We enjoyed an excellent dinner at F1rst Restaurant, in Hawthorne, NJ, including pork chop; crab cakes with crispy slaw, green apples and cranberry aioli; gnocchi; crispy brie salad; crispy truffle fries. More details are listed on the menu. It all went great with an excellent red blend and cabernet.
I had a hankering for chicken paprikaaaaaaaash, probz triggered by the mere sight of egg noodz in my twirly kitchen cabinet earlier today, and it became a bit of an idée fixe 
But FIRST, our amazing news for the day: it was Jonesy’s turn at the vet & we’d been dreading it, but both the leukemia and FIV tests came back negative! 
What an incredible relief. It certainly makes us question the accuracy of Jake’s diagnosis last week, but for now we’ll take it!
Bc two of our friends had good professional news to celebrate & invited us over for HH drinks I made sure to take care of my mise beforehand: organic BLSL chicken thighs that I trimmed of most of the fat and other stupid shit & cut into bite-sized pieces. Chopped up half a shallot & 3 garlic cloves & the rest of the parsley. Cut up a gloriously blood-red pepper & several big brown cremini, crushed garlic and diced the other half shallot and let sit in lemon juice w/salt to augment CK’s ranch dressing for the salad. Cut up flavor bombs & half an English cuke.
My boo had to stay home as he is still sickly with a minor-I-mean-man-cold 
, so I didn’t stay out late. All I had to do was toss the chicken pieces in a blend of hot Hungarian paprika, smoked paprika & cayenne, fry them up in butter until nicely browned, remove, sauté the shallot & garlic, add the cremini & red peppers, deglaze with a splash of Sicilian rosé, add a blob of tomato paste, chicken broth & add the chicken back in. Let that simmer while the egg noodz cooked, finished the sauce with a squeeze o’ lemon, a healthy glug of heavy cream, and parsley.
Salad was nice, too.
Dinner hit all the spots, but today I could’ve eaten a shoe and be as happy as a pig in shit! 
I don’t know what you call the results Natascha, but they look good.
Chicken shawarma pitas with roasted veggies and cucumber-yogurt sauce. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Yum!
Salt-and-pepper wings in the convection oven. Pasta salad in a house vinaigrette with spinach, red and green peppers, diced ham, black olives, pine nuts, and parmesan.
Papardelle and king oysters with Boursin Black Truffle & Sea Salt sauce. Mushrooms were sauteed in butter and oo, shallot, garlic, a splash of wine, chicken broth, the cheese and parsley were added. Sicilian fennel and orange salad, mixed greens, red onion, celery, kalamata olives, fennel fond. Dressing was rice vinegar, oj and zest, garlic, oo.
I mean I’m ok with calling this paprikaș, but I’m far from a purist 
Sunshine & Neighbor #2 had Bone-In Chicken thighs (with BBQ Sauce), baked potato and green beans for dinner.
Crimini mushrooms stuffed with ground lamb, the minced cores of the shrooms, and crumbled romano. A little underdone in the air fryer, so into the microwave for a minute. Mashed potatoes and haricots.
Very simplified Cassoulet from Dinner by Recipetin - made in the oven with pork sausage, bacon, cannellini beans, cherry tomatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, thyme, rosemary, bay leaves, tomato paste, white wine, chicken broth. Topped and finished with a mixture of panko crumbs, parsley and olive oil and quickly browned under the broiler
Thanks! Tasty AND healty! 
My PIC’s still feeling poorly, so I ventured out on my own to pick up a buncha things at Aldi, Wegmans and TJ’s, including more cold meds. Hope he gets a more restful night of sleep than last 
WFD was a combination of leftovers: the last 4 escargots & crisped up Chongqing chicken from the air-fryer as our apps, and last night’s leftover paprikas & egg noodz,
plus a salad of iceberg, maters, cukes & avo with buttermilk ranch dressing. Simples.
Since I felt in a celebratory mood today I finally made the dark berry sauce to have with a scoop each of Tillamook’s chocolate hazelnut & mocha almond fudge ice cream for dessert later tonight. Tastee!
Lots of errands after Haircut Day.
So I hadn’t had much to eat until I got home.
I made myself a mid-afternoon Scooby Snack of some slices of Tillamook cheddar and Havarti, some homemade garlic and herb cheese spread (needs some work), some Melba Toast sea salt crackers, and some grapes and sections of a Wegmans Satsuma mandarin.
Dinner was light: large sea scallops seared in a bit of butter with some sautéed baby spinach (a LOT less than I thought I’d be able to rescue) with a pinch of salt and Aleppo pepper, with some fresh pom arils schprinkled on the plate.
It satisfied, and there was wine.
I hate it when that happens. Trying to separate the leaves that are still good from sticky green slush 
Dinner was a hodgepodge of flavors. Shrimp cooked in margarine, jarlic, and TJ’s Cuban style citrusy garlic seasoning served on small corn tortillas with avocado crema, and honey mustard slaw. I enjoyed them. Rice was jasmine with unsalted Rotel and TJ’s all purpose furikake seasoning. The rice was vile. I recommend never buying unsalted Rotel for any reason. It tastes like can.
Pizza night. Thin crust, baked in a pan, with homemade marinara, two cheeses, pepperoni, and black olives.
Served with a very sad salad from the bottom of our veggie bin.
We enjoyed another outstanding dinner at The Farmer’s Daughter, in Newton, NJ, including crispy fried lamb chops topped with mustard seed cream with sautéed cabbage and mashed potatoes; creamy butternut squash gemelli with sage sausage crumbles and crispy greens; crispy potato pancake topped with scallop and lobster; casino style clams; calamari with roasted garlic and tomatoes. It all went great with a couple of excellent cabernets.
