Costco Shopping and Impulse Purchases 3/3/11

My husband got his hearing aid through Costco, they offer free tune ups of the device as long as you own it, so about once a year we go up to the big city 3 hours away and do our Mainland errands, a big shop at Costco, getting kids haircuts at affordable prices, eye appointments, tire rotation, whatever. On this last trip, in addition to the Costco shop and hearing aid fix we also picked up some new tap shoes for the big kid and some all white sneakers for her baton twirling debut.

We usually pick up something quick to make for dinner while we are at Costco because when you factor in the drive time and the time spent actually running the errands we get home sort of late. My husband's impulse buy for our fast dinner was a ready to go, heat and eat chateaubriand. I know, right? I would have gotten a delicious Kirkland's brand frozen pizza, but I let him pick some times. A chateaubriand is a very 60's dinner to me. I can imagine Don Draper splitting one with his pretty wife in a swanky restaurant. In fact a chateaubriand is almost always prepared for two, so that means you both better like it cooked to the same temperature because you can't make it medium on one side and well done on the other. The cut of meat is actually a beef tenderloin, but the fancy French name comes from the method of preparation, where the meat is seasoned very simply, seared on all sides in a pan, then roasted in the oven until desired temperature is reached. You make a nice sauce from the pan drippings and additionally you can have it with a béarnaise sauce on top. DECADENT. This heat and eat version basically was pre-roasted and you did the stove top part to bring it back up to temperature and get a nice sear on it. It was ready in about 10 minutes. We also decided to try some frozen roasted mixed vegetables, potatoes, peppers, carrots and green beans. They were prepared on the stove top in about 6 minutes, those were okay, but we won't be buying it again. The sauce the vegetables were in was sort of bland and off-putting.

I do think next month we may spring for a nice beef tenderloin and try to make the chateaubriand ourselves as the cut itself was buttery and tender beyond belief. I really think it might be a fun project. Maybe I will make jello parfaits or some other mid-century classic for dessert when I do.

We rounded out dinner with a lovely lettuce and carrot salad. There were some incredibly nice butter lettuces for sale. Just eating them made me feel more like Springtime, like Peter Rabbit might just steal some from the refrigerator.