Happy Valentine's Day

Yep.  This post is deviating from the norm of all about Kylah, sorta.  Its her first Valentine's Day and we spent it hanging out at home and took a trip to see Daddy at lunch time and enjoy a nice lunch break with him.  Went back home and napped on the sofa.  After feeding Kylah, I started on dinner.  Kris and I decided instead of fighting crowds, finding a sitter, or even taking Kylah with us out somewhere, we'd just pick something special to fix at home.  I knew I wanted mine to be steak, and Kris wanted seafood.  We went to Martin's and I found 2 small tenderloin filets marked down and lobster tail was on sale.  We decided upon steak and lobster and a side of asparagus.  Daunting.  I'm no chef, nor do I pretend to be.  I need a recipe, I need direction, and most of the time it ends up decent, but nothing coming out at the same time.  I searched my new favorite website, pinterest, among other food sites for easy recipes for asparagus and steak, as well as how to even fix lobster.   I decided upon pan seared steak, Parmesan roasted asparagus, and butter poached lobster tails.  The lobster was daunting.  Its apparently some french technique of using a buerre monte? and it can't be heated to hot or the butter will do something? (See, I never said I was a chef).   I set Kylah up on the kitchen floor with some toys and started some prep work.  Trimming and peeling the asparagus, seasoning and trimming the steak, and de-shelling the lobster.  The first 2 were easy, the latter, not so much.  The steak was seasoned with kosher salt and pepper and the asparagus was seasoned with olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper.  The lobster, I found that if you put it in a container with boiling water for a few minutes it would help getting the meat out of the shells.  I did that, and then used kitchen shears to cut the shell on the top and bottom and attempt to get the meat out all in one piece.  It took some work, but I did it.  Kris got home and he was on Kylah duty.  I heated a pan on the stove with some olive oil on it and seared the steaks on both sides for 2-3 minutes and into the oven they went.  While they were in the oven, I worked on this buerre monte sauce.  You bring a couple tablespoons of water to a boil, and then reduce the heat and add in tiny cubes of butter, whisking the whole time.  You need enough butter to cover the tails.  This is where I almost screwed up.  I used a bigger pan and when I finally cut up all the butter and got the poaching liquid up to temperature and put the lobster in, it barely covered it.  Transferred it to a smaller pot and much better.  Let that cook for 5 minutes and dinner was done.  

It was fantastic.  The steak was tender and juicy - cooked to a perfect medium well, the lobster was juicy and buttery, and the asparagus was tender and perfectly seasoned.  Truly a picture perfect meal.  Kylah even tried a few bites of asparagus.  When I turned back around, they were gone from her high chair, so I'm guessing she enjoyed them.  Kris brought home a mini cheesecake slice and a boston creme cupcake for dessert.  Hey, I'm not superwoman, I can't possibly pull off dessert also!