Great day and great food makes me a happy camper

Everything's swell today. You can ignore my next para for a straight account of the day.

We had an early start, went to IMM for brunch, shopped at one of our favourite place for your most useful and useless stuff and where everything is S$2, Daiso and then Giant hypermart. When we reached home, we were absolutely famished and so we started preparing for dinner. I put part of our dinner into the oven for some slow love cooking, we popped over to my in-law's place for a quick visit. Poor MIL had sprained her back while carrying some heavy stuff. :( After a quick but delish dinner, we went for car viewing at friend's company. Last leg of the day we were at Kovan mall for a stroll!  

What a day. But the dinner! Oh! It was so great! Hubb rated 9.5 out of 10. It was my greatest cooking accomplishment. *pats stomach Our dinner menu was Blue cheese striploin steak with sauteed mushroom and with scallion baked potato. The first two are recipes courtesy from Vanessa. :D These dishes are going to be repeated. We enjoyed the food so much and hubb rated the food tonight a whopping 9.5/10!!!! (repeating the stated here) :D I am such a happy camper today. (Again, I must reiterate my feeling)

I shall replicate the recipes here, having making slight modification to them. One thing about my cooking style, I replace ingredients with similar ingredients that I have, and I always add more of the seasonings that we like. E.g. black pepper and garlic.

Blue cheese striploin steak
Ingredients:
2 pieces of striploin steak (about 400 gm in all)
1 tspn cracked black pepper (we like black pepper)
1/2 cup dry red wine
1/3 cup home made blue cheese dressing
Olive oil

Method:
1. Marinade the steaks in red wine, black pepper and olive oil
2. Leave this in the fridge marinating for at least 2 hours.  (I left it for 5 hours)
3. Drain the marinade, add the blue cheese dressing and marinade for another 2 hours
4. Heat the pan, add olive oil
5. On hight heat, sear the steaks on both sides
6.  Reduce the heat and cook each side for 5 minutes (this is for a medium rare steak)
7.  Serve after allowing the steaks to rest for 10 minutes

Blue cheese dressing
Ingredients:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 up blue cheese, crumbled
1/2 cup. sour cream
Salt to taste

Method:
1. Use a mixer and blend the ingredients till it become a smooth paste

Sauteed Mushroom
Ingredients:
6-8 white buttom mushoom, thinly sliced
1 tspn cracked pepper
3 tbspn rum
For oil, I use the the remain oil/juices from the steak

Method:
1.  Add the sliced mushroom.
2.  Add the cracked pepper
3.  Stir on medium heat for 2-3 minutes.
4.  Add the rum, and allow this to reduce (abt 5 mins)
5.  Serve on top of the steak

Scallion baked potato
Ingredients
3 medium size potato, thinly sliced
1 big onion, thinly sliced
1 tbspn garlic
2/3 cup sour cream
2/3 cup chicken stock
shredded cheddar cheese
Olive oil

Method:
1. Heat up the pan and add oil
2. Add in onion, stir fry for 2 mins
3. Add garlic, stir fry till onion turned soft
4. Using a shallow baking dish, lay half of the potato (Tip: use the smaller pieces of the potato)
5. Add the onion and garlic mixture in, then follow by the rest of the potato
6. Mix chicken stock and sour cream together and pour over the potato
7. Sprinkle shredded cheddar cheese on top
8. Cover the baking with aluminium foil (to prevent cheese from burning)
9. Bake in medium heat for 45 mins
10. Remove foil and bake in high heat till cheese turns brown and/or the bake becomes moist and not wet (abt 10 mins)