introduction to fall

so my parents came out to help with moving mami into her new house, for big dave and i to play some golf, and of course, for another entry to the cooking blog. i was able to finally get them to watch an episode of top chef for some inspiration. now it may have appeared that my dad was doing some heavy meditation for our dish, i think he really was just catching up on some much needed rest!!!

so, 7 days before the official turn of the season, we decided to go for some heavier fall flavors. however, i really like the concept of serving an amuse bouche and though it's somewhat supposed to prepare you for what's for dinner, i figured i'm no executive chef and with the proper dinner guest arrival libation, i wouldn't have to worry about anyone voting me off!! i poached a slice of salmon in some chicken bouillon, celery, onions, and basil and then whipped up a cucumber soup to serve in the brand new demitasse cups my parents bought for marcela. the best thing about this is that it was my mom's idea and she said she got it from reading this blog!! so, even if nobody out there really cares to read this, i can always count on my mom to constantly care about me...i love you mom.




for dinner we took and braised our short ribs for 4 hours in a onion and pepper bath. we eventually finished them off on the grill. ideally we'd have braised them a couple hours longer and grilled them a few minutes less, but as mentioned before, we're no executive chefs...yet! then we used some baby red potatoes and prepared a twice baked potato with them. the final product was braised short ribs with grilled peppers and twice-baked baby red potatoes.



for dessert my dad whipped up his mix-master qualifying brandy alexander...



regardless of how this actually turned out, i sure do love cooking with my dad. i hope we can take what we learned from this dinner and really use it to take this "hobby" to the next level.