Girl, I want to take you to a wine bar! Wine bar! Wine bar! Wine bar!

Let's start a war! (thing I'm babbling about in link, sound necessary)

The Sherbs and I had a "date night" last night, and for the food portion of the evening, we went to Vinoteca, a super-trendy "wine bar" on U street in DC. Our server, Lauren, was a more than capable sommelier; we started by expressing some indecision about which wine assortments to order, and she ably picked a selection of whites for the Sherbs and pinot noirs for me that were really tasty.

Vinoteca doesn't do tapas, exactly; they do, however, make small plates of things that are mostly not Spanish. I ate, in whole or part:

• their tray of sheep cheeses - you cannot go wrong with a semi-hard sheep's milk cheese,
• their portobello mushroom "sliders" - cute tiny burgers with little mushrooms in a very tasty white miso/tahini sauce,
• bow tie pasta in a sauce that was just cream and butter, with sliced truffle on top and micro-greens on the bottom. I love micro greens. They are so cute. The dish itself was "oh god this is killing me through salt, fat AND cholesterol" delicious.
  
• an apple tart lightly cooked in a lattice of puff pastry and not too sweet - mostly natural apple flavor with a hint of cinnamon. The sweetness came from the calvados sabayon, which was basically faultless.

I also drank a pretty good malbec and a fabulous Pedro Ximinez sherry. Then the Sherbs and I realized that, after two hours of really drinking and eating, we still had plenty of time before the show (darn discount tickets!). So we spent some time wandering and digesting, which was probably for the best.

My Big Fat Greek-Style Meal

I don't think The Pedant really got at how bad the Mushroom Tahini soup was - it was just odd. Good thing we had leftover eggplant parmesan to make up for it. The Joyva cookbook does have a recipe for cold noodles and sesame sauce with tahini just like how my mom used to make it. I'm excited to try that out!

Since for this recipe I bought a costco-sized box of mushrooms, we needed to finish them up this weekend. Last night I made the Roasted Mushrooms with Greek Flavors from Cook's Best which did come out really great. It had roasted peppers from the jar which made it tasty without taking away the simple flavors of the roasted mushrooms. I also made a Bean Salad from Mark Bittman's cookbook with the Greek variation. I was supposed to use fava beans but NO fava beans were to be found at the Teet so I settled for Great Northern. It was beans, red onion, garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper and olive oil. The topper: mint (and some crumbled feta). So tasty and refreshing. If I can't find fava again I think I will use chick peas (maybe even tonight since I have left over mint!).

Speaking of Greek, this New York Times article is very interesting. Growing up in Long Island where every town has an average of 4 diners (the only place cheap enough to go in High School also when you got bored of watching movies in some one's basement) it would be weird not to have the diner. Also, I loved getting the "Greek" selections on the menu: as a vegetarian teenager "Greek Pizza" or Spanikopita at a dinner was amazing

I also made a vegetarian mushroom-green bean strogonoff in the slow cooker (also had costco string beans to finish up). I messed up the recipe a bit (use fresh green beans, not steamed ones on their way to rots-ville; add mushrooms at end for 20 minutes on high with top off to thicken, not in the beginning) but I think it should be fine. Last time we made it, it came out fantastically.

Recipes Good and Bad

Got the new issue of Vegetarian Times this week; the chickpea stew and the recipe using a can of baked beans both look good.

On the flip side, while the Vegetarian Times recipes are usually pretty good, the Joyva official tahini cookbook had a really mediocre recipe for "tahini mushroom soup." Perhaps we just don't like that much rosemary (the basic broth), but its two main flavors were bland and bitter, with the addition of sauteed mushrooms.

The Sherbs used some of the leftover mushrooms last night to make a delicious "Greek style" mushroom dish from the Cook's Best cookbook.

Making a tuna casserole right now for lunch; finished off the fat free American cheese slices as the Sherbs doesn't like American cheese and I was hungry.