Week 4, Part 1 of 2! Wes Goes Solo!

Two dinners this week!  Since I worked from home on Friday, Wes and I decided to cook both Saturday and Sunday.

Mom and I went to Whole Foods to do some shopping as an extravagance.   $200 later we had half a shopping cart of food.  (Have you ever notice that Whole Foods shopping carts are smaller too?  It's like furniture used for staging a model home.  Some how the smaller cart makes you feel less guilty at how much everything costs there.  Evil, evil store but man everything looks soooo good there.)  While wandering the aisles, I tried to come up with something for dinner tonight that Wes could make almost entirely by himself.  In the produce section it hit me: Caprese Salad.

Wes washed all the produce, I sliced the tomatoes, and he did a chiffonade of basil.  Wes salted the tomatoes, drizzled olive oil and the basil.  And then the best part.

Wes got to take balls of fresh mozzarella and smash them.  He really got into it, using a pastry cutter to render the cheese into flat globs.  Then he ripped the cheese into bits and scattered it over the salad.  Pepper was optional at the table out of respect for Mom and Grammie and their pepper allergy.

Next we moved to the main course.  Jacque Pepin's perfect omelete.  Tony Bourdain says that every man should know how to make an omelet, so I figured we should knock that out early in the project.  6 eggs cracked in a bowl (with most of the shell not getting in the bowl) and whipped up with milk and a handful of chives.  I can't do justice to explain the cooking process, so if you're interested here's a link to how I learned.  And yes, I used a fork on a non-stick pan but come on, it's not like you dig in and try to take the coating off.

As another side we sauted some fresh brown button mushrooms in brown butter.  Wes missed this part because he had to go take care a neighbor's dog.  It's okay though because it was as exciting as watching a pan full of mushrooms cook in a quarter stick of butter.  Shake the pan once or twice to turn the mushrooms (but not too much or you don't get that great browning).

We sat down with a nice bottle of wine (at least for me and Mom) and best of all:  Wes loved everything we made!  He gobbled up the salad and the omelet and he went back for seconds and thirds on the mushrooms.  All in all, quite the success.

Tomorrow night:  White-Boy Tacos!