Dexter's Skirt

So it was my BFF’s birthday last Friday so she came around to hang out.  Himself was off at his football grand final (yes, he scored the winning goal) and the wee girl was just hanging out at home.

BFF and I sat there deciding what to do/eat/drink for her birthday.  I had given her a badge to wear saying “It’s My Birthday!” to remind us of our intent then I gave her the options:

1. Walk down the road and get take away and bring home
2. Go to a pub/bar to eat, drink and be merry
3. Go to a BYO restaurant (in the interests of saving money – the wine rack is very full after all)

BFF was very excited, she doesn’t often get a night off from the baby and hubby.  She decided she didn’t feel like going out.  She said she’d been talking to another friend and said she was very exciting about coming around tonight because I was her favourite restaurant in the world… Oh… that’s right…  It suddenly occurred to me there was option 4.

“Oh, or I guess I could cook (insert BFF happy face here), I have some Dexter beef skirt in the fridge – I could make involtini” “what’s involtini?” she asks – OMG you don’t know?  I’m sure there’s some bocconcini and basil in the fridge… no prosciutto though, but we could improvise and rub some smoked paprika on the skirt instead… There’s broccoli, I could make a cheese sauce… by now BFF is looking very excited… and some spicy potato chunks...  BFF proceeds to happy dance around the kitchen.

First things first though, better see what wine we’re drinking…  So we chose two bottles of nice wine and started on the involtini.  Like the veal involtini (see: Hands up who likes Skirts!) I bashed the skirt out thin (to the beat of some bad pop music we were listening to very loud) and then showed BFF how to roll involtini, rubbing each piece of meat with salt, pepper and smoked paprika then rolling up a basil leaf and 2 bocconcini.  Between the two of us they were rolled quickly and ready to cook.  We then chopped up potatoes and sweet potatoes, threw them in a freezer bag with some oil and spice and did a hippy hippy shake dance to coat and put them in the oven to bake (on a baking tray, not in a freezer bag).  Once they were done we quickly browned the involtini ‘til the cheese started to melt, made the cheese sauce, steamed the broccoli etc etc and served. This took about a bottle of wine’s worth of time.

We started second bottle during dinner...  The involtini were sublime, I think making them out of beef really added an extra dimension of flavour missing from the veal (and of course it was Dexter – my favourite).  BFF was very happy with her birthday dinner.  After dinner and extra wine there may have been some lounge room dancing followed by several bad wedding  shows on TV.  All in all, it was an excellent night in…