Baked Potato with Caviar and Crème Fraîche

This past New Year’s Eve was the first that my husband and I spent at home since we met almost seven years ago. The morning of New Year’s Eve, he went by Huntington Meats and got some beautiful ribeye steaks to grill. I went by Larchmont Wine & Spirits and picked up Champagne and a one-ounce jar of paddlefish caviar. Paddlefish caviar costs about $20 an ounce versus close to $200 an ounce for beluga or osetra. It’s lighter in color with smaller eggs than its more illustrious sturgeon counterparts, but is still deliciously rich and salty and is fantastic atop an omelet or a baked potato. I thought our New Year’s Eve dinner would make for good Valentine’s fare—it has all the requisite decadence for romance, but perhaps most important, is there a faster way to your man’s heart than steak and potatoes?

Chasen’s Chili with Leftover Prime Rib

I’m married to a third-generation New Yorker so it’s no surprise that it’s #ALLIN for the Giants over here. This year my husband will be making a huge pot of Chasen’s Chili (above) with his signature addition—leftover prime rib.

He stumbled across this winning combo after Christmas dinner this past year and we’re dying to try again. He makes the Chasen’s recipe as is, and then toward the end throws in chunks of prime rib, which add a totally indulgent note to this already fantastic chili. So tonight—instead of roasting a standing rib roast for the two of us—we’ll have grilled bone-in ribeye steaks, with enough leftovers for Sunday’s big game. For more Super Bowl ideas, here’s a post of my game-time favorites from last year, with pics below: SUPER BOWL FOOD.

Pirate Ship Fruit Bowl

A friend is planning a princess and pirates birthday party, which reminded me of Tiny G’s pirate party this past summer. I kind of geeked out making a pirate ship fruit bowl from a watermelon. My husband wanted no part of it. Carving it out was the worst, but the portholes were easy enough thanks to an apple corer.

For the fruit salad, I took a page out of Mark Bittman’s book and chopped up watermelon, pineapple, banana and drizzled with a couple tablespoons of maple syrup. For the masts, I used bamboo bbq skewers and for the sails, a scull & bones stamp on mottled paper. My sister made these fantastic shark cookies:

That went into these muslin treat bags I made for Tiny G’s friends:

Which made for one happy pirate.