My Valentine’s Day celebration-egg salad san after Casablanca on the big screen.
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C’est fantastique!
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I made a leek, bacon, ham, gruyère quiche with a hash brown crust. It was good but the crust only got crisp on the sides. If I was to make another I would crisp up the bottom on the stove before putting it in the oven, but I think I would rather make a tortilla Española. Arugula salad and a Manhattan.
eta: I make the quiche in an 8" cast iron skillet.
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Pizza Saturday. Getting ready for the outdoor oven . Practice on making the dough. Was I
happy with results in the kitchen oven .Yes .A little underbaked . Normally cook at 875 degrees. Was it good . Yes .
Zucchini puree with sun dried tomato pesto , topped with sliced Zucchini. Cheers.
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YEA!! Looking forward to your creations from your pizza oven…
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Ooh, hash brown crust. Pondering…
I also made fondue out of a huge block of compte a friend gave me in Belgium recently, made it with cornstarch and the last bit of Chardonnay languishing in the fridge. It was so good, served with fresh baked sourdough, steamed broccoli and apples, followed by chocolate
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No stores here carry either of the chili pastes (not even the 2 larger supermercados I visited yesterday) so i guess I’ll have to reach out to uncle Jeffy.
I think we lucked out at a Latin store either in Philly or PGH when we were there last, and those pastes last forever — plus you don’t use a bunch, essential as they are to both marinade and aji verde.
Pretty sure Mallwart carries at least the aji amarillo, but our feelings about that store and fucking Amazon are pretty similar.
Good luck!
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The gig at the brewery about 30 min south of us went well. Place was busy & peeps seemed happy on this super-speshul day.
I’d told the dudes that we each had to pick a different entrée so we could try them all. I’d chosen the firecracker salmon fried rice, my keys the Spanish shrimp & chorizo grits, and my bass the prime rib… well, his was the only “choice” left 
First up a ‘three-hearted’ salad with a very good Green Goddess dressing. I’m usually annoyed by the slab of lettuce plopped on a plate, i.e. ‘deconstructed’ salads one has to cut themselves, but the dressing more than made up for the silliness.
The owner apologized that the kitchen was backed up, and that we therefore would be getting our entrees before the tapas. The shrimp & grits showed up first, with plump, perfectly cooked shrimp over kronchy, cheesy grits. I’m not a grits specialist but thought these probz had more chew than they should (?). Also, the heaping mound of raw onion in the middle was a bit puzzling 
Next came the prime rib with mashed & broc — a massive slab of meat on the med-well side, but tender and flavorful. The bassist was happy with it 
My salmon over rice showed up last. It was a’ight. A massive portion of “fried” rice (kinda like when I overcrowd the wok 
), and both the salmon marinade and rice seasoning had a teeny tiny lil tickle — the firecracker part, I suppose
Even though neither the bass nor I came even close to finishing our plates (we gave our leftovers to the keys to take home), the owner insisted on bringing MOAR food to our table, i.e. the tapas.
The lamb & veal meatballs were quite good,
the speck & cheese croquetas skrompshiss (no pics), and finally the mussels in jalapeño sherry reduction really faboski, but I was positively stuffed at that point, and we had about 35 min left after our dinner to play a 60 min set list 
… so we played all the songs double-tempo 
Got home around 10pm & very happy to get back in my PJs. 2 gigs down, 2 to go before a short break. Phew!
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Normally we try to avoid visiting any restaurants in Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving etc as these are the worst days but sometimes when you are traveling you can’t avoid such visits. After some searching we found one more upscale restaurant in San Diego which didn’t seem to take part in any serious Valentine’s Day stuff and in addition was one of our stops which we liked a lot when we lived in SD - Cucina Enoteca. Very good Italian inspired food with house-made pasta, pizza etc. It was as good as we remembered it from the old days
Grilled octopus, heirloom tomato, red onion, cucumber, sundried tomato relish, colatura vinaigrette
Italian chopped salad, escarole, radicchio, green bean, cherry tomato, cucumber, provolone, pepperoncini, ceci bean, almond, dill, oregano vinaigrette, rosemary breadcrumbs
Charred hispi cabbage, butter bean puree, chili crunch oil, ricotta salata, sourdough pangrattato, dill
Rigatoni bolognese, veal, pork, lemon ricotta
Short rib mafaldine, mushroom, cherry tomato, baby kale, parmesan
Maple leaf farm duck breast, strawberry jus, rosa chicory, potato, pea tendril, huckleberry
Chocolate budino, salted caramel, vanilla whip, chocolate crumble, cocoa nib tuile
Pavlova, strawberry, passion fruit curd, whipped creme fraiche
Tiramisu, marsala caramel, espresso soaked lady finger, whipped mascarpone, crushed hazelnut
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Looks like a great meal!
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Looks like an incredible meal, especially the duck and desserts.
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Go for it.
I bought my aji amarilo paste from uncle jeffy. I recommend freezing left over, mine had grown grey fuzz by the time I was ready to use it again.
https://a.co/d/079MpJZe here’s a trio
DH was jonesing for bone-in pork chops, sauerkraut, apple sauce and mashed potatoes. Couldn’t say no.
Would of liked a better sear on the chops but the cook was perfect.
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