Our friend Dave is a trained chef with a real eye for presentation, so I’m devoting an entire section of my blog to photos of his creations. Once a month, I treat Dave to dinner and offer him something like tomato soup with grilled cheese. And once a month, he invites us to his house and treats us to food fit for a king. I need more Daves in my life.
Last Thursday the hubby, my friend Amanda and I met at Dave’s for dinner and games. Dave was out to impress! The main course was Filet mignon, lobster, purple mashed potatoes, and fresh asparagus. I was skeptical about the lobster as I don’t typically like shell fish, but this was done quite well. Dave says that the secret is in cooking the lobster in butter. Hmmm… butter makes everything better!
After an hour or so of letting our dinner settle, Dave unveiled the dessert – chocolate creme brule with fresh berries. On top of that (as if there needed to be more!) for the extra berries he offered a chocolate dipping sauce made by combining melted chocolate with a red wine reduction.
I’m pretty sure I gained five pounds in one night, but it was worth it. 
Dave should be coming to my house again sometime in the next week or two. I still have not figured out what I’ll be making for dinner, but there’s no way I can compete with this!
6 responses so far ↓
1 Dave Madsen // Feb 15, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Okay, so if I bring my own plate, can I get a seat at the table? This was wonderful! The dinner seemed exquisite. The pictures were good – the one with the berries was excellent. I could even taste the creme brule!
2 Shirley Madsen // Feb 15, 2010 at 5:47 pm
Hmmm . . . this meal even looks tempting to a vegetarian.
3 LeAnn // Feb 15, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Beautiful!! How lucky you are!
4 Kim Jenevein // Feb 24, 2010 at 3:03 pm
I work with Amanda…
I think I gained 5 pounds just looking at the beautiful photographs. I have a couple ideas that might help.
Bacon wrapped shrimp (marinated overnight, wrapped and grilled)
Curry crusted leg of lamb with curry sauce
Coucous with toasted pine nuts and carmelized shallots
Chocolte Mousse Cake with whipped cream and raspberries
I also have nice recipe for Cardamom custard that might be nice.
5 paulawong // Feb 24, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Kim – good ideas! I’ll pass these along to Dave!
And yes, I’d love the recipe for cardamom custard 
6 Chef Dave // Feb 25, 2010 at 12:01 pm
I’ve done bacon-wrapped shrimp before for an event. While everything is improved wil grilling, I actually prefer to cook the shrimp first and then wrap them in pancetta along with a slice of tropical fruit (mango works nice.) The salty+sweet combo combines nicely with the delicate, almost nutty flavors in the pancetta.
I don’t work with curry too often (they don’t sit too well in my stomach), but it certainly has it’s place alongside lamb.
I prefer couscous over rice, for sure. I like how versatile it is; it can be made sweet or savory with equal eaze. Plus the fact that it is so easy to make (add hot water; let sit; fluff)!
Mousse cakes can be enjoyable as they are a nice light textured/heavy flavored finish to a meal.
One of my favorites was a Napoleon-style where there was three layers – chocolate, vanilla and starwberry – on a graham cracker crust. We served it with a triad of tuile cookies (almond, mint and lemon) and a compliment of (you guessed it) three sauces (creme anglaise, chocolate and strawberry coulis). It took a bit of effort to make, but was well worth the result…
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