barefoot contessa in our kitchen

My husband has a new girlfriend.
And I really don't mind.

Her name is Ina Garten and she's an amazing cook.

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, I've been watching the cooking channel quite a bit.
Dorky, I know.  But it gives me great ideas and provides nice background noise for slow days of feeding and napping and play-matting my three month old.

Barefoot Contessa is my favorite.

One day, Adam came home and Ina Garten was cooking in our living room. 
I'm pretty sure it was love at first sight.
Now she is Adam's favorite, too.

So on Thursday, we were trying to decide what to do with our evening (Adam had Friday off, so it felt like an early weekend kick-off) and about that time, Ina popped up in our living room again.

I had an idea.
We would watch her show and no matter what she cooked, we would go to the store, get the ingredients, and make it for ourselves.

Adam agreed.

Lucky for us, it was steak night.

So we took ourselves - and our little man - to Kroger for a quick shopping trip.
We bought things like parsley.  And roquefort cheese.  And heavy cream.
Varieties of mushrooms I'd never thought twice about before.
And brownie mix, although that was not part of her show.

We came home and tore our kitchen to pieces and had an absolute blast.
On our menu: steaks, prepared on the stove and in the oven with a raquefort cheese sauce.  Sauteed mushrooms.  Zucchini pancakes.  Fresh bread.  Red wine.

It was a wonderful evening.  And the best dinner we've had in a very long time.