Saturday night in

The streak of date nights with Conrad continues. Friday night he and I sat outside at Yoshi's (oh, shoot, I haven't posted about that, have I? Hmmmm...), and last night it was dinner in.

I kept things simple last night. No sauce-making, only a few things on the plate. I'd been doing housecleaning all day, after all, and it wasn't so much laziness on my part at the end of all that (though it has been established here that I AM lazy) as it was just a craving for a few simple ingredients that could stand nicely on their own.

I started out by washing raspberries and strawberries, cutting up the strawberries, tossing them all in a glass bowl with some sugar and chopped fresh lavender leaves, and leaving that to sit a few hours. I had an idea in mind that I stole from CG, and I know Conrad loves berries.

For dinner, I rubbed a pork tenderloin with some oil, salt flavoured with wild mushroom, pepper, thyme, and some crumbled dried porcini. Seared that in a pan, popped it into a hot oven to finish there. Once it was done enough, I rested it a bit.

On the side, some corn. It's been so sweet so far this late spring, so I went with it again. I know, I know - as has been pointed out to me, it's becoming the Swiss chard of June 2010. I say, if it ain't broke...

The other side was a very simple salad, a mix of young greens tossed with a drizzle of truffle oil, some balsamic vinegar from Venturi-Shulze, a bit of the same salt from the pork, and a grind of pepper.

Once on the plate, the corn and pork got a wee drizzle of truffle oil. Just a wee bit.
The scent filled the kitchen where we were dining (thanks to on-and-off wet weather), Conrad and I sipped a 2006 Adelsheim Pinot Noir and munched happily.

After dinner we moved outside for a while - the skies had brightened though it was cool enough outside to warrant layers. We each had books and bit more wine to sip. When we got a little too chilly and the light was getting low, I came in and put dessert together: the berries topped with a healthy dollop of Greek yogurt, sprinkled with chopped walnuts, a drizzle of the juices from the maceration, then a bit of bittersweet chocolate atop that.
The fun part, of course, is stirring it all into one glorious mess in the bowl then devouring it.

We finished off the wine. I'd been on top of dishes all along, so that left us with a bit of reading in bed and lights out to cap a very relaxing dinner night in.