I got a head start on the week by making tonight’s dinner last night. It made for a less harried night, and perfect for a short work-week. I made Roast Chicken with Potatoes. I don’t use a recipe really. I stuffed the cavity of the chicken with chunks of cut up lemon and rub a mixture of grey salt, rosemary, cracked black pepper and garlic all over the chicken. Lastly, I slip some butter underneath the skin and drizzle everything with olive oil. I fill the pan with chunked Yukon Gold potatoes and chunked onions, drizzle that with olive oil and rosemary and cook everything in the oven for about an hour at 400 or so. Simple as that.
Here’s the picture of the Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage from last night’s dinner:
Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage
With only three ingredients, it makes for a great weeknight meal, and even better … it sneaks some green veggies into Nicholas’ belly. I hope you try it.
As promised, I’ve put some pictures from the Grand Midnight Buffet from our cruise last week to Bermuda. Some serious attention to detail goes into each and every thing they made – no surprise when you find out it takes the crew 300 man-hours just to assemble this one buffet!
All for tonight. Tune in tomorrow to find out what’s making the Thanksgiving table. Until then…
Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage
12 oz. uncooked rigatoni pasta
1 lb. broccoli rabe, ends trimmed, stacked and cut into 1 inch wide pieces
1 lb Italian sausage, casings removed
Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boil. Add pasta and cook as package directs, adding broccoli rabe 3 minutes before pasta will be done. Drain pasta and broccoli rabe, reserving about 1/4 cup of pasta water; return to pot. While the pasta cooks, heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage and cook, breaking up into large chunks, 5-7 minutes, until browned and cooked through. Add reserved pasta water. Cook, stirring, 1 minute to loose brown bits on bottom of pan. Pour over pasta mixture in pot; cook, stirring 1 minute to heat and mix. Top with salt, pepper and Parmesan cheese as desired.
The View from Above
Sushi Station
A Proud Dessert Chef
Cheese Platter
Swan Ice Sculpture
Caviar Station Ice Sculpture
Seafood Spread
Clam Shell Ice Sculpture Holding Peel-and-Eat Shrimp
A few simple desserts … ;)
And lastly, the unique towel creations we came back to in our cabin from our attendant, Lincoln. He’s quite the talent!
Scorpion
Hanging Monkey, our favorite
Stingray
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! The buffet is awesome, everything so pretty, really lots of detail in there!
I love the food sculptures, and what are those flowers in the watermelon made of, they look so bright and colorful!
Cute towels too!
Ana
Oh, my, Gosh. The dessert table was amazing, the whole thing was amazing. I want to go so bad. I’m glad you all had fun. Maybe I can talk my husband into a cruise.
that looks totally crazy, sweetnicks.
I am going to hve to try out some of those towel folds next time I have guests!
Fantastic!
And I think we all know I’d have probably camped out in front of the sushi station…
first of all, I want to go on a cruise just so I could see all those displays. I did stuff like that in Garde Manger in culinary school, but never enough. I love to carve me up some veggies into flowers and critters. so much fun. and yes, I do it at home for fun, because I rarely have time to do it for clients.
Second, OMG, those towel critters would scare the bejeebus out of me. especially the monkey. I guess I have issues with stuffed animals and rolled up towels possibly coming to life and attacking me. eeeeek!
Towel MONKEY? We thought ours was a plucked turkey! Never would’ve guessed a monkey–they should label those things!
I am always fascinated by the beautiful, decorative ways with food. I’d LOVE to do that!
That pasta recipe soudns really yummy…I love broccoli in pasta, and with italian sausage…yum! :)
I must say, although all the food sculptures were amazing, my favorite were the towels…I almost fell off my chair when i saw the “hanging monkey”!!!
How did you ever manage to choose? I’d be standing in front of the buffet, jaw on the floor. Or, more likely, I’d eat myself senseless and pass out at the table.
Hahah – how funny, when I first browsed throught the towel thingies, I also thought the Monkey was a plcuekd turkey for Thanksgiving. Hee hee!
How very cool all of this is! Talk about choices!!
Ana – it WAS awesome! You’d be surprised how you suddenly get a little hungry when you see such a spread. At first I thought the flowers were from radishes, but now I’m not so sure…
Tyanne – go for it! They’re really not that expensive if you go outside of peak season.
Sam – aren’t those towels fun? One of our dining companions got a flying bat. That would be a great idea for when you have guests stay over. I’ve been meaning to do some online research to see if I could dig up some how-tos. We were all trying to perfect the monkey at the dinner table with our napkins … and were pathetically unsuccessful.
Stephanie – it would have been all yours. One thing I don’t do is sushi.
Chef JoAnna – you should go. You could consider it “research,” no? ;) The monkey definitely scared us since the lights were off when we came back and found him hanging from the ceiling. ;)
Cookin4Love – I saw your write-up on the CL cruise – sounds like you had a blast!
Joey – the pasta is great, and with only 3 ingredients, you can’t go wrong. The towels were definitely a hoot – and Nicholas got a kick out of seeing what was next.
MeBeth – a little bit of this … a little bit of that …
Jeff – I don’t know how you guys are seeing a plucked turkey … ;) we thought monkey right away, but we did double-check, just to be sure. :)
everything is amazing!!
food are so cheerful! :-) and great ideas on towel folding! Hmmm.. its really really brilliant!!