink of choice to go with dinner and set up to figuring out the best way to serve it in a timely manner when he set the table.

Here is is sample:

Mojitos were the only thing he made that wasn't brand new for him. He developed his mojito making skills after sampling one when we saw Waiting for Godot. He does put together a classy drink. It's probably because he comes from a long line of bartenders.

When the tart was finished cooking it looked like this:

You'll have to read up on the final recipe to find out what happened with it.

But I defy any mushroom and spinach loving girl to find a more romantic pastry than this one.

In our side of the Looking Glass the Knave makes his own damn tarts.

The Red Queen approves.

V-Day - Learning About Why Sweet Potatoes like Whiskey

So here we are on recipe #3 - Glazed Sweet Potatoes

His final menu was

• Tangy Citrus Chicken
• Glazed Sweet Potatoes
• Spinach Leek Tart
• Peanut Butter Chocolate Mousse Terrine
• Virgin Mojitos
• Cappuccino

The links go to the recipes already written about in case you missed them and the tale of The Boy cooking a Valentine's day dinner for His Girl

So here's the thing about Sweet Potatoes. I love them.

And until recently I was the only one. You'd think they would be an easy sell when kids are little but no. I couldn't convince the children that they were delicious, even though the same children devoured things with pumpkin and were at least neutral about things with squash. The Perfectly Normal Husband comes with a few quirks as well and one of them is a distaste for sweet potatoes. After various failed attempts to lure them in culinarily, I took to buying single small sweet potatoes and baking them when I was making baked potatoes as a side dish. And making them for company, and for any large gathering where I was asked to bring a side dish.

But at home I was all alone. Until this summer.

I don't know what went on in that camp kitchen overall, but either the other choices were so egregious that The Boy decided sweet potatoes were worth trying, or the camp chef was magic and convinced The Boy that resistance was futile.

Either way he came back voluntarily looking for sweet potatoes. But I was still surprised when he put them on his menu.

And you may have noticed a pattern of which Poppets like to help in the kitchen.

You may remember that you last saw the Pumpkin Spice Poppets with another recipe - my Tzimmes, which Brings All The Boys To The Yard. It seems that whenever I cook with sweet potatoes they show up to assist. I kind of expect them now.

It's because they care.

At least about the sweet potatoes. I think they like us too, but I'm kind of happy they don't want to make sure we are cooked properly, with appropriate flavor.

The original plan had him making the glazed sweet potatoes on Saturday night so it was one less thing to do on V-Day, but after Shabbat ( that holiday thing where you're not supposed to do work that happens every Fri/Sat) the grown ups in his life decided that they were going to get together and eat chocolate and drink port instead. Because we had all been snowed into our respective residences for about four days and some of us were starved for adult conversation.

So for humanitarian reasons, he decided that he could just start early on Sunday instead of late on Saturday.

INGREDIENTS FOR GLAZED SWEET POTATOES

4-5 lbs. sweet potatoes, peeled

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) margarine

1 cup of dark brown sugar

1 tablespoon of vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/4 cup of whiskey or bourbon, such as Jack Daniels

When we read the ingredients during the planning session we discussed the whiskey issue. I've cooked a few dessert recipes that called for Jack Daniels in my life and they're pretty good but I don't keep it in The House. We have a kind of "one sip" teaching exposure rule to alcoholic drinks, so if a grown up is drinking a wine or a cordial or something and the child in question would like to sample it they get a sip which usually ends up with wrinkled nose and disinterest.

Wine is in the house weekly for Sabbath, beer is usually for guests or sausage dishes. Most of the liquor in the house, Grand Marnier, Kahlua, Creme de Cacao, Vermouth, vodka, chambord - those are all cooking ingredients. I never had much alcohol in my house until I got a subscription to Bon Appetite. Then all of a sudden I was getting close to a fully stocked bar.

I also cook with a lot of rum. Especially bread pudding. And mocha butter rum frosting. And chocolate rum Mexican wedding balls. I've also got a great recipe for a rum punch that I make in the summer for parties. Like Jack Sparrow, I find myself always wondering why the rum is always gone.

So my kids have grown up with alcohol demystified, people who are drunk defined as "targets" instead of "people having fun they can't remember" and first hand exposure to alcohol as a kind of ingredient that can also be enjoyed on it's own - like chocolate.

But still, this recipe required that I go out and buy some whiskey for my 15 year old for Valentine's Day. And because of the 1 sip standard and the fact that whiskey and scotch are used for very specific blessings in religious observances over the year The Boy knew for a fact that he hated whiskey.

But he knew enough about both cooking and chemistry to stick with his choice. So pre-blizzard whiskey shopping went I.

I hate whiskey too. So I was looking for the smallest possible bottle, but then I also realized I have friends who don't hate whiskey. I was going to have whiskey left over, so I would serve it to friends as an after dinner drink at some point and I didn't want it to be poor quality. Of course I had no idea what good quality was and I wasn't willing to spend a lot of money on it.

I got some help. While I was staring helplessly at the state store, a friendly connoisseur discussed the finer points of cooking vs. drinking and then confided he like whiskey a bunch after recommending the Jim Bean over the JD for cooking with. I asked him if he would be happy to be served the Jim Bean at a dinner party and he told me that he'd be quite happy because it was like drinking a decent 11$ bottle of wine with a good dinner even though you also drink really ridiculously expensive wines. Price doesn't equal quality in context. Context is very important.

Always.

So Jim Bean was going into the glaze, and if you visit and drink whiskey, it's what will be offered to you. Probably for the next year. This was the smallest bottle I could find that wasn't a sample size.

The arrival of the Jim Bean drew the attention of a Poppet who doesn't usually assist in the cooking adventures.

Directions for Glazed Sweet Potatoes

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut the sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch slices.

Now just to set the record straight. The Boy can cook. He can fry, saute, bake, follow a recipe, make a reduction sauce and plan a meal. However he does the practical thing and except for main courses, tends to use semi-processed foods or frozen vegetables for side dishes. Most of his "from scratch" stuff is baking.

So it was with some awareness I asked, "Have you ever peeled potatoes?"

"No."

"Well, you're going to now."

I confessed to him immediately that he should not accept my teaching as the definitive word on it. I am a terrible potato peeler. I've got a lot of decent kitchen skills but frankly, I suck at this. I'm slow, potatoes slip out of my hands. I understand that a stint in the armed forces or being a Boy Scout leader would rectify this deficiency, however I am willing to do neither of those things. I usually delegate it to the Perfectly Normal Husband who is a peeler par excellence, and has been my sous chef on many a food based performance project when he was just my Perfectly Normal Accountant.

I showed him how to hold the potato, the peeler, initial safety tips and told him to take his time. Like the eggs I did the first one and let him do the rest. I told him not to stress about it and go slow and maybe someday someone would teach him the secret that I lack to getting it done quickly, but properly.

After the experience of peeling with the peeler (Good Grips - great for peeling klutzes like me) he took a look at our knives and immediately took out a paring knife wondering if you could use that to peek the suckers. Well yes, yes you can. And that's exactly the knife you'd use, but if you think I'm bad peeling with a peeler well I'm just an impending ER visit waiting to happen with a paring knife. Maybe Grandpa will teach him next visit.

He peeled all 4 lbs.

Cut the sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch slices.

Yeah, about that. Uncooked sweet potatoes have the consistency of balsa wood. I have very good knives but I usually cook the potatoes to soften them first and then slice them for presentation but the recipe was really clear. This was the only task I took over for The Boy, for the sake of my knives and my nerves. Also, having taken The Girl to the ER for her shoulder the week before I wasn't interested in doing that when all the downed trees and shoveling based heart attacks were going to fill up the ER.

Steam the sweet potatoes for 10 minutes or until soft but not mushy.

So The Boy learned what a vegetable steamer was.

He laid the sweet potato disks around the edges and center to open up the steamers "petals" as wide as they would go, there was about an inch and a half of water at the bottom to produce the steam.

He managed to get them all to fit without compromising the steamer. Covered it and started timing the steam from the water boiling - to get them "soft" took about 15 minutes.

Remove the potatoes from steamer and set aside.

We just moved them off the heat and set them aside on the counter still covered.

Now it was time to make the glaze; certain Poppets were very happy about this.

In a small saucepan, melt the margarine over medium heat. Add the brown sugar, vanilla and salt stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the whiskey or bourbon ( which the gentleman at the store told me is the same thing) and cook for 5-10 minutes or until slightly thickened. Stirring occasionally.

The Boy likes, and is pretty good at chemistry. He made sure that the margarine was melted and thoroughly stirred before adding the sugar and did that again with the sugar before adding the whiskey.

10 minutes is a long time and he felt stirring frequently was better than occasionally so he pulled up a chair and tended the glaze for the 10 minutes.

This is what it looks like when it is the right consistency.

While the glaze is cooking you should spray a large 9x11 glass baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Place sweet potatoes in the pan

and drizzle the sauce over the top when it's done.

Bake uncovered for 1 hour. Baste with the sauce every 10 minutes to keep the potatoes from drying out. He used the turkey baster after trying the basting brush. The turkey baster worked much better.

When they were done we re-plated the potatoes into a baking/serving dish for the dinner for the two of them and sampled the finished product.

The whisky made it fuller, the glaze was sweetened but not sweet. The outer portion of the disk had a soft crispness and the inside was soft. It was definitely savory. If the whiskey weren't in the recipe it would at best be bland and at worst be cloying.

The whiskey was definitely the thing that knocked this recipe up to a higher level. Sweet Potatoes and Whiskey - perfect together - as long as they've been cooked for an hour or so.

And as the boy would say, "Tasty".

We were already looking forward to when we were going to eat the leftovers.

But it was getting close to noon. His Girl was due at 5.

The Skeleton Poppet Who Wants a Flower Shop showed up with a bunch of vases, three different types of flowers and fill and some florist shears.

Bustling around and checking color, cut and health he insisted that The Boy use his time between bastings to learn how to arrange the flowers for the table himself.

"Seriously?"

Dead Serious.

We are really going to have to break the Skeleton of his penchant for bad puns.