Friday, July 28th
Menu: Chadwick's in Old Town - calamari, fish tacos, sweet potato fries, and a burger. Another week of work is over (for Andrew, not me I still have one more week of vacation before I start my new job :) ) and we decide to head out to unwind a little bit. We're both very grateful for this plan after we spend a good amount of time at the UPS distro center after 7:30pm trying to get our monthly delivery of Gundlach-Bundschu wine out of their hands. We both end up frustrated and in awe of the confusion of the operation, but we walk out with our wine in hand. Unfortunately, it appears that the bottles (2 bottles of their 2004 Rheinfarm Zin) may have been affected by the heat (the reason why it was important we got the bottles tonight and they did not spend the weekend in the UPS trailer cooking). The cork on one bottle looks a little swollen and there's some leakage. We'll open the one that appears damaged this weekend to check out the true extent.
Anyway, on to dinner, we made our first trip to Chadwick's in Old Town, Alex. It was a good meal, very reasonable prices and the type of comfortable food that we were both looking for. We split the fried calamari with hot peppers and marinara; I'm orginially from New England and have high standards for this dish. Chadwick's came up on par after I had dumped the dish of hot peppers over the calamari. The marinara was excellent and the calamari itself was fried perfectly, still tender, not at all chewy. I then had the fish tacos; they were fine, but of course, not San Diego fish tacos. Andrew had the burger (he has his own search for the best burger in VA going on at all times - current tops is Pat Troy's) which he deemed "good, but the patty was a little too thin." We both also had the Chadwick's Hefeweisen which was very refreshing on a 95 degree night!
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
Pink Sauce, Again
Thursday, July 27th
Menu: Penne with chicken and pink sauce, mixed greens with blueberries, dried cranberries, and scallions in a cranberry-lemon vinagrette, bread with olive oil.
Thursdays at our house are typically the beginning of an effort to clean out the fridge. This is more successful some weeks than others (with success being measured by how much is actually cleaned out of the fridge and re-used). Today scored pretty low (only a small bowl of pasta sauce and half a container of blueberries) but tasted good, plus I managed to make a meal using only one pot. Another rare occurrence in our house, as Andrew reminded me last night. I once made a five ingredient dish extolling the idea of simplicity and ended up using about 12 different bowls and pans to make it. Andrew laughed as I worked my way through cleaning the dishes! Anyway, for tonight's meal I used the leftover pink sauce from last weekend's pizza and tossed it with penne and chicken which were both cooked in chicken stock. My one complaint of the meal is that I used a whole grain pasta which was a little too heavy for the sauce. Still came out good but the flavor of the sauce would have come through a little bit more if I had used regular pasta.
Menu: Penne with chicken and pink sauce, mixed greens with blueberries, dried cranberries, and scallions in a cranberry-lemon vinagrette, bread with olive oil.
Thursdays at our house are typically the beginning of an effort to clean out the fridge. This is more successful some weeks than others (with success being measured by how much is actually cleaned out of the fridge and re-used). Today scored pretty low (only a small bowl of pasta sauce and half a container of blueberries) but tasted good, plus I managed to make a meal using only one pot. Another rare occurrence in our house, as Andrew reminded me last night. I once made a five ingredient dish extolling the idea of simplicity and ended up using about 12 different bowls and pans to make it. Andrew laughed as I worked my way through cleaning the dishes! Anyway, for tonight's meal I used the leftover pink sauce from last weekend's pizza and tossed it with penne and chicken which were both cooked in chicken stock. My one complaint of the meal is that I used a whole grain pasta which was a little too heavy for the sauce. Still came out good but the flavor of the sauce would have come through a little bit more if I had used regular pasta.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Cheese Souffles
Wednesday, July 26th
Menu: Goat cheese souffles, mixed green salad with sauteed shrimp and herb vinagrette; for dessert (a rarity in our house) goat's milk vanilla ice cream (LaLoo's - yum!) topped with caramelized baby bananas, chopped almonds, and chocolate sauce.
Okay, I really don't understand why there is such terror around making souffles. They are easy to make and of the ones I have made, can be done ahead and refrigerated, leaving only the baking to be done at the last minute. So anyway, last night was my first experiment with a cheese souffle, goat cheese specifically. It was incredibly good, rich and creamy, with the melt in your mouth texture that makes souffles amazing. The recipe came from the May 2001 issue of Bon Appetit and I did follow the recipe this time, except for making the souffles ahead of time and refrigerating them until I was ready to start dinner. I let them come to room temp before baking and they were perfect. Even with his aversion to mushy food, I think Andrew has become a souffle lover; he definitely approved of this dinner although he did make sure to caveat that nothing can top the warm chocolate souffles that I make. He has nothing to worry about - they're not coming off the rotation of regular desserts for special occasions!
Menu: Goat cheese souffles, mixed green salad with sauteed shrimp and herb vinagrette; for dessert (a rarity in our house) goat's milk vanilla ice cream (LaLoo's - yum!) topped with caramelized baby bananas, chopped almonds, and chocolate sauce.
Okay, I really don't understand why there is such terror around making souffles. They are easy to make and of the ones I have made, can be done ahead and refrigerated, leaving only the baking to be done at the last minute. So anyway, last night was my first experiment with a cheese souffle, goat cheese specifically. It was incredibly good, rich and creamy, with the melt in your mouth texture that makes souffles amazing. The recipe came from the May 2001 issue of Bon Appetit and I did follow the recipe this time, except for making the souffles ahead of time and refrigerating them until I was ready to start dinner. I let them come to room temp before baking and they were perfect. Even with his aversion to mushy food, I think Andrew has become a souffle lover; he definitely approved of this dinner although he did make sure to caveat that nothing can top the warm chocolate souffles that I make. He has nothing to worry about - they're not coming off the rotation of regular desserts for special occasions!
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Ballpark Food!!!
Tuesday, July 25th - Nats Win!
A trip to RFK tonight thanks to our friends with tickets. Better yet, they had Diamond Club tickets which translates into all the ballpark food you can eat!!! While the veggie burrito got a glance, who can turn down pretzels, hot dogs, bratwurst, ice cream and of course, peanuts, while watching a game?!?
A trip to RFK tonight thanks to our friends with tickets. Better yet, they had Diamond Club tickets which translates into all the ballpark food you can eat!!! While the veggie burrito got a glance, who can turn down pretzels, hot dogs, bratwurst, ice cream and of course, peanuts, while watching a game?!?
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Monday Noodles
Monday, July 24th
Menu: A regular standby, Ruth Reichl's Sort-of-Thai Noodles (modified slightly), chunky vegetable salad (yellow and red tomatoes, cukes, onion, green pepper, scallions dressed with red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper). Modification to the Thai Noodles - added a couple of tablespoons of spicy peanut sauce (for which I cannot find the recipe) that I used on Szechuan Green Beans recently. Added a little spice and additional peanut flavor - very good.
Menu: A regular standby, Ruth Reichl's Sort-of-Thai Noodles (modified slightly), chunky vegetable salad (yellow and red tomatoes, cukes, onion, green pepper, scallions dressed with red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper). Modification to the Thai Noodles - added a couple of tablespoons of spicy peanut sauce (for which I cannot find the recipe) that I used on Szechuan Green Beans recently. Added a little spice and additional peanut flavor - very good.
Time Off - Pesto, Pizza and More
Wednesday, July 19th
I'm on vacation from work and taking advantage of my time off to finally treat Andrew to the ideas I've been talking about for months!
Menu - pan-seared halibut with tomato vinagrette, steamed green beans, and rosemary bread. A relatively simple supper as we've just gotten back from a week of vacation and I don't have the energy for a huge shopping trip. The inspiration for the meal is a recipe from Food and Wine's latest issue. As usual, I start with the basics of their recipe and then pursue my own diversions. Here, instead of the tomato vinagrette specified in the recipe I decide to use my own tomato bruscetta topping (chopped tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, capers, olives, olive oil, balsamic vinegar) as the sauce for the halibut.
Thursday, July 20th
Menu - broiled lamb chops, summer squash and zucchini sauteed with red and yellow onions, egg noodles with "special sauce". Special sauce (which will never be made quite the same again): olive oil, white wine vinegar, onion & garlic jam from Stonewall Kitchen, green onions, the leftover tomato topping from yesterday's halibut, and some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Turned out really good, a little sweet from the jam, with the kick of the vinegars.
Friday, July 21st
Today is just prep day for tomorrow. After a long week, Andrew and I are headed out for the evening.
First up - Pesto; the basil in the garden is going crazy and we need to use it or lose it. I spent 2 hours yesterday at my favorite grocery store, Wegmans and of course, I still forgot to buy chicken stock. Why we don't have any stocked down stairs is beyond me, but instead of making my preferred recipe for pesto (courtesy of Cooking Light mag) I'm trying out the one from Ruth Reichl's Gourmet cookbook. I almost follow the recipe; okay I don't really follow it at all except for using the same ingredients. The result is a very cheesy pesto, but probably decent for my intended use - Pizza.
My brilliant idea is to add pesto to the pizza dough, thereby creating the base for the ultimate pesto pizza. I add about a tablespoon to my dough recipe and the dough looks and smells fantastic. I also make one plain dough for my pizza alla vodka special.
Night Out in Old Town: Appetizers and beer @ Pat Troys, dinner at the new Tapas place on King St. (good sangria, food was okay), drinks at Restaurant Eve (can never go wrong here!)
I'm on vacation from work and taking advantage of my time off to finally treat Andrew to the ideas I've been talking about for months!
Menu - pan-seared halibut with tomato vinagrette, steamed green beans, and rosemary bread. A relatively simple supper as we've just gotten back from a week of vacation and I don't have the energy for a huge shopping trip. The inspiration for the meal is a recipe from Food and Wine's latest issue. As usual, I start with the basics of their recipe and then pursue my own diversions. Here, instead of the tomato vinagrette specified in the recipe I decide to use my own tomato bruscetta topping (chopped tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, capers, olives, olive oil, balsamic vinegar) as the sauce for the halibut.
Thursday, July 20th
Menu - broiled lamb chops, summer squash and zucchini sauteed with red and yellow onions, egg noodles with "special sauce". Special sauce (which will never be made quite the same again): olive oil, white wine vinegar, onion & garlic jam from Stonewall Kitchen, green onions, the leftover tomato topping from yesterday's halibut, and some freshly grated parmesan cheese. Turned out really good, a little sweet from the jam, with the kick of the vinegars.
Friday, July 21st
Today is just prep day for tomorrow. After a long week, Andrew and I are headed out for the evening.
First up - Pesto; the basil in the garden is going crazy and we need to use it or lose it. I spent 2 hours yesterday at my favorite grocery store, Wegmans and of course, I still forgot to buy chicken stock. Why we don't have any stocked down stairs is beyond me, but instead of making my preferred recipe for pesto (courtesy of Cooking Light mag) I'm trying out the one from Ruth Reichl's Gourmet cookbook. I almost follow the recipe; okay I don't really follow it at all except for using the same ingredients. The result is a very cheesy pesto, but probably decent for my intended use - Pizza.
My brilliant idea is to add pesto to the pizza dough, thereby creating the base for the ultimate pesto pizza. I add about a tablespoon to my dough recipe and the dough looks and smells fantastic. I also make one plain dough for my pizza alla vodka special.
Night Out in Old Town: Appetizers and beer @ Pat Troys, dinner at the new Tapas place on King St. (good sangria, food was okay), drinks at Restaurant Eve (can never go wrong here!)
Saturday, July 22nd
Time to put the pizza plan into action. I start by making two additional sauces. The first is a spicy traditional red sauce. Nothing fancy here, just chopped tomatoes, garlic, fresh parsley and basil, and salt and pepper. The second is a pink sauce (recipe below) The secret to today's sauces are San Marzano tomatoes (they make all the difference) and anchovy paste.
Menu:
Pizza #1 - Basil pizza dough (shaped into a rectangle about 4x10"), two thin stripes of the pesto I made yesterday, the red sauce goes between the stripes and is topped with fresh mozzarella cheese and diced red onions
Pizza # 2 "Pizza alla Vodka" - Plain pizza dough, pink sauce, prosciutto, fresh basil, sweet yellow onion, and freshly grated romano cheese
Wine: Sakonnet Vineyards Rose
End Result: Both pizzas are very tasty with the Pizza alla Vodka being my favorite. The pesto pizza is a little doughy and on the next attempt I would try and even thinner crust and grill it rather than bake.
Pink Sauce for Pizza alla Vodka (also can be used over pasta)
Saute garlic and shallot in olive oil (2 cloves garlic, 1 shallot). Add san marzano tomatoes (I used about 8 oz) and vodka (1 or 2 swirls around the pan) and cook for a few minutes. Add salt and pepper, anchovy paste (a teaspoon or two), and half and half (enough to give sauce light pink color). Let cook for a few minutes giving the sauce time to come together, add freshly chopped basil and remove from the stove. The longer you let it sit the more the flavors will come together and the better the taste will be.
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