Busy Cooking Weekend!

Yesterday afternoon, after a trip to the store, The Pedant and I spend a snowy afternoon cooking up a storm. We made a fantastic dinner plus lots of food for the week. Now that I'm back in school and coming home late and TP working long hours again, we needed to make sure we have lots of extra food on hand. Going out to eat is fun, but not worth wasting the money or calories for sub-par lunch options!!

So here's a round up of the great food we cooked for the week:

Cauliflower Salad from everyone's favorite Monk. It was basically easy - steam cauliflower (we just boiled it in some water since we had it boiling for some later), put it in a bowl with hard boiled eggs, shallots and capers. Make a tasty dressing with hazelnut oil, EVOO, dijon, white wine vinegar and tarragon (which we didn't have so we used herbs de provonance). I tasted it and it was really good. I think it will get better in the next few days in the fridge.

Southwest Egg Muffins from Pinch My Salt. I found this recipe a while ago and printed it out. I decided to make some egg cups for freezing for quick, easy breakfasts or lunches. Like a mini fritata! I hadn't tried this recipe but it came out well. I did use less eggs but I think it came out fine. I bought egg substitute (because 8 whole eggs just seemed grotesque for someone who grew up eating mostly egg whites!) and misread the bottle so I used 4 egg's worth. I think it was fine.

Veggie Egg Cups from Slashfood. I made this last year and enjoyed it. This year it worked well too. (Although harder to get the muffin tins cleaner than I remembered!!) The cups were a little runnier when we took them out of the oven but still looked tasty.

Saturday Night Italian Feast!!

Dinner was a great feast complete with leftovers for the week. I decided to make stuffed shells which I never had before. They turned out well. I mixed some ricotta cheese with frozen spinach and stuffed the shells with that. (Note: I will need more than one tub of ricotta and 1 box of spinach next time...) I made a really simple tomato sauce and topped them with just a bit of mozzarella cheese. The only problem was that the shells broke in the box so we were left with lots of pieces. Solution: Appetizer of broken shell pieces with some EVOO, Parmesan, sea salt and red pepper flakes.

We made 2 salads: orange and red onion salad which I love. It's sweet and sour and savory and salty. And easy: just use rounds of oranges and slices of red onions, place on platter (or our case, rectangular container for easier clean up), drizzle with EVOO and sea salt. The other was from the best monk and was a Venetian Gorgonzola Salad. It made a lot so we have plenty left over. It was arugula, endive, radicchio, frisse, granny smith apples, walnuts, Gorgonzola and a dijon-based dressing. It was perfect. Elegant and classic.

We also made lunch yesterday from last week's Minimalist column: the fried rice. It was simple and perfect and delicious. Definitely becoming part of the rotation.

Sadly, This Place Doesn't Have an Illusion to a 90s Boy Band

Saturday evening, The Pedant and I (along with 6 others) went to another Restaurant Week restaurant - Sette Bello in Arlington.

(Before I continue with the review of the Saturday restaurant, I will say I agree with TP's review of Fyve. I had the mixed green salad with a shallot vinaigrette, which was very tasty, and the homemade parpadelle with a mushroom ragu. That was excellent. Very tasty. Not the best pasta dish I have ever had, but very good. The best part was by far desert. I had the two mini souffles (chocolate and grand mariener) with a mini carafe of cream. I wanted to take a bath in them, they were soooooooo good. Perfectly creamy and warm and tasty.)

I happened to go to this Italian restaurant before, which is located in the super hip part of Arlington. This might have been one of those places restaurant week was "wasted" on. It wasn't that expensive for just entries but I guess for the three courses you save a few bucks. It was nice and homey and big. We sat at a long, wide wooden table. The bread was warm and the olive oil was tasty, but I was reminded from my non-fancy lunch with TP yesterday at Bertucci's that EVOO is MUCH better for dipping with herbs and hot pepper. Anyway, turns out, they hate lacto-ovarians at this place for restaurant week. As opposed to 5 choices for appetizers and entrees, there were two. Granted, they had "vegetarian" choices, but those were full of fish. Blech. I was a bit POed, but the waiter was able to get the chef to do a different option. I got a spinach salad with pears and a tasty cheese in a lemon dressing to start and a mushroom risotto for an entree. The salad was great. The entree was AMAZING. (Well, if it had more mushrooms, it would have been better...) Creamy and delicious. Desert was one option - a white chocolate mouse with raspberries. Very good.

The verdict: since the staff was nice, this might be a fun place to go to for upscale Italian with a casual atmosphere. Which I already knew, since I was there in that capacity.

Sunday = Food Day!

Sunday was filled with tasty, tasty food.

First, my grandfather and sort-of-grandmother came for a visit - well sort of. They were about an hour away and wanted to see our new "crib" and take us to lunch. (Apparently, a football game was being played which diminished our hanging out time, oh well.) We went for lunch at a local place, Bebo Trattoria, which has some sort of famous chef. The Pedant and I pass by it every so often and think, "Hm, this might be a really fancy place if it wasn't so 'hip' and casual inside, since the prices are the kind that you wait for a relative to take you to dinner." Regardless, they had a nice lunch menu and we all got pizzas or calzones and shared a few salads. It was tasty. TP had a calzone with assortments of meats, I had one with lots of garlic and onions, GP had one with anchovies (?! gross!!), and SOG had the calzone with cheeses and olives. We all enjoyed.

After a quick trip to Costco (because the only person in the world who likes Costco more than me and TP is my grandfather), we parted ways and TP and I went to Ikea to buy furniture (coming this weekend! Yay! Now we have a fancy TV (thanks GP!) and will have new couches! and soon: CABLE!!! And Food Network!!) and TP had a snack of cheap Swedish Meatballs. I ate a salad, and sang the Swedish Chef song from the Muppets.

The Chili experiment was for dinner and was quite good. It probably only needed 8-12 hours to really get good: towards the end it got a bit burned and the corn went from lovely yellow to mellow yellow. Yet, it worked perfectly and the apartment smelled like chili for the next 24 hours.

Fancy Food, Part 2

I agree with most of what The Pedant said about the fancy schmancy restaurant (well, it wasn't so fancy schmancy in attire and looks as it was in prices...). I did find everything to be a bit too oily, but that's because everything was sauteed/grilled/swimming in oil. But oil's good for you, yes? So it was fine.

The Ravioli was really superb, I should reiterate that.

Also, finishing up a meal with Amaretto and a chocolate crepe with nutella filling is amazing. Just superb. Yum!

Mambo Italiano - Redux!

Yesterday, my commute was hellacious. (Granted, mine and about 1 million other people.) So after spending a day in a city filled to the brim with water and cranky people, my sister made the plea to my mother: "Can we have pizza for dinner?!" The response: "Oh yes!" Granted, my mother didn't have to commute in the craziness that ensued yesterday, but she did have to sit in bumper to bumper traffic and get no where. And we all love pizza. And, it was way to hot to consider cooking. So, we pulled up a menu of a local place (that's super tasty) and ordered a lot of food (you know it's a lot when my dad can't even finish everything):

Pizza (which was really very tasty - better than we expected)
Eggplant Parmigiana (mmm...fried goodness, and we all know I love eggplant...)
Pasta Primevera (with huge chunks of garlic)
Pasta Something with Tomatoes, Olives, and Artichoke Hearts (my sister's fav)

For dessert: Ice Cream. Cause it was that kind of night.

This was a momentous event because: a) we infrequently order take out: because 1) we're kosher; 2) we don't want to seem like the rest of American; 3) it's unhealthy; and, b) we don't eat Italian food as much as we do other cuisines (as a family, not me!) because my dad thinks carbs are evil (they're not! Moderation my dear friend!). But it was a tasty evening. And made up for the bad, cranky day. Viva Italia!

Also, this event has reminded me to think about the changing demographics, or perhaps in an economist's POV (Thanks, Ty!), because where the local pizza place is, there used to be a Chinese restaurant. We all know Jews eat a lot of Chinese food (well, NY Jews do) and my small, suburban town is no longer as "Jewish." Therefore, a Chinese restaurant will not do as well in an area where no one wants to eat Chinese food (which is sad, because they had really tasty food!!), so in comes a different cuisine, catering to a different group of people. Interesting, eh?

In other eggplant news, Tuesday night for dinner, my mom made a really tasty eggplant mushroom soup. It's good hot and cold, and super tasty.

Mambo Italiano

This was a weekend of Italian food! Molto Delicious-o!

First, on Saturday night my sister and I ate at a really nice (and expensive) Italian restaurant. Why? She received a sizable gift certificate so we decided to live it up.

Pre-first Course: Amazing bread. Mmmm
First Course - Shared: Spinach Salad with warm goat cheese. What can be better than that? And there wasn't too much dressing - it was perfect.
Second Course - Sister: Stuffed Chicken Breast with Fontina Cheese and Prosciutto. She thoroughly enjoyed it.
Second Course - Sherbs: Parpadelle with Wild Mushrooms in (I think) a wine-mushroom sauce. Oh my, it was tasty. I think the Parpadelle was a bit too long and should have been cut a bit shorter, but it was really good. And I love mushrooms....mmm...especially with pasta...
Pre-Third Course: Biscotti. The sign of a good restaurant: they bring you a pre-desert cookie.
Third Courses - Sister: Italian Cheese Cake. It wasn't the original desert she wanted, but it was good.
Third Course - Sherbs: Grilled Peach with Cream Sauce and Berries. Wow. More fruit should be grilled and served with cheese.

Although the best part of the meal was having the valet park our (economical and fuel efficient) Honda Civic far away from the other cars (Mercedes, Bentley's, Range Rovers, Escaledes (hisss....), and BMWs). Amazing.

Second, Sunday, I went to a family party upsate (meaning: Rockland County). Best part: praying the Tapenzee wouldn't fall. Mostly cause it was only supposed to last 50 years. And it's 52 years later. Oops.

Real best part: hanging out with family and eating Italian food. They had penne ala vodka and eggplant rolatini which was really good. Real, real best part: Canoli Birthday Bake. Basically, the filler icing was canoli filling. Oh man, was it amazing.

Mario Batali Would Be Jealous of My Italian Food Skills

Enough about other silly things like growing up. Let's talk about what we really want to hear about: food.

Last night I had an adventure in cooking. I have been having boring lunches that leave me hungry and unsatisfied. Since I work a lot, dinner is often pushed to the wayside since I get home late and don't want to eat too much before bed. So, lunch is a big meal for me, also because I often don't eat until 7ish. The last few weeks I had been taking boring salads with boring proteins. But yesterday I got real and made a Polenta Lasagna.

And I tasted some last night, and it was good.

The Pedant sent me a recipe from a newspaper a few months ago for a polenta-sausage lasagna. So I made something similar, and added more veggies, less cheese, and less polenta. But, the outcome: a lasagna-esque (it's too saucy and not layered enough to be a real lasagna cheese, added mushrooms in a bit of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Then I cut up a round of ) deliciousness. I started by roasting a thinly sliced eggplant (we all know I like those) . Then I made a tomato sauce with veggie crumbles. Then I cracked some egg whites in the ricotta, garlic powder, salt, pepper and oregano. Then I sauteed briefly some protebellopolenta into slices. Then I got to layer, which is always fun.

The result: deliciousness. Granted, there wasn't enough to bind it together as a lasagna outside of the dish, but it tastes good. Next time: more polenta, more veggie crumbles. Oooo...maybe I'll make a layer of crumbles.

Later: Adventures in smoothie making!