Red Cabbage Risotto with Roasted Pork Tenderloin and Caramelized Onions from “Risotto Risotti” - pork tenderloin pan-seared and finished in the oven at 450F. Vidalia onion simply caramelized with some olive oil and salt. Risotto done with carnaroli rice, onion, red cabbage, white wine and chicken broth and finished with butter, parmesan and parsley
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We enjoyed an excellent dinner at The Farmer’s Daughter, in Newton NJ. We haven’t been here in almost 4 months due to Route 80 being closed in both directions, because of sinkholes. We really missed this place. We received a warm welcome from the staff, who really missed us as well. I brought them 2 bottles of wine to enjoy after service.
We enjoyed a refreshing rainbow tuna salad; soft shell crab; veal chop with charred green onions, fried spinach, and a pesto cream sauce; beef carpaccio with filet mignon, capers, and arugula; Mediterranean fries tossed with fresh herbs, sheep milk feta crumbles, and roasted garlic aioli for dipping. It all went great with a couple of excellent red blends.
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I found some lamb chunks in the freezer, so I made Greek youvetsi. I added green beans and mushrooms. Ziti, myzithra cheese.
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Absolutely. If only I only had 6 lbs to lose. You are clearly doing great so do as you do.
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You are too kind 
Hard to bungle a dish with such good ingredients 
Love, love, love youvetsi. Nice twist with the fasolakia and shrooms!
Made it to Ortigia, after another morning at the beach & a quick lunch using up some of the stuff we still had in the fridge / on the counter at La Casa Piccolina 
Driving into the town gave my PIC heart palpitations, what with all the tiny alleys — one of which being where our hotel was located. Thank goodness for the valet, who took the car off our hands just around the corner, where we’d parked.
We walked around to get a feel for the place. It’s gorgeous. It’s also very crowded. There are a LOT of tourists, which is quite the contrast to the relatively quiet and underdeveloped sliver of the island we were just hours prior.
Naturally, we had to grab a gelato around 5pm — hard to choose from flavors like mascarpone with pistachio pesto 
or pistachio cheesecake.
My PIC got the Sicilian Brontë pistachio & a very good espresso gelato, and I had a hazelnut, almond & pistachio gelato & dark chocolate with rhum and amarena cherries.
We walked along the ocean promenade surrounding Ortigia, watching the city dwellers cool off
and many cool street cats along the way 
The most beautiful surprise, however, awaited us at a popular hangout / photo op for newly weds — a piazza near the marina: two dolphins, a mother & their offspring joyfully jumping around.
(I tried posting the short video I took, but it refuses to load anything but an insignificant jpg of water, so… you’ll just have to use your imagination I guess 
)
A worthy candidate to follow The Best Day of 2024 (and counting), which also happened to be in Sicily & also involved a group of dolphins in the sunset. How serendipitous. How lucky we are
Dinner was at a place away from the tourist mayhem, near the fish market & entirely populated by locals.
We split a very good seafood “salad”
with perfectly cooked squid, octopus, clams, mussels & a few shrimp for our antipasto.
I was in the mood for some meat & ordered the bistecca Siciliana. It was not exactly what I expected, TBH:
a lightly floured, pounded beefsteak dressed with olive oil & lemon. It was alright, but… well, not what I had in mind 
My PIC had the very good salsiccia, and we shared a plate of grilled veg as our contorno.
Cheap house white to drank with.
A martini at the hotel with a local gin that was pretty uninteresting for our nightcaps.
It’s hot as ballz today, 36˚C, so the amphitheater in Siracusa proper will have to wait till tomorrow. Time to get lunch now
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Mr Bean went fishing on Friday and caught a bunch of ling. Since we already had dinner plans, we had to wait 24 hours to have it for dinner.
We still get the paper version of the Sunday NYT. Several sections are delivered on Saturday, including the magazine, which often has an interesting recipe. This week’s is a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe for Spiced Couscous with Steamed fish which seemed like a perfect vehicle for the fish. And it was.
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Your meal sounds wonderful, but 
THAT is what caught my attention. What the everlovin’ WHAT???
And I just Googled…OMG, what a nightmare! Having lived near there years ago, I don’t even want to imagine the hell it was trying to detour around that mess. Very glad it’s opened up again, and I hope no more abandoned mine shafts collapse!
Glad you were able to get back to what is obviously one of your favorite restaurants.
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Thanks. Yes, it was a real nightmare. Route 80 is a major highway. It also affected the businesses located by the detours. They lost a lot of their regular customers, who didn’t want to spend an extra half hour, getting to their favorite places, with what used to take 5 or 10 minutes. Those local roads were not built for all of the heavy trucks and other traffic coming their way due to the detour from route 80.
Route 80 is still not fully open, but 2 of the 3 lanes are open in both directions. The traffic slows down a little for a few exits, but it’s still better than those 1/2 hour to 45 minute detours. They expect route 80 to be fully open in both directions by the end of June.
I’m looking forward to going to another favorite restaurant tonight, in Hackettstown, which I also haven’t been to in almost 4 months due to the route 80 closure.
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‘twas a hawttt one today, tho not as ridic hot as forecast. Our choice was to a) die of a heatstroke exploring Siracusa, b) spend the afternoon in our air-conditioned hotel room pretending to be newlyweds, or c) take a 1.5-hour boat tour and let the wind & wooder cool us off, which is what we did. I loved being able to get back into the water (I think I may have been a fish in a former life), and it really was a great way to escape the oppressive heat.
We had dinner at a place a friend of ours recommended, and split a very nice bruschetta.
My normal appetite has yet to return, unfortunately, so the plate of very intensely flavored local grilled shrimp with random sides (cold mushrooms, a tortilla with mint, black rice, the ever-present carrots 
) was lost on me,
but my PIC greatly enjoyed his tagliolini ai ragú.
We had a nice bottle of Zibibbo to drank with.
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@emglow101 No pizza this week??
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Delicious dinner tonight, if I do pat myself on the back. @BeefeaterRocks’ Sheet-Pan Chicken Thighs With Spicy Corn (Melissa Clark) and ATK’s Charred Cherry Tomato and Pepper Salad with fresh mozz.. My basil had grown a fuzzy beard so I subbed cilantro in the chicken recipe and parsley in the salad. Still great! Next time I’ll use corn on the cob.
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Marathi Kolambi Bhaat (shrimp and rice pilaf with garlic, ginger, coconut and chiles). Yogurt and salad to go alongside. Looking forward to leftovers tomorrow!
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I had bought a small frozen tuna steak from my local butcher awhile back. Decided it was time to defrost.
Cut it up for kebabs, and marinated for about 1.5 hours in
2 Tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
1-1/2 Tbsp honey
2 tsp roasted sesame oil
2 tsp garlic paste
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp ground ginger
Grilled on a hot grill pan with kebabs of onions, red bell pepper and sugar snap peas. Served on Basmati rice.
There was wine.
And even after 7 years, I’m still missing him in the world.
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I wept when I saw those photos of Tony. The world lost a great chef. One of the tv channels I get has been showing reruns of Parts Unknown and I am enjoying them as much as the first time I saw them.
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Tonight’s dinner is brought to you by the colour white. I forgot to make note on the recipe printout to add red curry paste to add a little colour to the dish. So, to summarize, I had a basa fillet and bok choy poached in coconut milk and served with white rice. A couple of spring rolls to start.
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Pan-fried BC halibut with a chive-and-lemon mayo. Creamed spinach and onions - both from the garden. Convection-oven spuds.
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Yesterday at my sister’s, we rotisseried a small pork shoulder, studded with garlic, for 4 hours at 275, then 250, but the garlic still hadn’t softened. The meat turned out perfect, however, so we sliced it up and ate it in red leaf lettuce wraps with the addictive scallion/ginger sauce (this time with a little fish sauce, salt & sugar - so good!), and Japanese cabbage salad.
Tonight, the BF was craving Krispy Krunchy Chicken, so I got him tenders and a thigh for me. For sides (no red beans & rice at this location!), he made potato salad and I made really creamy mac & cheese with cavatappi, and another slaw.
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