Finally pulled out two 1-cup containers of grated meatloaf meat sauce, 3/4 cup of Mutti crushed tomatoes, 1 sweet Italian sausage, and a knob of mozzarella for grating.
Baked penne with sausage and sauce, to which I added Penzeys Italian herbs, some extra basil and oregano, and Aleppo pepper. Mozzarella on top and baked at 350°.
Salad on the side (no pic) with crusty buttered roll.
Perhaps not the smartest thing to heat up the kitchen today, but better today than on Tuesday with temps in the mid to upper 90s with high humidity.
There was wine. And there will be some sliced Lori Anne peaches for dessert.
We enjoyed some excellent takeout from Pop Empanadas, in Park Ridge, NJ, which just so happens to be the same place that we enjoyed that fancy dinner Thursday night. They are an empanada shop during the day and a fancy supper club at night, Thursday through Saturday. We enjoyed an excellent Cubano sandwich with 12-Hour smoked tender pork shoulder, with premium Spanish Ham, Swiss Cheese, Pickles and Mustard; a fantastic cheesesteak sandwich with 11oz Angus beef, Grilled onions, Galbani Provolone Cheese, Garlic butter toasted bread, Ken’s Original Mayo; a delicious spicy Buffalo chicken empanada and a BBQ beef brisket empanada. The empanadas had a nice crispy flaky crust. We still have a half sandwich and empanada each for leftovers. It all went great with an excellent red Zinfandel.
I did my volunteer shift at a local art gallery today and it was fun! Out of the four of us volunteers, two are returning volunteers and the other two including me are new. The volunteers I met today are a nice group of people and I wouldn’t hesitate to volunteer again. Unfortunately the turnout was really low which is highly unusual since their events usually bring in a full house and hardly anyone showed up today. We had a thunderstorm last night with reports of a tornado touching down and trees came down and the power went out. Now the heat is going up so I’m not sure if people stayed home to clean up after the storm or if they just decided to stay in front of their air conditioners. I had a one hour break midday and we were on our own for lunch so I decided to run over to the Italian grocer for a sandwich from their lunch counter. I had a salad and deli ham for dinner tonight.
Calling all pasta makers! Something went very wrong with my spaghetti tonight. The dough was fine, and it flattened out fine. But when the time came to cut it with my Kitchen Aid spaghetti cutter, this happened:
It does have a certain aesthetic charm, but what you see here is spaghetti that is squiggly, stuck together, or both. What the hell? The cutter appeared to be clean and functional. Ideas?
Obviously I ate it, although it was clumpy and (because I tried to separate it) chopped up. With kale and mushrooms. Could be worse, I guess, but NOT BY MUCH.
I did hang them for a bit. Maybe not enough of a bit. But I feel like I follow the same method every time, and this is the first instance of whatever the hell happened tonight.
I took advantage of a recent sale on eggs and was able to make a quiche (which had previously been cost prohibited).
Tonight’s dinner was a Ham and Onion quiche. It was really nice to have this for dinner – Sunshine & I really enjoyed it!!
Freshly caught striped sea bass with tomatoes, white wine, lemon, and items from my recent CSA pickup including globe zucchini, fresh oregano and garlic scape vinaigrette.
You’re the second person to suggest that. Our a/c was on, and the dough was pretty dry and stiff. But maybe the cutter had some moisture on it. I wasn’t as attentive to flouring the dough as I could have been.
First dinner after we arrived quite late in Lisbon was directly in our hotel as we didn’t want to go far away and didn’t have a huge appetite (but the two pork knuckles turned out to be quite large - but also very, very good as a classic portuguese dish) as you get (too) well fed when flying with all the food on board and lounges. Black Pavilion https://www.torelpalacelisbon.com/dine/black-pavilion/ turned out to be much better than anticipated and the views are a special bonus
for dessert.
