Best Dinner Ever

Last night BF and I decided to forgo Date Night. We enjoyed a night in instead. Since he is a pretty good cook, and I am, well an abysmal one, my job was to stay out of the kitchen, while he "worked magic."

I did not do a very good job. {hey, I needed pictures for my blog} He made the most random dinner, but it was probably the best meal I've eaten in a really long time.

Our night began with a trip to the grocery store. We had planned on trying out the Ice Cream maker I gave him for Valentine's Day and needed a few last minute ingredients. While we were there we noticed all kinds of strange items in the produce section. Most of these were things I've heard of, and eaten, but never seen in their true form {like passion fruit and papayas}. One fruit, in particular, that struck my interest was this orange-blowfish-looking thing.

Please excuse the hot messlook. It was about 9 pm, I'd been at school since 6 am I have huge I-am-tired-bags under my eyes and I was wearing BF's humongous coat.

It's called a Dragon Melon, it is very rare and it comes from Australia. The Vons employee working the produce section asked us if we would like to sample one. "Heck yes!" He chopped it up and handed it to us... This is what it looked like on the inside:

Please forgive BF's awesome blurry iPhone pics.

It looked like a cross between a pomegranate and an orange, filled with green Jell-o and seeds- but it tasted was amazing!!! Dragon melon has the flavor of a Kiwi, with a seedy, gelatin texture, and the freshness of a cucumber. Because you're supposed to eat it like an orange wedge, whenever I bit into it, the little spikes would stab the inside of my lips. While we were eating, we even got a very informative lesson on produce from the produce guy. Dragon melon is delicious, and I will totally treat myself to one sometime, even though they are about $7.00 each!

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Next we bought some blackberries, blueberry preserves, and cheeses {and I bought myself 2 more pints of blueberries because I eat them like candy}. BF loves to try new kinds of cheese and had no qualms about dropping almost $20.00 for one piece of an aged Canadian Cheddar!!! Ridiculous, I say.

Dinner began with hors d'oeuvres. We had crackers, smoked Canadian Bacon {which I've never had before} and the cheeses: an aged Canadian Cheddar, and some kind of sharp, creamy Parmesan {Eating gourmet cheese was new because I usually only eat Kraft Singles or string cheese}. I was hesitant about the cheeses. I once had to sample a bunch of artisan cheeses for work, and it did not go well. They all tasted like sweaty feet and mold, and made me sick for close to 4 hours. However, this stuff was all FANTASTIC! The fat kids came out, and BF, BF's roommate, and I devoured every bite.

Next was the salad. BF is a healthy eater, and always has tons of fresh produce on hand. Our salad consisted of carrots, cucumbers, avocados, Heirloom tomatoes, and jicama {again I've never heard of this}. The jicama was awesome! It has the texture of a raw potato but tastes almost like something sweet. It reminded me of an apple-radish-potato. I could eat one by its self as a snack any day. We tossed in some greens and a little Italian dressing. It was by far the BEST salad I've ever eaten.

Slicing the jicama

The dinner menu consisted of Turkey, Mushroom and Provolone stuffed sausages, Veal Ribeye, and Italian Chicken with Lobster Macaroni and Cheese and french bread on the side. I didn't eat the sausage {BF's family makes homemade sausage, and we are going to his parents house to eat it for dinner tonight.}, and the chicken was just OK. I don't usually eat seafood, but the Lobster Mac & Cheese was UNBELIEVABLE!!! I have been craving it most of today as a matter of fact. The Veal was also incredible. {I just know I'm going to get hate comments about eating a baby cow, but it was so worth it}.  I've only ever eaten Veal Marsela, but the ribeye version was 10x better.

On the left is one, gigantic, chicken breast... that is cooked! It was huge and only cost $3.99. That chicken must have been  genetically engineered to look like Stewie on roids. On the right is the Lobster Mac.

After dinner, I had to go put on sweatpants because I was so full. We then decided to make our Blackberry sorbet. It was so easy, here's the recipe:

Blackberries
Simple Syrup
Blueberry preserves (we used this instead of blackberry preserve)
Blend
Throw in ice cream maker for 20 minutes

BF keeps his blender in the Laundry Room. "Weird." I thought so too, but it's because he makes smoothies every morning and doesn't want to wake up his roommate.

It really was a great dinner. We couldn't have gotten that amount of good food at a restaurant without paying an arm and a leg for it, and the best part was staying in and cooking ourselves... Well, watching BF cook it anyway.