Well, zucchine or courgette is on the agenda … I bought some red tomatoes for tomato sauce for pasta and red bell peppers which we love sliced in strips and grilled in Evoo with a sprinkle of fine grained Basque sea salt. And quite a bit of bitter salad field greens (arugula … we call it rucola), fennel and also blood oranges (did not take photograph). These are “Makro´s” presentations …
Also melanzane (aubergines or eggplants) which we love baked as in “parmigiani” and shallots, radicchio, celery, chard, onions, radishes and what we call “cebolletas” which are both a green scallion stemmed onion with dangling onion sphericals … Leeks, endives and garlic. Very basic.
Some are basics for all dishes that are Mediterranean.
Went very simple for dinner tonight: chicken thighs drizzled with olive oil, then dusted with a mix of paprika, dried basil, oregano, and parsley, garlic powder, and s/p. Roasted at 425° for 20 minutes, then turned down to 350° for the remaining 15 minutes.
Sides were steamed asparagus and leftover rice pilaf. And wine. Except the wine wasn’t leftover. Well, I guess it kinda-sorta was, since it was left from the last time I had a glass of wine earlier this week. Either way, it was consumed.
Well with the 2nd snow storm of the season upon us in the North East US it’s time for some chili. (Really for tomorrow and super bowl) Chicken Madeira from last week was a hit and requested for dinner tonight.
We had another fabulous dinner at Il Nido. We enjoyed fork tender veal osso bucco; crispy black sea bass; crispy duck confit salad; fresh pasta with rock shrimp, scallops, and mussels; crab and spinach stuffed oysters; charcuterie board. It all went great with an excellent Amarone and Chateauneuf Du Pape.
I’ve given up on crab bisque. I tried two recipes and they were good but did not have the depth of flavor I wanted. What to do with the rest of my crab broth? Cioppino! Messy but delicious. There was a crusty baguette and garlic herb butter to go with.
Super Bowl Sunday just isn’t the same when it’s only 3 people. Mini party included:
Homemade chili and cornbread
Ribs (really nailed the espresso/brown sugar rub)
Spicy Dogs from a local specialty store. (Call me a purest only spicy brown mustard)
My Super Bowl menu was country-style pork ribs, dry-rubbed with a pork rub of brown sugar, paprika, medium-hot chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme and s/p, slow-baked in the oven, finished in the last hour with Trader Joe’s Brown Sugar BBQ sauce.
Sides were deviled eggs, and a Wegmans-purchased broccoli-cauliflower-carrot-red cabbage slaw augmented with more shredded carrots and some raisins, with a dressing of mayo, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, sugar, s/p.
Yesterday I ordered from a local home catering business I’ve been wanting to patronize for months.
Two sisters, quite young, making a handful of Lao dishes. They even dropped the food off - very professionally packaged.
Two kinds of fried spring rolls - one in a lacy wrapper, the other one normal. Lao sausage - mild. Lao savory beef jerky - milk. Papaya salad - regular mild, and vegetarian mild. And sticky rice for the kiddos who love it.
All the food was homestyle - a bit rustic. The sausage was deliciously flavored, but there were bits of lime leaf and gristle that had to be dealt with. The jerky was delicious, if a tad drier than I’ve had before. The papaya salad was gorgeous - they packed everything separately with instructions, and mixing it fresh made a difference. The spring rolls - which was the whole reason I ordered - were slightly disappointing, though - the filling to wrapper ratio was off.
BUT - I was happy to try them, and will again. I’ll probably write them a note with feedback this week - they’re fairly new at it, so maybe it will be helpful.