Epic Father's Day Dinner!

This weekend I went home to see my family for Father's Day. My mom is in Italy for work at the moment, so I decided that I would cook my dad a Father's Day feast since he would probably just take us out to eat. I found that option unacceptable.

My mother recently brought home some saffron from Bahrain. She had no idea what to use it in, so she wanted me to send her a recipe. I found a recipe for Moroccan Chicken Skewers through Tastespotting, my food Mecca. This is kind of a cop-out, as I prepped the chicken the day before I made it and forgot to take pictures. It was easy- I just mixed together saffron, cumin, coriander, garlic, cinnamon, paprika, parsley, chopped almonds, and some olive oil. Oh, and a little lemon juice, as I didn't have the preserved lemon rinds or whatever the recipe calls for. Or the tumeric. Once mixed, I rubbed it all over the chicken and put it in a plastic bag to marinade overnight.

The next day, I assembled the chicken, green olives, and a slice of lemon on skewers that I had soaking in water. It looked like this:

My dad was awesome and put them on the grill for about 5 minutes per side. So then they looked like this:

A few weeks ago, my dad came up to visit me in the city and took me out to dinner. Whenever I'm taking someone out to dinner, I try to switch up the nationality of the restaurant. I was in the mood for Spanish! We went to Amada in Old City. It was a really great tapas meal, but we were especially fond octopus and potatoes (or "Pulpo A La Gallega," mhmm). However, when he went to dinner at home in Maryland, he ordered octopus and was disappointed.

Therefore, after a really addicting episode of Iron Chef: Battle Octopus, I was able to put together a similar recipe.

So, here is a frozen octopus I found at a local Maryland seafood shack, Richards. It's literally an old Shell station. Anyway, it's like two pounds or so and simply frozen.

Then, the hot tub. I boiled it for about 45 minutes. In hindsight, I probably should have stopped boiling after like 20 or 30 minutes. They looked perfect at that point. Oh well, it was fine.

Hey.

Once cooled, I cut off some tentacles. Ew.

My dad was awesome and stepped in. He cut them into round slices about a half-inch thick.

Aha! Meanwhile I had boiled some red potatoes. About five. For about 20 minutes or until the fork went in kind of easy, but the potato wasn't entirely soft. Then I put them in a bowl of cold water until cooled and peeled them.

Sliced them, too.

In a large skillet, I heated up a generous amount of olive oil and put the octo and the potatoes in there for roughly 15 minutes. This was a little too long, but it was okay. Salt, pepper, and paprika. Very nice. I added some olive oil.

Ta-da!

Tastespotting, again, revealed this gem of a website, The Jewels of New York, and their delicious and sweetly decorated feast, Glazed Rack of Lamb, Parsnips in Parsley Butter, and Warm Cabbage Salad. I just did the first two.

Before this, I have never had parsnips before. I was hesitant to try something so new for others, but it was quite nice. First, I peeled and quartered them, length-wise.

After melting about two tablespoons of butter and adding about three tablespoons of olive oil, I added the parsnips and sauteed them for about 20 minutes, til they were golden and all that.

So when it was all cooked, I added rosemary, parsley, salt, and pepper and cooked it for a few more minutes. They were so tender and crispy it was so yum. The butter was nice and herb-y, love!

Now the lamb.

Yeah, sorry. This is a total cop-out. These are my racks of lamb. I prepped it the day before, making a paste with garlic, salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, and fennel seed and of course slathering them generously. I skipped the pomegranate molasses idea, because really where was I going to find it in Harford County, MD? Instead I added some dijon mustard.

The next day, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees and cooked them for about 45 minutes. Mmmm. I'm telling you they were perfect.


My dad's favorite cake is carrot cake. My mom usually makes it every year for him so naturally I had to make it for him. I found this recipe on the blog Let Her Bake Cake and it is appropriately titled the Loveliest Carrot Cake in the World. I'm telling you it was absolutely amazing.

Let's begin.

My brother, Jimmy, so graciously offered to help me make it, so I assigned him the task of grating up five carrots.

Away he went.

He was really good at it.

And so on.

I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, greased and 9-inch springform baking pan. The great thing about cooking at your parents' house is that they always have everything you need. At least, that's the case with my parents. I don't have any great baking supplies in my apartment, unfortunately. But this will change.

In a bowl, I combined two eggs and sugar.

And vegetable oil. Right next to all my mom's finished audio- and regular books waiting to go back to the library.
Then I used an electric hand mixer (yay for a baking mother!) to beat them til they were "pale and fluffy."
This is a mix of baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and flour. I added this to the egg mixture. However, right before I did this, I added the grated carrots. Sorry, no picture.

See? Everything combined.

So then I mixed it until it was just combined. Not uber mixed, because it needs to be fluffy, obviously.

Chopped walnuts! Much to Jimmy's dismay, as he doesn't like nuts. I told him to get over it.

Into the pan it goes.

Mmm. I baked it for about 50 minutes. The recipe said 45 minutes, but it needed an extra five for the knife to come out from the center cleanly.

The icing was really easy to make. Now, I'm not a bif fan of icing, but this was a delicious icing. It was so simple to make. All it had was cream cheese, butter, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla extract.

Jimmy is the best cake icer.

You can't tell from the picture, but he was excited for his favorite cake.

My sous chef and me.

This is my punk-ass brother, Billy, who helped in the last few minutes and sort of set the table. Otherwise, he was playing Xbox.

Oh well, love him anyway.

In the end, it was all so easy to make and so so delicious. I would recommend these recipes to anyone. I'd say the crowd favorites were the lamb and the cake.

Anyway, try something new!