all of this

the small marsh above the crescent beach and looking out into the straight

The cowboy and I began having our evening meals together this past Sunday, on the 10th day of our big acquaintance. Since I have been madly teak toppin' it and working toward a fast approaching deadline (met finally yesterday). He has been preparing our evening meals, cooking at his own house and arriving each evening with some new move able feast - all carefully packed into his wooden wine crate.

Sunday - he prepared a pot roast with new potatoes and new carrots, onions & garlic accompanied by perfectly steamed broccoli. It was delicious.

Monday - he arrived with his grandmother's (she was from Kentucky) fried chicken (technically not fried or at least not deep fried) pan fried in butter, after being generously dusted with seasoned flour, until the skin is crisp and golden and then finished in a hot oven. He served the chicken with new potatoes, pan gravy and buttered peas (and ya know how I love peas). A similar recipe here. Again delicious.

Tuesday - this night roasted lamp chops on a bed of brown rice, with onions, garlic, celery and tomatoes served with perfectly steamed broccoli (turns out we're both crazy about broccoli).

Each of the above three meals was followed by dessert of chunks of extra dark imported chocolate and clementines.

Wednesday - finally my big deadline had been met so I cooked. He brought the broccoli ready to perfectly steam and I made Coquille St. Jacques- using this recipe. It was delicious and perfect. Individual casseroles of cream and cheese, buttered bread crumbs and fat juicy Digby scallops served beside bright green still crunchy broccoli stalks, perfect to scoop up any and all remaining cheesy goodness. For dessert I made my famous, and to die for, tres easy lemon pudding cake souffle like - light, tart and sweet all at the same time. Served of course with a good dollop of real whipped cream.

He loved it all. He's cooking again tonight as I'm moving on to the next project on the TTD queu. I can't tell you how much I am enjoying this new mealtime routine.... and all of this goodness.