Go Big or Go Home: Gram's Birthday Dinner

As mentioned over at Go Somewhere That's Green, Gram turned 81 yesterday.

Initially, my parents wanted to have a family dinner of store bought fried chicken.  While I love fried chicken, my sister-in-law, Kristina, and I thought we could do better.  Anytime I plan a meal, it can not be simple.  I suppose it's the Italian running through my veins.  It isn't a real meal if the table isn't filled with food, leaving little to no space for things like plates, silverware, glassware, etc.

Here is the menu we planned:

Appetizer: shrimp cocktail, salad, Italian bread

Main Course: fresh lobster, London broil, roast chicken (Surf, Turf, and.....Air!)

Sides: butternut squash with kale, mashed potatoes, broccoli, Red Lobster biscuits

Dessert: strawberry shortcake, chocolate trifle

Kristina was the one who thought to add lobster to the menu.  In fact, it may have been the first suggestion out of her mouth when we began planning.  We made live lobster once before and she desperately wanted the opportunity to be the one to put the lobster into the pot.  For more about this first time experience go here.*

*Looking through my old posts always makes me realize how far my blog has come.  That said, don't judge the poor layout my blog had back then.

We picked up the lobster in the afternoon, then headed to my mom's to cook our feast.

Gram loves Red Lobster biscuits, so naturally they made the menu.  They are insanely easy to make and taste exactly like the real thing.

Here's the recipe:

Red Lobster Biscuits

Hubby found this awesome parody cookbook of the book Fifty Shades of Grey: Fifty Shades of Chicken.  Not only is it hysterical, the recipes are different from ordinary roaster chicken recipes such as herb roasted chicken which I'm pretty sure everyone on earth has some variation of.  We made the first recipe: plain vanilla chicken. 

Are you ready for it?

The spread made of vanilla, brandy, sugar, and butter is rubbed, get this, under the skin of the chicken and then roasted for a little over an hour.

I had planned our menu out by the minute and found that despite the vast number of items we were making, there was a lot of down time.

After the chicken was on, Kristina began chopping veggies for the salad, while I prepared the veggies and herbs for the lobster pot.



I love the fancy way of chopping cucumber that Kristina recently discovered.  If you haven't tried this before, drag a fork down the sides of the cucumber before slicing.  

My inspiration to make lobster came from the book/movie Julie and Julia.  While I'm sure there are other guides to steaming live lobsters, I find no reason to use anything other than Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking as my guide.

We didn't want to get too fancy, so I used the steaming portion of the recipe for Lobster Thermidor.  Three cups of white wine, 2 cups of water, with sliced carrot, onion, celery, and seasonings simmers together for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, the heat is turned up until the water reaches a rapid boil.

Cooking live lobster is ridiculously easy.  It sounds like something that would be difficult, terrifying, and intimidating, but it couldn't be further from that.

Oh yeah, except for the part where you have to put a LIVE lobster into a pot.

Kristina did so good, at first.  She picked the lobster up, she held it for a good minute....but then she chickened out.  I'm not sure if it was her conscience speaking to her over the murder she was about to commit or just the thought of plopping that bad boy into a pot of boiling water.*

*Note: Last time, the first lobster I put in the pot jumped.  It was terrifying.

Kristina placed the lobster back down on the shopping bag and I had to grab him, get over the previous terror I had faced, and take care of business.

I felt like a drill sergeant as I ordered Kristina to get the second lobster into the pot.

One way or another, she made it happen.

As the lobsters steamed (and no, there are no scary shrills or sounds that come from the pot during the 20 minute steaming time) we prepared the shrimp cocktails.

I thought about being overly ridiculous and buying the shrimp fresh, but the flash frozen bag of shrimp that was on sale seemed like a better choice, all things considered.

After five minutes of thawing in water, they were ready for assembly.

My mashed potatoes were divine, the butternut squash was sweet (the kale a little under cooked--that recipe to come another time), and the chicken was moist, roasted to perfection.

And this....the London Broil.  There isn't much you can do to a London broil to make it better than it is naturally.  It was probably a little rare for some folks preferences, however, in my house we like it rare so this was a thing of beauty.

Not bad for 81, right?

My grandmother loves anything strawberry.  I usually make this Strawberry Shortcake Trifle for her.  However, on my ever growing list of recipes to try was Pioneer Woman's Strawberry Shortcake.  I figured this was the time to do it.

The icing, instead of the typical whipped cream topping that is plopped on ordinary strawberry shortcake, was made of butter, powdered sugar, and cream cheese.  The three of the most sacred things in the world of baking.

It was surprisingly delightful.

Office Pranks and Mini Trifles

My husband is the closest thing to Jim Halpert that I know.

In case you don't know Jim, he's a character from the show "The Office".  Jim plays harmless office pranks on his coworker, Dwight Schrute.  A few of my favorites have included when Jim tricked Dwight as to what day of the week it truly was, when he hid his cell phone in the ceiling tiles, and when he put his stapler in a jello mold.

Hubby's Dwight Schrute is his coworker Drew.  Because I'd like to keep my relationship with hubby the way it currently is, I think I am legally bound to not go into details on the things he has done in office fun to Drew. 

However, I will say that he may or may not have moved Drew's car from the office parking lot to the gym parking lot across the street.

But again, he may or may not have done that, I'm not at liberty to honestly say.

Occasionally, an office prank can get foiled against the plotter.

What a sad day that is.

Drew is a co-member of the two person party planning committee at the office.  Each month they plan a celebration with desserts to commemorate the birthdays of that month.  May, being hubby's birthday month, caused hubby to stress to Drew that he wanted to pick the dessert item since in years past he had been overlooked.

He told Drew he wanted trifles for the dessert.  "Trifles?" asked Drew.  "Where am I gonna get trifles?"

"Not my problem, just do it," said Lance.  "Oh, and I want them to be mini," he added.

Drew, knowing that I make a delicious chocolate trifle, then suggested that I make them.  

This led to Drew approaching me on Wednesday to ask me if I could make trifles for the following Monday.  Monday, as in five days later Monday.  Trifles, as in mini trifles.  Enough for 70 people.

Not exactly what hubby's secret plan had been.  

The secret plan was to cause Drew to have to search the earth high and low for a bakery, supermarket, restaurant, or roadside stand that makes trifles.

And while I don't really mind making desserts, in the end, it was hubby who truly suffered.  First, by partaking in ingredient shopping Friday night with Drew and me.  Then by being forced to participate in five hours of trifle making Saturday evening.

It was quite the event, but lets look at where it all began:

The Chocolate Trifle

Deliciously decadent, first made for my dad on his birthday.

Which was soon followed by the creation of:

The Strawberry Shortcake Trifle

Sugary sweet, made first for my soon-to-be sister-in-law's birthday.

The mini trifles had a somewhat less romantic beginning and it looks like this:

As I was gathering the necessary supplies, I had a mixture of panic and excitement for making one of my favorite desserts for so many people.

Panic because, oh-my-goodness, I was making dessert for 70 people.
Excitement because, oh-my-goodness, I was making dessert for 70 people.

It would've been one thing if this dessert was something like cookies or cake.

But trifles?

There is a true art to compiling them.

Three batches of brownies,

and two yellow cakes later and I was ready to start the long process of building the perfect mini trifle factory in my kitchen.

I'm going to be honest.  It was a rather chaotic time that I'm sure will come back to haunt me in my sleep.  Because of this, I lost my sanity and usual drive to snap pictures along every step of the way.

You're lucky I was able to capture this moment:

The chocolate trifles were done first and moved pretty smoothly.  Drew came over and helped me put the cups together while hubby wrapped them in plastic wrap and found room for them in the fridge.

He also did a few dishes.

But then again, so did I.

The craziness pictured above came from the strawberry (and blueberry!) trifles.  Drew found that process to be a bit too creative and after putting together a few cups, he decided it was best if he just watched.

Five hours from go time, my refrigerator was stockpiled with mini trifles for an army.

Chocolate trifles,

and strawberry shortcake trifles, oh my!

Note: Please don't point out that I didn't have a third thing mentioned here as in, "Lions (1) and tigers (2) and bears (3), oh my!"  Sometimes one forces something that doesn't work to work.  As I just did.

Please forgive me.

When it was coming down to the end and I still had a monster load of yellow cake, but no mousse left, I got creative and used a little of the chocolate mousse that I had extra of and created a whole new beast of a trifle.

The Strawberry Shortcake with Chocolate Mousse Trifle....With Blue Berries, too!

Hubby was sweet enough to snap a few pictures in the morning when he loaded them up to take in to work.

I was especially thrilled to find the following pictures texted to me later in the day:

It's amazing how creative hubby can be when he puts his mind to it.

The mini trifles were a complete hit in the office.  I received appreciation in the form of phone calls, emails sent to hubby, sonnets written in my name, proposals, and first born children named for me.

That's what trifles can do to you.

They're that good.