I don't want to get myself too worked up here (which I have a small tendency to do), but let's not allow 'Dancing with the Stars,' involvement in 1,000 sports leagues and making sure everyone is in bed exactly at 8 become so important to displace a quality meal together. None of those things can substitute for a precious few hours together with the people you care about.
You have to make the time. You might have to bend the rules and let the kids stay up late. You might need to take a little extra time in the morning to prep your meal when you'd rather be sleeping off that red wine hangover. You might even have to shower on a Sunday.
If there's one change you make from reading this blog, we recommend this one. Take the time to reconnect with your food, your home and your family. I promise, you'll be glad you did.
Sunday Dinner with the Dezsos: Episode 1
I'm a complicator.
In my experience, there are roughly three other people in the world who operate this way and I'm related to two of them. So let me be straight up about this now...the dinner portion of this meal could not be easier.
Unless you want to spend two days prepping dessert (and who wouldn't really???), I suggest heading over to the local bakery and picking up some cupcakes or something.
Dinner: Roasted chicken over vegetables.
Let's cut straight to the money shot, because...yum:
Two little chickens covered with salt and pepper. I sear the outside of my chicken in a screaming hot skillet before I roast them. This gives them awesome color and makes the skin that much more crunchy and delectable. And who doesn't want that?
I shove some spring onions, garlic, rosemary and thyme up the chicken's butt. Chop up potatoes, carrots and more spring onions. Lay the chickens on top and throw it in a 350-degree oven for an hour and 10 minutes. Nothing simpler and nothing more delectable.
Well, unless you're me. The complicator.
Because, even though vegetables are delicious when roasted under chickens I'm pretty sure they could reach the level of sublime if some of God's nectar was drizzled around on top:
That, my friends, is duck fat. Hello, lover. For those of you who have never cooked with duck fat (and I'd wager a guess that many of you fall into this category), SHAME. For two whole minutes.
Potatoes and duck fat were destined to be together. Their love is stronger than Romeo and Juliet. There truly is no mountain high enough or...you get the point.
Rendering duck fat is a breeze, once you actually procure yourself some raw duck fat. And unfortunately, all I can say is; good luck with that. I'm fortunate to be near a farmer's market with a giant display of duck fat just waiting to be bought. But before I found that, I was buying whole ducks at an alarming rate. You can ask the grocery store though, sometimes the butcher saves it--and then, just gives it to you. For free! What can you get for free these days?
Once you have the raw duck fat, you just stick it in a skillet with a Tablespoon of boiling water and let the heat (on medium-high) do its thing.
Is this step necessary? Of course not. Like I said, I complicate things. BUT...this step does elevate your roasted vegetables to new sinfully delicious levels.
I don't want to lose my reputation as humble, but dang if this wasn't a brilliant dinner. I got nervous when everyone shut the hell up as they started eating, but then I realized it was because they were trying to eat quickly so they could get to the seconds before anyone else.
While I tried (and sort of achieved) at making an uncomplicated dinner. Dessert was a different story altogether. I'll just tell you what I made and if you believe the world might end if you don't impress your friends with a four-star (but like really rated that way from Jean Georges restaurant) dessert, then we can be friends and I'll email you the recipes.
Home-made strawberry soda with birch beer whipped cream AND (complicator) cheese-filled donuts over meyer lemon confit.
These were a ridiculous home run. I mean, everyone knows the magic of fried dough, so it's not a big surprise...but this whole recipe came together like magic. Fried delicious dough (supremely handled by Steve. Thanks Steve!) filled with a marscapone/ricotta/pastry cream filling, rolled in home-made citrus/vanilla sugar and dumped over sugared meyer lemons.I served everyone three donuts which turned out brilliantly because I'm pretty sure if I had made 1,000 donuts there still would not have been any leftovers.
The whole evening was brilliant. We chatted the afternoon away with our friends Dana and Steve (soon-to-be mama and papa! congrats!), ate delicious (there's that humble thing again) food and even got all our dogs together for a play date.
A fantastic Sunday had by all, and all we did was decide to not sit on the couch all day.
Eventually the Sunday Dinner Series will become its own blog, but for now it will be a weekly (or bi-monthly most likely) feature here.
1 comment:
Jennifer
Love the whole pitch for Sunday dinners together. As a family we had dinner every night together. It allows the family to reconnect every day. We still got you to all the dance lessons,singing lessons and piano lessons and still had dinner every night...this has to be a family priority. Whether your family is large or 2 people sitting for dinner, this reconnection is important for all in the family
I'm going to disagree about going to the bakery. I think it is great for the kids to learn how to bake with mom. And then everyone enjoying the goodies after they are baked. Creativity and calories. what could be better!!
XXX
Mom
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