Boyfriend's Birthday Banquet

Ok, so maybe it wasn't a banquet, but I absolutely adore alliteration (!), so go with me here.

I made a big dinner for my boyfriend's birthday. It was mostly original and mostly healthy.  I planned the menu ahead of time then spent most of the day grocery shopping and prepping for it.  The dinner itself would have been fairly simple to prepare, but since I decided to make a 3-layer cake for dessert it took a little longer.

Here's what I made:

Tomato and green onion salad (my own creation)
Ingredients:
-Tomatoes, diced
-Green onion, chopped
-Garlic, minced
-Feta cheese, reduced fat, crumbled
-Couscous, plain
-Kraft Tuscan House Italian dressing
-Black pepper

I threw together these ingredients according to our tastes.  Not too much of any one thing, especially don't overdo it on the dressing or you'll overpower it.  It was yummmmm - y.  And nobody would have guessed the feta was reduced fat.  I've also made it without couscous and sub'ing fresh grated parmesan instead of feta.  It was just as good but less meaty.

Sauteed spinach with mushrooms and onions (my own creation)
Ingredients:
-Baby spinach leaves
-1-2 slices bacon
-Green onion, chopped
-Red onion, chopped
-Mushrooms, white
-Garlic, chopped

For this I browned a few pieces of bacon in a pan, adding the red onion and garlic first, then green onion and mushrooms, and finally spinach. I sauteed them all together until the spinach was cooked. I came up with the recipe based on the B+G=BES equation. Bacon + Garlic = Boyfriend Eating Spinach. (He'll love that I just made up an equation in the middle of a recipe.) I figured I had already won by him voluntarily eating all these veggies, so you can't count it as a total loss just due to the bacon.

 Wheat beer salmon
Ingredients:
-2-3 slices bacon cut into 1/4" bits
-1 tbsp. butter
-1 green onion (red onion is bolder)
-4 oz. Samuel Smith Coastal Wheat beer
-8 oz. salmon filet (or in my case, 1.54 lbs salmon filet - what was I thinking??)
-Liberal toss of sea salt 

I adapted this recipe from somewhere I found on the interwebs... Though now I can't recall where. Sorry! We both had huge portions of salmon because I was apparently suffering from temporary insanity when at the seafood counter. To credit the Publix seafood man, he warned me that my choice was entirely too much for two people, but alas, I still left with $15.00 worth of salmon. Anyway - to make up for my lapse in portion judgment I doubled all the other ingredients, except the bacon, because that would be gross.  I also omitted the butter because who needs both bacon fat AND butter?? We're trying to be healthy here.  Also, I used both green and red onions, because I wanted to and that's ok.  It was very good.  You couldn't taste the beer much, which was disappointing, but the sauce did have a yummy flavor and the salmon wasn't at all fishy.  I've never made a really great salmon.  I guess the quest for the perfect, non-fishy, salmon continues.

These are the directions listed on the original recipe:

1. Bring bacon, butter and scallion to temp at medium high in a sauté pan just browning the bacon before adding the butter. so long as the bacon is lean, it will leave some nice residue in the pan, the beer will deglaze this residue, that is a good thing...
2. Add the beer and allow it to just boil before reducing the heat to a strong simmer.
3. Add the salmon (skin side down) to the just under boil beer-y goodness. Toss some sea salt on there and cover the pan. After three minutes, the fish should just begin to firm, flip it so that it's skin up. Three more minutes. Pull the cover off. Enjoy the fragrant steam. Let the liquid reduce a spell, if you like your fish on the med-rare side, pull it and cover it lightly and set aside while you reduce.
4. Reduce the liquid to about half its volume.
5. Pour that goodness on the fish. 
6. Eat like a champ.

The whole meal

Triple-Layer, Double-Chocolate Cake

Last, (well actually first) I made a cake to share with all of boyfriend's friends. We took it to their favorite local hangout and served it alongside Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream. Of course I forgot to take a picture of the cake intact, but below is what was left after his friends demolished it. It was delicious and made a very pretty presentation, though I didn't make it from scratch (shh).

I used:

-Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Super Moist cake mix

-Brand that sits next to Betty Crocker, Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix

-Pre-made cream cheese frosting

I used the chocolate cake for the top and bottom layers and put the dark chocolate in the middle.  The slices looked so pretty with the different chocolates! The only thing I would do differently next time is make homemade cream cheese frosting. It really does make a difference.  And if you haven't tried Blue Bell's homemade vanilla flavor, please do. Run to get it. Now. It's perfect with cake, or even better, peach cobbler.  Yum yum yum. Anyway, that concludes my boyfriend's birthday banquet. Enjoy~

Happy Birthday Boyfriend!