Surf & Turf Dinner for Two

I’m officially a Mrs. now!!! Our wedding was better than I could have imagined and we feel so lucky.  Can’t believe that after 5 years I can finally call him my husband. 

I took off work the Wednesday – Monday of the wedding week (we are honeymooning later in June…)  so it was back to work on Tuesday.  But my coworkers made coming back so much better by throwing me a really wonderful party to celebrate the wedding!  They had a potluck with all the kinds of foods I like, decorated our conference room, gave me flowers and balloons, and best of all gave us a huge basket of food to make a romantic dinner for two. 

Food gifts are my favorite so it was absolutely the perfect present for us!  The basket they gave us was packed with every single ingredient we’d need for the meal, down to the spices.  

They even gave us caviar and a bottle of wine (I had this one before while on a work trip to Gainesville – The Prisoner is a spicy red blend from Napa and it’s delicious!)

We registered for an electric grill after seeing the same one at our hotel in Austin.  I love it because you don’t have to deal with the mess of gas or charcoal.  We picked it up the day we planned to cook our fancy meal – luckily Lance is handy because it came in a thousand pieces and had to be assembled. 

While Lance build the grill, I started to prep our food.  The recipe they gave me had a side of mashed potatoes but I baked them whole instead (since that’s what seems to come with steaks at classy restaurants…) I followed the steps from Gimme Some Oven to make the perfect baked potatoes. 

The salad for our meal had grilled watermelon, which I’d never tried before.  One of the dishes at our wedding was actually a watermelon arugula salad, so this was the perfect side to go with our first fancy meal cooked as a married couple. 

To grill the watermelon, we just cut rounds of it, rubbed one side with olive oil and sprinkled with sugar, then put that side down on the grill for about 3 minutes.  The recipe from A Whole New Twist says to give it a quarter turn (don’t flip them) part way through so you get sear marks both ways. 

The shrimp they gave us was already cooked but we drizzled some oil on them with salt & pepper and let them heat up a bit on the grill as well.  We also grilled up some bacon wrapped scallops (although we had even more scallops with our main course too! 

The salad was pretty easy.  We cut up the grilled watermelon and served it over arugula with the shrimp and some bleu cheese. The dressing for the salad was very simple too - 2 T balsamic vinegar, ¼ t Dijon mustard, ½ t raw honey, 2 T extra virgin olive oil, and ¼ t ground sea salt.  I could make a bigger version of this into a dinner sometime. 

Then we began prepping our steaks.  They got us two giant filet mignons – and I was a bit worried because I never cook steak myself and didn’t want to end up ruining them.  I usually leave it up to the pros at restaurants.  But I followed Iowa Girl Eat’s recipe and they turned out perfectly. 

I’m planning to use the spice rub from that recipe any time I make steak in the future.  It was a blend of salt, peppercorns, fennel seeds, red chili pepper flakes, dried minced garlic, and dried minced onion.  I don’t have a mortar and pestle so I put it all in the food processer and blended until the fennel seeds got chopped up a bit. 

It was actually very easy.  Just rub the steaks in olive oil, generously spread the spice rub on both sides, then sear in an extra hot cast iron skillet with 2 T melted butter until they get nice and golden.  Then, put the whole skillet in a 400 degree oven for 8 minutes (this ended up being just enough to cook them rare – but obviously keep an eye on them so they don’t get overdone!)  

Once the steaks were ready, I took them out and covered them with foil while they rested.  In the meantime, put the skillet back on the stovetop and sauté some minced shallot and garlic.  The recipe said to use red wine (which of course would make it even better) but I didn’t want to waste our good one on cooking.  So I added in a cup of beef broth along with a sprig of rosemary and another tablespoon of butter.  As that simmered down, it turned into an amazing sauce to top the steak. 

Then for the scallops, pat them dry with a paper towel then season with salt & pepper.  I put these in a separate skillet with 1 T butter and 1 T olive oil until they got a nice sear. Just before they were done, I tossed them into the steak sauce to finish them up. 

This is probably the best meal I’ve made for us.  It says “dinner for two”, but it really could have been for four since it was so much food.  We actually ended up making a steak salad with homemade bleu cheese dressing for lunch the next day with all the leftovers.   

Since there were so many steps to this meal, I don’t have the time right now to break it all down, but you can visit these sites to get the full recipes: 

The Perfect Baked Potato - Gimme Some Oven

Grilled Watermelon Salad with Shrimp & Arugula - A Whole New Twist

Surf and Turf for Two - Iowa Girl Eat’s

Thanks again to my coworkers for such a sweet welcome back from the wedding week!  

Pane Rustica – Tampa, FL

 

A week or so ago, I went out to dinner with my Grandma Anne to celebrate my new job and engagement.  One of my favorite restaurants is Pane Rustica – but somehow I had only ever made it there for lunch (you can read about their lunch here).  We decided to try it out for dinner and it exceeded my already high expectations.  Dining for lunch is a more casual experience, but at dinner, they transition over to table service and dim the lights for ambiance. 

Their owners Kevin and Karyn Kruszewski are some of the nicest people, and I have several friends who work there.  Pane has catered the Christmas party at my parents’ condo the last few years, and I’m hoping to have them cater our wedding! 

We were served a fresh loaf of their in-house baked bread with hummus, olives, cherry peppers, and olive oil while we decided on our entrees.    

I tried their special – Herb Grilled Hawaiian Opah – since I’d never had that fish before.  It was served with root vegetable puree, roasted fennel & Brussels sprouts, Florida peaches, micro arugula, and pomegranate coulis.  The fish had texture like salmon, but was milder in flavor.  I was served a huge portion – and the accompanying vegetables were perfect.  I love Brussels sprouts, but I think even someone who didn’t would have enjoyed these. 

Grandma had the Pan Seared Jumbo Sea Scallops.  She opted out of the chorizo that normally is part of that dish, but it included crispy potato coins, local snap pea shoots, creamy corn fondue, and chile oil.  The scallops were enormous – and very flavorful.  She cleared her whole dish. 

I ended up taking some of my meal home so we could have room for dessert!  I’ve had their espresso cookies several times before – crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside.  This time we had the cookies in a sundae with ice cream and fresh fruit.  Yum!!

I took my leftovers home, but when I went to unload them I had a surprise!  I was sent home with an extra box of pastries – a scone, muffin, and cupcake.  We enjoyed those over the next few days.  The cupcake frosting tasted like it was made with Oreo filling. 

 

Can’t wait to go back again – you really can’t go wrong with anything you order there.  Super happy with our meal! 

Pane Rustica is located at 3225 S MacDill Ave, Tampa, FL 33629 and is open from 8am – 5pm on Tuesday, 8am – 10pm Wednesday through Saturday, 8am – 3pm on Sunday, and closed Mondays.  11am – 11pm.

The Oyster Bar – St. Pete, FL

 

Last Friday was our 4 year anniversary, and months ago we had booked tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld live at the Mahaffey Theatre.  For dinner before, we tried The Oyster Bar in downtown St. Pete.  We had bought a CL deal awhile ago, so we had a discount too. 

 

 

 

We made reservations since it was a weekend and thought it could be busy, but we didn’t realize it was First Friday, which meant the entire road that The Oyster Bar is located on was shut down for the event.

We were walking from the restaurant to the show, so we tried out some of their drink specials.  The Moscow Mules weren’t anything too special, but the Oyster Shooters were great (and the beer shooters were only $1 – the classic vodka shooters were a bit strong for me). 

 

I had the seared diver scallops with risotto, crispy pancetta, and arugula.  Lance had the bacon-parmesan crusted local red grouper with tomato butter sauce and mashed potatoes.  The grouper could have used a tiny bit of something green for presentation on the plate, but besides that both meals were amazing.    

We split a slice of chocolate peanut-butter pie for dessert.  I can’t believe we hadn’t eaten here before, but we really enjoyed it and will be back for sure!

Jerry Seinfeld had a hilarious set that night, so it was the perfect way to spend our anniversary.  

 

The Oyster Bar is located at 249 Central Ave, St Petersburg, FL 33701.  They are open 11am – 12am Monday – Thursday, 11am – 3am Friday – Saturday, and 10:30 – 12am on Sunday.