A Friday Night With Friends…

A Friday night with friends is worth a Saturday morning in the kitchen.

Our night with friends was wonderful and worth every minute I stood over the sink this morning cleaning up. Especially since there was a young man close by to attend to my every need with such joy.

He’s such a funny little Rover and all I ever want to do is hold him and kiss him. Although, last week he did happen to draw back his little hand and hit me smack in my face {and it wasn’t an accident}. I’m hoping it’s been made clear to him that such behavior is not becoming of a little man. Thankfully he’s yet to try that again.

I didn’t take too many pictures last night of our actual meal. I did snap a few while I prepped. My sweet friends provided the appetizers: prosciutto wrapped asparagus, steamed won-tons, and edamame. We had Rum Slushes as our festive beverage and for dinner: marinated and grilled flank steak, Jasmine rice, baked peaches, a Chinese salad, & whole grain bread. And for dessert, a chocolate sheet cake with vanilla ice cream & whipped cream! All of the recipes are from my mother, who is a wonderful cook! Her easy peaches are a regular around here. The kids love them and we do too!

The baked peaches helped balance out the salty soy flavors from the flank steak and the salad dressing. The recipe is so easy: open a can of halved peaches, place in baking dish, add little syrup from the can, sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 until warm.

The salad is made from Napa {Chinese cabbage} and Bok Choy {another Chinese cabbage that is more like celery but not like celery 🙂 }.

And green onions too.

The best part about the salad is the dressing and yummy crunchy topping which consists of butter, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, slivered almonds, and crushed ramen noodles {without the flavor packet}

The only other picture that I took was of the sheet cake smothered in heavenly chocolate frosting…. mmmm!

The food was good but the fellowship was even better! I’ll include the recipes below. 

::Rum Slush::
Usually this is made with bourbon/whiskey but we used rum instead. And I didn’t follow these instructions below to a t… but this is the recipe I went by! Some variations call for pineapple juice & Sprite.
7 cups water
3 cups rum
12 oz frozen lemonade
6 oz frozen orange juice
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups strong tea {I used decaf and instead of adding the sugar I just lightly sweetened my tea while it was still hot}
Mix all ingredients a day ahead and place in freezer. When ready to serve, take out of freezer and put desired amount in blender for a second or put in a bowl and mix until it is semi-liquified. Serve in old-fashioned glasses.

::Flank Steak Marinade::
1/3 C soy sauce
1/2 tsp ground ginger
3/4 tsp garlic powder
2 tbs brown sugar
3 tbs honey
2 tbs olive oil
Combine ingredients in small sauce pan and stir until it comes to a boil then remove from heat. Let cool completely before marinating. This recipe will marinate 2 flank steaks, I doubled it for 4 and marinated for about 12 hours in the refrigerator in ziploc bags.

I’m funny about grilling. I’m very much over gas grills. They don’t distribute the heat evenly and only last a couple years before having to replace burners… charcoal is so easy, and if you want consistent heat, it’s the way to go, just make sure all the coals are very white and all the “lighter fluid” is burned off before you put your meat on! We grilled the flank steak for about 6 minutes on each side… some, because of thickness, were medium rare and others medium well.

::Chinese Salad::
1 head of Napa cleaned and chopped
1 stalk of Bok Choy cleaned and chopped {I cut off the very top like I would celery}
1 bunch of green onions cleaned and chopped

::Salad Dressing::
2 tbs soy sauce
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C white wine vinegar
1 C oil {I used extra virgin olive oil}
Add these ingredients to the blender except the oil and blend. While it blends add 1 C of oil. The dressing will likely still separate before serving. Just give it a good shake.

::Crunchies::
1 tbs butter
1/4 C sesame seeds
1/4 C sunflower seeds
1/4 C slivered almonds
1 package of ramen noodles crushed {w/o flavor packet}
Melt butter in large skillet add all ingredients to it until well toasted about 5 or so minutes. Place on parchment or wax paper to cool and keep in airtight container for up to a week. {It will not seem “toasted” until it cools down.}

The Texas Sheet Cake came from my Cook’s Country Cookbook {which I LOVE, thank you Daddy Boy!} but here is the online version, and it unfortunately looks like you have to create a free account to get it. I would copy and paste the recipe here but I’d hate to be hauled off to jail for doing so. Does anyone watch them on PBS on Saturday mornings? It’s a really fun show you should tune in sometime, the girls love to watch it too… and their test kitchen… makes me very happy and I’d like to spend some time there!!

 Ok, see you Rovers soon!

**Diane, I still love my lemons and I think of and pray for you often!