Famous Relatives

When coming up with a title for our blog, we started brainstorming about things pertinent to our lives. We like cooking. We live in uptown. We're newlyweds. We've been together almost 9 years and counting. But nothing we could think of was clever enough. But you know what is clever? Having the last name Solomon and realizing that there are plenty of allusions that concern the name of our most famous ancestor! And so...we stumbled upon the name "Songs of the Solomons".

The exact definition of a song (according to Dictionary.com) is a "short metrical composition intended or adapted for singing, esp. one in rhymed stanzas; a lyric; a ballad." And while we don't plan on composing anything to sing, and we don't plan on rhyming too much, we are choosing to have our definition of "songs" be...chronicles. Diary of. Stories. Life. Not sure if there's going to be a general theme or what...because I haven't thought that far ahead, but I just thought an explanation was needed.

Enjoy!

Valentine's Day

In an effort to save money, Drew and I decided to stay in for our first Valentine's Day weekend and make dinner. No fancy restaurants, no big presents, no flowers - just dinner. And meaningful cards if a person felt so inclined. As I was bored at work this week, I went completely overboard on our Valentine's Day Dinner Menu and everything ended up costing as much time, money, and energy as a regular dinner out on the town would. Ohhh well. I feel like it's great experience for me/us to cook together, AND to cook/bake/make things we never have before. Here is my menu, along with some amateur pictures.

Ina Garten's Filet Mignon

Complete with Pioneer Woman's Onion Blue Cheese Sauce. Ignore all the cream. I did. It's Valentine's Day!

We also had Giada's Twice Baked Potatoes with Mushrooms, Onions, and Prosciutto. Only we didn't use the prosciutto because...we forgot it. I'm sure it would have been delicious but these were pretty amazing without it.

For dessert, we had Bakerella's/Betty Crocker's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies. SO GOOD. Even after giving some away to family members, we have a ton left. Which doesn't bode well for my day off of work tomorrow.

Before they went in...

After they baked...covered in ganache. Again, ignore the cream.

Perfection.

All in all, it was a wonderful, stress free dinner and Valentine's Day. Which is more than I can say for this first blog post.