I'm sure many of you are like me - work full days and rarely have time to cook up a weeknight dinner. To make it more impossible, I travel every week for work too. So whenever I get the rare chance of working from home, I like to take advantage of the opportunity to whip up a homecooked meal for my fiance.
One of his favorite dishes is Beef Stroganoff, and with the help of a crockpot, it takes 15 minutes to prepare this dish and your date will be thoroughly impressed. Make him think you slaved in the kitchen :) I found a recipe on Cooking Light so the meal was more guilt-free. To balance out the heavy dish, I served the stroganoff with a side of roasted garlic broccoli. It was the perfect accompaniment with its slightly charred tips and bits of garlic chips.
To start, throw all your ingredients into the crockpot.
Mix in the wet and dry ingredients and turn on the slow cooker. That's it. You can go back to working or watching TV.
For the side, preheat the oven to 450 degrees, then combine the cut-up broccoli crown with 6 cloves of smashed garlic and 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil into a mixing bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Spread the broccoli on a baking sheet (there is no need to grease the sheet as the oil from the broccoli mixture will suffice) and bake for 20 minutes, or until brown. It's that simple, the texture of the broccoli changes (it's ends are crispy), it tastes great and it's good for you too.
Beef Stroganoff
Recipe adapted from Cooking Light
1 (1-pound) top round steak (1 inch thick), trimmed (I used beef
chuck)
1 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dried dill
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 (8-ounce) package sliced mushrooms (about 2 cups)
3 garlic cloves, minced
1/3 cup all-purpose flour or 2 tbspn
1 cup beef broth
1 (8-ounce) container low-fat sour cream
2 cups hot cooked medium egg noodles (about 4 ounces uncooked)
Preparation
1. Cut steak diagonally across grain into 1/4-inch-thick
slices. Place steak and next 8 ingredients (though garlic) in a 3-quart
electric slow cooker; stir well.
2. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with
a knife. Place flour in a small bowl; gradually add broth, stirring with a
whisk until blended. Add broth mixture to slow cooker; stir well. Cover with
lid; cook on high-heat setting 1 hour. Reduce to low-heat setting, and cook 7
to 8 hours or until steak is tender. Turn slow cooker off; remove lid. Let
stroganoff stand 10 minutes. Stir in sour cream. Serve stroganoff over noodles.
If you haven't been to Yamashiro, you should. The view is gorgeous. The restaurant is perched on top of the Hollywood Hills, overlooking Hollywood, Downtown and Century City.
You have to select from a few fresh herbs to be mixed into your cocktail.
The cocktails are served in a mason jar decorated with a bracelet made with acai berries, both yours to keep. My choice was the acai mint cocktail which tasted a bit like a mojito. Refreshing, citrus and very drinkable.
The Oktoberfest beer stand this past week had Sam Adams on tap. The market also has a wine stand with a couple wine selections. So basically, there's an adult beverage for everyone.
There were three taco options (miso-sake cod, short ribs and duck confit), priced at 2 for $8.
Miso-sake marinated cod, and Hoisin duck confit with Santiago Farm white nectarine and cherry salsa
To round of the Oktoberfest festivities, 
Pork Bratwurst was the "simplest" of the lot but the most popular. The juicy brat was topped with a heap of sauerkraut that tasted very homemade.
Performance art at one of the galleries.
On my walk, I passed by Nickel Diner and saw an array of desserts for sale outside. I couldn't resist. I'd already walked over a mile at this point.
Peanut butter potato chip cupcake. Tasty. Even the frosting on the top was light and delicious. I liked the chocolate dipped potato chip as it added a saltiness to the sweet dessert. After my little sweet snack, I made my way back to Wurstkuche where I had parked. FYI, parking is supposed to be scarce. Even though I was lucky enough to get rockstar parking up front, there appeared to be parking a couple blocks away so yes, parking is available if you are willing to walk a little. Note to self.. not a good idea for a lady to be walking the streets of downtown alone in the evening. There were some unsavory characters on my solo walk back.
There was a half-hour line forming outside the restaurant. You have to enter through the red and gold (BOOOOO Trojans) doors to order, but you can also enter the dining area via another door down the street. So the obvious strategy is to have one friend scope out seating while another waits in the food line.
Lucky me, I was the one assigned to find seating. The restaurant has brick walls and wooden beams ceilings. There's a cool, hip vibe in the room, it was loud and they had a DJ, yet the place seemed casual and relaxed. There were two diners playing cards at the table after their meals. Seating options were communal tables, table seating and a bar. Naturally, I grabbed seats at the bar.
I ordered the Gouden Carolus, a Belgian tripel.
Our food arrive about a half hour later, so essentially we were fed an hour after we got there. They have a selection of mustard scattered around the room so you'll have to go in search of the specific one you wanted.
Rattlesnake and rabbit sausage. I really liked this sausage. It was lean and juicy. As expected, it tasted like chicken or some lean meat vs. snake. Phew. The sausage also had jalapeno in it so it had a little heat to it, although not too spicy. Surprisingly the portion was sufficient. I was contemplating ordering two dogs but thankfully did not.
Vegetarian smoked apple sage sausage with apple, yukon gold potatoes and rubbed sage. A nice combination of sweet and salty. My friend enjoyed this sausage but it did look just a tad bit drier than mine. Too bad for the vegetarians.
More beers including another Belgian beer, La Chouffe, which the server said would pair well with our sausage selections, and a German Reissdorf Kolsch.
We shared a large order of Belgian fries. I do love a good fry. We ordered the fries with white truffle glaze for an additional $1.50. It was aromatic and worth it. You got two sauces with the large order, which included curry ketchup, pesto mayo, blue cheese walnut & bacon - barf on the blue cheese, Thai peanut amongst others. We opted for the curry ketchup and Thai peanut. The fries were thick but thankfully, not dense and starchy. I like.
They have a pretty good selection of German beers. Our choice included Spaten Oktoberfest Marzen, Spaten Optimator doppelbock and Warsteiner Dunkel. My favorite was the Dunkel which was dark and smooth.
Sausage Platter bite, size pieces of bratwurst, knackwurst, smoked bockwurst, pickles and pepper. I love little bites and variety so this was my favorite dish. They are also cut up into tiny portions which is perfect for nibbling.
Turkey Bratwurst sausage served with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes
The Saturday special was Nurnberger Bratwurst pork and veal sausages, served with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes with gravy
Smoked Bockwurst- beef and port polish sausage, served with sauerkraut and German potato salad. Liked the sausage but thought the potato salad was a bit too tangy. Personal preference though.
Side of spaetzel. Looks more like french fries than spaetzel.
Why are Top Chef finals mostly upsets? Do the front runners always choke, or were the underdogs always #1 but Bravo TV filmed the episodes in such a way to throw off viewers? I see some trends here; seems like the underdog wins almost every other season.
Bread came out, which included rustic, sourdough and bread sticks. The butter was seasoned.
We proceeded to order a couple little plates.
Sonoma Foie gras with cracked white pepper, smoked salt and griddled brioche.
Thai lobster bisque with coconut milk and lemon grass
Kumamoto Oyster with absinthe jelly and fennel vinaigrette
Sweetbread schnitzel with potato salad
Beef tartare with poached quail egg and bread stick
For our entrees, we asked for wine recommendations. A full bodied Grenache was recommended for the duck, and the Pinot Noir for the lamb. They were both excellent.
Duck breast with braised red cabbage and dumplings. The duck was perfectly cooked, but personally, I don't like sauerkraut and I thought the sourness overpowered the duck flavor. The dumplings were delicious and LB commented that they were very authentic German.
Lamb loin with ratatouille and polenta. The lamb was tender and not gamy. I enjoyed this dish as well. It made perfect sense that the meat dishes were excellent, after all the Finns and Germans are really good with game meats. 
Our waiter brought over a bowl with a tagine-looking cover. Ooooh what was under that? I was excited to see that it was the polenta that was served with the lamb. OMG, it was absolutely mouth watering. The polenta was cooked perfectly, was rich and appeared to have some truffle oil drizzled on top. I finished it in a matter of seconds.
Trio of lollipops; eggnog, chocolate with wine, and passion fruit. This totally reminds me of the liquid nitrogen that all the "cool" chefs were using on Top Chef. However the lollipops were hard; they did not burst in your mouth like what you would expect. Instead, the inside was hard like ice cream and a bit painful to bite. Perhaps it was over frozen? It was still delicious, but I think it would have been exciting if it actually burst in your mouth.
Buchteln with maple pecan ice cream and creme anglaise. The ice cream was delicious and I loved the crunch from the pecans. The buchteln was lovely as well, it tasted like a pretzel.