Oh. My. God.

I went over to my parents last night, to cut and color my mom's hair (yes, I am a frustrated hairdresser as well) and to cook dinner for them. Yes, you heard me correctly: I cooked dinner for my mom and (more amazingly) my dad. The master chef himself was deigning to grace my dinner table, coming down from the heights of Mount Olympus to dine with us mere mortals.

Now, before you think I am mocking my poor father, you really have to know the man first. He is an amazing chef, and I can honestly say that I learned 99.99% of everything I know about cooking from him. I have always played sous chef to him, and I truly believe that that is the best way to learn how to cook.

When I still lived at home, I'd have to let him know, well in advance, of when I planned on using the kitchen, so as not to disrupt whatever menu he had in mind for dinner. And even when he would (grudgingly) consent to me taking over the kitchen for an hour or so, he would spend an inordinate amount of time looking over my shoulder, stirring unnecessarily, tasting frequently, and providing me with a running commentary on what I should be doing... then, when dinner time rolled around, he wouldn't be hungry and would end up leaving my mom and I to dine alone... only to stroll in right after we finished, and eat dinner while standing at the stove. GRRRR! Then he'd admit (once confronted) that whatever I had made was good, BUT needed a little more of this and a little less of that, and I should have plated it a little nicer... and so on and so forth.

This is (apparently) how good cooks become great cooks... but it's still really annoying.

Fast forward to last night.

I decided that the best way of impressing him (or at the very least, inviting the least amount of constructive criticism) was to K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid! - which is one of his favorite phrases) and bearing that in mind, I settled on Balsamic Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and a nice light salad (which my mom was good enough to make).

Frazzled as I was, going out the door to their house, attempting to remember to bring my mom's hair color, my cutting shears, a comb, a change of shirt and a jacket, I forgot to bring my camera!!! OY.

So I have no photographic evidence of the wonderful meal I made! And it was wonderful, according to my dad (!!!) who had quite a good size serving and left the table with a clean and empty plate.

I swiped the recipe for the Balsamic Chicken from my very good friend (and super chef!) Lea then simplified it down to its most basic parts.

My dad had thoughtfully taken out the chicken (about 6 good-sized boneless skinless breasts) the night before and marinated it in milk, so I rinsed and patted the chicken dry while the oven was preheating. After trimming off the excess fat, I mixed up the oil (.5 c), balsamic vinegar (.5 c) and about 4 cloves of garlic (peeled and rough-chopped) in the measuring cup and poured it into the casserole dish. I added the chicken and let sit for about 5 minutes or so, before adding 2 small yellow onions (quartered) and tossing everything to thoroughly coat. I cooked that for about 35 minutes at 375 degrees F, then kicked it up to 400 for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, I rinsed about 4 lbs of red potatoes and chopped into smaller pieces. Rinsed those off and added them to a large pot; added enough cold water to cover and set those to boil until soft. Once they were done, I drained them and added unsalted butter (4 T, or about half a stick), milk (uhh... not sure exactly how much, but I'm guessing about .5 - 1 c), mayo (again, not sure on the exact amount, but somewhere around .25 - .5 c), sour cream (about .25 - .5 c) and sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Mashed it all together, and served it with a pat of butter.

Wonder of wonders, my dad thought it was "very tasty" - YAAAAYYYYY! And... more importantly, we all sat down and ate together at the same time... all in all, it was a very nice night.