Cuisine & Screen: Home Edition, Part 3

CUISINE
We celebrated my dad's birthday this week! It was really nice to see my parents and spend some time with them, and it's always fun to celebrate a loved one.

We started with Dirty Martinis (our favorite). This recipe is for one:
2.5 ounces good quality vodka, ice cold - keep it in the freezer! (Ketel One/Absolut are house favorites)
0.5 ounce dry vermouth
0.5 ounce olive brine

Chill a martini glass in the freezer. Shake all ingredients, then pour into the glass. Garnish with hand-stuffed blue cheese olives (not the store bought kind! Stuff them yourself!) ENJOY.


This Beef Tenderloin recipe was adapted from a dinner party my friend and I were hired to work in high school. We assumed the 2 servings of everything leftover were for us...turns out, they were for a couple coming late. That couple did not get dinner, because my friend and I had eaten it all. It was a bit of a disaster. But the beef was fantastic and I've never forgotten it!

Beef Tenderloin
-1 1/2 pound beef tenderloin
-1/2 tsp salt
-1/2 tsp pepper
-1/2 cup butter
-1 onion, thinly sliced
-2 garlic cloves, minced
-8 ounces sliced mushrooms
-1/2 cup red wine
-1 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
-1 tsp Italian seasoning
-2 tsp hot sauce
-1 cup beef broth
-1 tsp flour

Sprinkle the beef with the salt and pepper and put in a foil lined pan. Bake at 450 for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and mushrooms and cook for about 8 minutes. Add the wine, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. Whisk the beef broth and flour into this mixture, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Remove the beef from the oven, top with this sauce, then bake for 40 minutes more, or until 135 degrees (for medium rare) or 145 (for medium).

Beef Tenderloin, Blue Cheese Scalloped Potatoes, Sauteed Kale

Finally, on a separate note, I am loving this recipe for Caramel Chicken (which you could also make with Salmon). I made Rice with Coconut Milk instead of water and WOW, what a difference it made - I couldn't stop eating it!! Serve this dinner with Broccoli Rice, a recipe I use often because I LOATHE food waste. This recipe is a great way to use the entire vegetable, especially these days when we should reduce our trips to the grocery store as much as possible!

SCREEN
Selena - omg! This was such a fabulous film and a tour de force by J. Lo. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't know much about Selena and how beloved she was, but this film made me a fan. So tragic.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle - certainly a fun and entertaining escape. This had very little to do with the 1995 classic, but I was on board. Jack Black makes me laugh out loud in anything and everything.

Apocalypse Now - probably my dad's favorite movie. I had seen this before in high school, but my interpretation of it 16 years later was obviously different. Based on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," this Coppola classic definitely describes "the horror" (get it?) of the Vietnam War. I've been watching Martin Sheen in "Grace and Frankie" lately, so it was quite a change of pace to see him as a tormented, brutal soldier. Brilliant music. Not for the weak-stomached.