Going out to dinner is supposed to be the easy option, right?  No shopping, no cooking, no cleanup.  But sometimes when there are little kids involved, it’s actually harder than staying at home.  I can only deal with so many restaurants with kids’ menus, you know (certain places not withstanding)?

So, sometimes on the weekends I make a nice dinner, the goal of which is to have a restaurant-like experience (wine, at least two courses) but in the low-stress environment of my 0wn house.  That’s what we did tonight.

I picked up a couple of New York strips at ye olde Hy-Vee and marinated them in a simple paste made of garden garlic and rosemary, kosher salt, pepper, and olive oil.  Denny grilled them to a nice medium-rare, and we topped them with compound butter made with salted butter, parmigiano reggiano, paprika, and Sriracha.  On the side was baguette and some easy frozen vegetables.

We drank what I shall call ghetto sangría*.  I have an actual sangría recipe I love, but for tonight I just couldn’t see myself drinking much red wine.  Denny and I had a lovely date night at the classiest joint in Ames last weekend, and we got sangría from their bar that was unorthodox but good.  Tonight’s beverage was inspired by that.  It was lemonade, peach schnapps, a splash of amaretto, (here comes the ghetto part) one of Miles’s juice boxes, and some boxed red wine that claims Wine Enthusiast wasn’t embarrassed to discuss it.

Miles helped me make creme brulée, which is chilling right now in preparation for sugar toasting.

*I’m wearing an Obama t-shirt right now, plus I’ve had a couple of glasses of it already, so I feel like I can get away with saying that.