Since we haven’t been doing a lot of our own home cooked meals while living at the parentals, we decided that on NYE we would cook them out most favorite dinner, Ciavarro style. This dinner is somewhat similar to the dinner Colin made us last year. I guess you could say we were inspired by the best.

Our dinner included…

Garlic & Cream Cheese Mashed Potatoes
Roasted Carrots
Steak House Salad
BBQ’d Beef Tenderloin

I don’t actually have a recipe for my mashed potatoes because they are so easy to make, you really can go by feel and taste, however, I use this basic standard of measurement when making them..

Ingredients

1 Russet Potato per person
1 Clove of Garlic per person
1 Green Onion per person (sliced)
2 Strips Cooked Bacon per person (chopped)
1 tbsp Milk per person
Butter, Cream Cheese, Salt, & Pepper to taste

Steps

Peal your potatoes, cut them in half and add to a large pot of water. Peal your garlic, leave them whole, and add them along with the potatoes. Bring the water to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. Turn down the heat to a simmer and test the potatoes after 15 minutes for doneness. Your fork should be easily slide through the potato. If the potatoes are not quite done, let them cook for a couple more minutes and check again. The timing really depends on the size of the potatoes. Drain in a colander and let them steam for 5 minutes.

Using a potato ricer, mash the potatoes and garlic back into the pot. Place back on the stove and turn on the heat to low. Add the milk and mix with a Wisk. Next add the butter, salt & pepper and mix. You want to make sure that the base of the mashed potatoes tastes right before adding anything else. Next add the cream cheese. I would start by adding a tablespoon at a time, depending on how creamy you want it. Wisk it until the cheese is melted and taste. For 5 potatoes I used about half a stick of cream cheese. What can I say, I love cream cheese!

Once your potatoes have the right creaminess and texture add in the green onions and bacon and mix. These potatoes are quite rich, but once you have tried them you will never want to go back to regular mashed potatoes again! If you like the creaminess and flavor that the cream cheese adds, try using an apple wood smoked cheddar next!

It took me a while to find a great carrot recipe. I love carrots that are sweet and caramelized and Chad likes carrots that are crunchy and buttery. This recipe is really the best of both worlds.

Ingredients

5 large Carrots
3 Clove of Garlic smashed
1 tbsp Thyme
1 knob of Butter
Drizzle of Olive Oil and Red Wine Vinegar
Salt & Pepper

Steps

Pre heat the oven to 400 degrees. Peel the carrots and cut in half. If the carrot is very thick, cut it down the middle so that all the pieces are relatively the same size. Place the carrots in a roasting pan with the garlic, butter, oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and thyme. Mix so that everything is coated well. Cover the pan with tin-foil and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the tin foil and place back in the oven for another 10 minutes so that the carrots have a chance to caramelize.

You can play around with the timing depending on how you like your carrots. Chad likes them crunchy and I like them a soft, so I try to aim for something in between. Also, if you want more sweetness, try using balsamic vinegar instead of red wine. This recipe is super easy and has such great flavor!

We essentially stole this recipe from Milestone, but made it our own of course. We use to eat this salad all the time, which probably isn’t the healthiest thing ever, but oh well! Here are the ingredients for the dressing.

Ingredients

1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 cup Lemon Juice
1 small Shallot diced
1 dollop Dijon Mustard
1 tsp Dried Oregano
Salt & Pepper

Steps

I use an immersion blender, but you can use a regular blender. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and whip it up! It’s as easy as that.

The salad itself is also really easy.

Ingredients

Diced Red Onion (about 1/4 cup)
Iceburg Lettuce cut into strips
Crumbled Blue Cheese

Steps

Mix ingredients to taste. Red onions and blue cheese can be quite strong flavors but the dressing tones them down quite a bit. When first making this salad, I would go a little easy on the onion and cheese until you get the flavor profile you like.

Dress the salad with a light coating of the dressing. You do not want to add to much, and you will have leftovers. Toss and taste adjusting the flavors as needed!

Chad is the magic man when it comes to grilling steak. We buy the Beef Tenderloin steaks from Costco. They are the best ones we’ve found and they turn out perfect every time.

Ingredients

Sea Salt
Pepper
Garlic Plus Seasoning
Italian Steak Spice – You can get this at your local Italian deli. We get ours from Bosa.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Steps

Here are the grilling instructions as per Mr. Ciavarro.

Preheat BBQ to high. Take thawed steaks and rub both sides with olive oil. Generously cover both sides of steak with Italian steak spice. Let sit for at least 20-30 minutes.

Grill steaks for two minutes then rotate 90 degrees (for grill marks). Grill for another 2 minutes then generously add sea salt to each steak. Flip steaks and generously add sea salt and garlic spice to the now exposed grilled marks. Grill for another 4 minutes for medium rare. 5 minutes for medium.

Serve with freshly ground black pepper

These steaks rival the Keg. I can’t tell you how excited I get when I know it’s steak night!

The goodness that was NYE dinner.

We eat rich foods, what can I say. The flavor profile of this meal is out of this world. Everyone really enjoyed it and I was glad we could share our Classic Ciavarro dinner with the parentals!