Pasta alla Norma from “Four Seasons of Pasta” - diced eggplant is oven roasted and mixed with tomato sauce made from mashed diced tomatoes, red onion, garlic, ancho chili and dried mint. Finished with olives, parmesan and basil and served with penne.
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Very nice meal!
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Lucky guests! I love a surprise element.
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Thanks!
Digital phones often take pictures that look a lot darker, with off color balances, during candid shots. That’s one of the reasons the use of filters has become so popular. I think your photos look great (and tasty)!
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Dunno, I’m a terrible photographer, and my lowly iphone SE takes pretty great pics just doing point n shoot — no filters necessary. I’m never upgrading again!!! 
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Met up with a buddy for a bite and a drank at the “European-style,” Portuguese-inflected Grace & Proper, a corner joint we’d discovered walking home after dinner on Monday — the main reason being that they had a #superbock on their IG account. SUPERBOCK! I mean…. we had to, right?? If only to take advantage of yet another gorgeous late afternoon / early evening in the sun 
The place is super-popular & filled up quickly, but we’d gotten there early & snagged a table inside after spending a few minutes on the incredibly uncomfortable outdoor chairs.
The strange thing here is that there’s an auto-grat of 20% added to the check, regardless of the size of your party. It is also not mentioned anywhere: not on the menu, not on their website, not on their IG account. So, if you don’t know, you may be surprised, but we tend to tip 20% anyway.
HOWEVER, you go to the bar to order your drinks & pick them up yourself, you order food at the bar (which at least is delivered to your table, and you don’t have to bus it yourself), and there’s the brilliant idea of providing free sparkling or regular water from a tap over a large sink near the bar (self-service, too, natch).
So… whom am I tipping here, exactly, and for what? 
Never mind we waited endlessly for our summer veg with lemon aioli, while our friend who arrived late almost immediately got her sardine torta.
Well, turns out they forgot our order. We nixed it and got the bifana and the “Euromuff” for yours truly — the only true euromuff at the table, after all 
The bifana was kinda boring, my sammich nice but perhaps not worth returning for 
I’m heading back home today via train to Lewistown (my first train ride stateside ever, IYCBI!!!) for our show tomorrow — a day early to be on the safe side, and also so I can celebrate several birthdays tonight that occurred in my ladies group this past week 
Crashing with a good friend who is just about to embark on a semester abroad in Hamburg, and it sure will be interesting to figure out all the logistics.
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I had intended on having a wrap and roll type dish last night using one of the chicken breasts in the freezer but the only ingredient I had left was the chicken part 
So I stirfried the chicken breast I had already defrosted with the last of the broccoli and the second to last carrot in the fridge. I added a little garlic and dried oregano, deglazed the pan with a little chicken broth the served over spaghetti.
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Very nice!
Making Corn Stock from the Cobs, good call.
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Thank you so much.
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I went to a thanksgiving dinner once where one of the guests brought a huge honking bowl of pearl onions in some kind of port glaze. They had hand-peeled every one of them. I cannot even imagine … (they were fabulous btw)
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Am I high or am I still cleaning out the fridge/freezer??
No hot dog buns in the house, but there were burger buns in the freezer.
One with caramelized bbq onions, mayonnaise and cheese, the other with pickles, catsup/mustard and pickled red onions and cheese .
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Sometimes those correlate! 
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Melissa Clark’s caramel salmon, salt and pepper (Sichuan, white, black) haricots, brown jasmine rice, and a few cucumber slices. Good if a bit salty on the sauce.
Enjoyed with some of our Finger Lakes wine haul.
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Saw the half of a large bag of Rana cheese tortellini in my freezer last night, and half of that became dinner, along with 3/4 of a lovely CSA tomato that had a growing spot of ick.
Cooked the tortellini and drained.
Chopped the tomato (augmented with halved Spiral Path Sweets tomatoes from Wegmans). Sauteed in hot olive oil, adding some white wine, a squish of tomato paste, salt, and Aleppo pepper while it reduced and became a bit saucy. Added 1 Tbsp or so of heavy cream and stirred it in.
Tossed in the rest of a small container of baby spinach, let it wilt, and added the tortellini to heat up again.
Topped with a sprinkle of grated Parm-Reg.
Wine on the side, and it was a good dinner.
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Jacques Pepin’s souffle with spinach, bacon, and gruyere. A cucumber and chive salad in vinaigrette. Gougeres (more gruyere).
ETA: DH had the brilliant idea of stuffing a bit of souffle inside the Gougeres - delightful!
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Dumplings R Us, apparently! moar from the freezer stash (we’re still working on his, haven’t even gotten to mine yet), plus the BF’s pa jeon (Korean scallion pancake.)
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wow, that IS inspired! i love gougeres so much and have never made them.
