Last night we had Classic Escargots a la Bourguignonne with crusty baguette to soak up every drop, and sauteed sweetbreads with baby artichokes, haricots vert, and prosciutto in a lemon beurre blanc over white wine risotto.

Last night, Marcella Hazan:

Beef Patties with Anchovy, Tomato, and Mozzarella (or as they're now known Chez Xochitl, Quarter Pounders with Anchovy)
Sauteed Zucchini with Oregano
Callebaut 97% brownies (not Marcella)

Mussels in a leek-garlic cream sauce over linguini w/ a crisp sauvignon blanc.

Simple, but... orgasmic. Talk about comfort food!

Wallowing in my boredom since the significant other is away and pigging out alone...

A few slices of baguette with a lovely warm, stinky, truffled brie
A split chicken roasted with garlic and lemon served over croutons with parsley
Roasted red pepper and mache salad with a light vinegarette
A very nice Napa Pinot Blanc

When my s.o. is away, I tend to pig out in restaurants. Did you cook this for yourself? If you did, my admiration is boundless. I lose interest in creative cooking if I don't have an audience of at least one other person besides me.

Oh, yeah, chicken thrown in to roast and red pepper thrown on the gas burner as soon as I got home from work--generally don't do it when I'm alone either unless it only involves three or four things to wash afterwards like this meal did. I think the clean-up when it's only me is what I can't stand the most.

Thursday night we had Spaghetti con I Mosciole, recipe from Chef Trabocchi--not as good as when he made it, but worth working on in the future. Our main was shad roe with a balsamic beurre blanc, served over steamed baby spinach.

Last night I tried flatiron steak for the first time. Mr. S loved it, marinated in garlic, EVOO, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper, rosemary, and red pepper flakes, and seared 4 minutes per side in a hot iron skillet. We accompanied that with smashed fingerling potatoes with roasted garlic, and peas in tarragon cream.

I'm taking tonight off and letting Chef Armstrong cook for me (and Mr. S)!

Lamb chops and salad of baby greens, walnuts, goat cheese, assorted other veggies dressed with champagne vinegar and walnut oil.

spicy glazed pork tenderloin, roasted cauliflower and dense bread to sop up the glaze. (We were too hungry to wait to cook anything green!)

I have that problem a lot on weeknights!

Roast butterflied leg of lamb, savory tomato bread pudding (with tomatoes canned by Mr. S's Aunt Teresa, from her garden), and sauteed baby artichokes, fava beans, and leeks. (green stuff tonight)

Four Advil and a beer.

I can beat that. Six advil, zyrtec and a bowl of rice.

UGH. Allergies are killing me.

You only need two. Instead have four beers, an Ambien and two Advils.

And a well-stocked fridge for when the Ambien kicks in. Oh, and hide the knives before taking Ambien.

I cooked dinner at my parents' house after a trip to the Santa Monica farmers' market--four blocks worth of goodies. I'm bringing avocados and unwaxed, organic Meyer lemons home in my suitcase.

Mesclun salad with golden beets, field-grown tomatoes and chevre
Vegetable flan with chard, baby leeks and shiitake mushrooms
Peruvian purple new potatoes (the size of marbles)
Fava beans
Slow-roasted wild king salmon (from Whole Foods)

Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigar Rose

Last night we had meatless tacos with Boca "ground burger," chili-powdered onions, and oven-roasted green garlic. One of the quick standby weeknight menus, except for the green garlic, which I got from the online farmer's market last week and just could not decide what to do with. It gave a nice crunchiness to the tacos, another texture dimension.

Last night, Thai-style Chicken Salad from the latest Cook's Illustrated magazine. Tasty, but the dressing was unbalanced and the volume of it overwhelming for the chicken and vegetables.

As with so many of their recipes this will need intensive tweaking if made again - one reason why this is our last issue. They need different palates in their recipe development department.

I have chosen not to renew, also. I have gotten a few useful hints from them over the years, but not enough to justify the expense anymore. Their recipes are too bland and too fussy--I could usually tell just by reading them.

Tonight I'm going to make a warm chicken liver salad and Mollie Katzen's recipe for Chilaquile Casserole. The casserole is an old easy favorite. It's in her Still Life with Menu book, but I first found it in a magazine. I haven't tried making the salad before but I was thinking of one they have at Montmarte and trying to work with my memory of that and what I can find on the web.

Ribeye with bourbon cream sauce
Macaroni and cheese (Joy of Cooking recipe)
Peas (because I forgot to buy any other veg)

The bourbon cream sauce didn't thicken enough, and I didn't like the flavor as much as one I tried a few weeks ago so the meal ended up being a bit lighter than it sounds.

Bland and fussy - that's exactly right, Zora.

Last night's in-a-rush dinner (after picking up Scott and the kids at Dulles) was impeccably fresh greens and cucumbers from the Dupont farmer's market, with a dijon-dill vinaigrette. And a pizza from Giuseppe's.

Karly and I got picked up at Dulles last night, too. Only no one prepared an impeccably fresh-from-the-market salad for us. We stopped at Moby Dick in McLean and had lamb kabobs, which weren't bad.

Chicken pieces broiled with garlic, Meyer lemon zest, and fresh thyme; on the side, broccoli roasted in olive oil. Perfect, simple, succulent.

The last of my homemade Italian sausage, served on hard rolls with sauce. A bottle of some best forgotten Italian red wine. Too bad the NCAA championship game was over before it began.

Tonight is dirty ol' stinky cheese night. I take all those chunks of cheeses that are starting to mold, scrape and grate'em, and make my own version of Macaroni and cheese. Tonights has gruyere, comte, beaufort, a hard spanish goat cheese, even some eppoise, all mixed with heavy cram and butter and baked.

Yesterday I finished the last of my homemade bratwurst. No wonder we're making sausage for the picnic. Time to stuff the donuts.

Tonight I had rockfish. In a lemon, caper, butter sauce. With couscous. White wine.

And these god damned allergies.

I made the Pot Roast With Rhubarb and Honey from All About Braising. I certainly never would have cooked rhubarb with beef if left to my own devices, but it was really quite delicious. Allspice and coriander rub on the beef, sauce of rhubarb, honey, raisins, ginger, bay, onion, and orange peel. Three hours in the oven. Plenty of leftovers, but that was an effort of will.

Did the ratio of rhubarb:honey make this a sweet and sour dish? The spices make it sound sauerbraten-ish.

Last night we had charcoal-grilled Alaskan halibut, oven roasted fennel and carrots, pan fried new potatoes with a spice crust of smoked paprika, cumin, garlic, thyme, salt. Dessert was strawberry biscuits with strawberry-lavender coulis. Drank a fabulous bargain from Austria--2004 Glatzer Gruner Veltliner. On sale at MacArthur for $7.49. It had that wonderful crisp Gruner minerality with a core of fruit hinting of apricot. Delicious. Gotta get some more.

edited to add: the wine has been re-priced at $9.99. I got the last few bottles with the $7.49 price tags.

Actually it was mostly sour and very little sweet. Pound of rhubarb, tablespoon of honey.

Those spice-crusted potatoes sound fantastic.

Fried Kaseri cheese drizzled with saba.
Sauteed shrimp with shallot, Meyer lemon, bacon, and spinach, tossed with linguine and sprinkled with Parmesan.
Chimay Cinq Cent.

Frozen spaghetti microwaved for two minutes with fresh "pak" Kosher pickles from a jar, low (er) calorie margarine and Diet Coke.

Someone has to pay the price....

Oh, and a bottle of '97 Castilla di Ama Chianti. Spaghetti tasted pretty damned good with this, too! I have my priorities....

El Patio, Rockville: chicken empanada, chorizo y morcilla, pizzetta, alfajores and espresso. The morcilla was delicious - fatty and rich, and about the size of a bratwurst. The pizzetta was just a tad underbaked however. Can't recommend the espresso either; not much crema, and too thin. Two-thirds of the dessert list is laden with dulce de leche, so bring your insulin

Charcoal grilled, spice-rubbed chicken wings
Crusty mac and cheese--clean out the cheese drawer, grate and add to sauce soubise (bechamel with onion)--great idea, Raisa! Let's see, there was Comte, aged gouda, goat gouda, Manchego, Reggiano. All good.
Braised red chard with hot sauce

Grilled fresh pineapple with rum cream

NV Dover Canyon Paso Robles Renegade Red

Green lentil salad with crushed mustard seeds

Stir-fried geen beans with coconut
Dal with ginger, green chiles
Somosas (made with empanada disks and puff pastry) stuffed with a spiced potato & pea mixture

Basmati rice seasoned with cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves and cardamom

(I used a whole lot of mustard seeds this night.)

Stuffed pork chop with Calvados cream sauce, roasted fingerling sweet potatoes, and braised baby Bok Choy.

Pork chop was stuffed with a mixture of diced apples (Neglected to note the type...was the 'very firm/very sweet' variety I had never heard of at one of the stalls at Dupont F.M.), thyme, cornbread crumbs, calvados, and heavy cream.

Bok Choy was done in a Ming Tsai-recipe based sauce with chicken stock, garlic, and dark soy sauce. Little overdone (sigh, alright a lot overdone...I've never cooked veg this way before and the 20 minutes quoted in the recipe were too much. Being baby and all they were probably done just after the saute step. Really should have thought of that...), as embarassingly evident in the picture :hide:

Fingerling sweet potatoes were dusted with cardamom and nutmeg and roasted in butter and oil. Got a little toasty but the potatoes were of delicious and noble birth. Have to think of something neat to do with the few unused.

Garnish is slices of the apple caremelized in sugar, cardamom, nutmeg, and ancho chile powder. Wine was Domaine de Pouy Cotes de Gascogne from Robert Kacher.

Here is a reasonable facimilie of what it looked like, courtesy of my laughably inadequate camera.



ETA: Seriously, that is the worst picture of food ever. Why do I even bother. Maybe the film verision will be better in three years when I finish the roll then develop it.

The dogs and I are having beef back ribs (mine were slow-roasted, theirs were not). I'm also having a purple artichoke and risotto al salto.

Salad of baby romaine, frisee, bosc pear, feta and pine nuts with lemon vinaigrette

Red beans cooked with a ham hock
White rice
Andouille sausage

Flourless chocolate cake, blackberries and sweetened creme fraiche

2003 Botalcura La Porfia Malbec

Last night: Chicken and Andouille Etouffee

Click to view attachment

last night:

yellow split pea soup with parsley and preserved lemon
fresh baked pain de campagne

Vegetable tagine with kabocha squash, chick peas, olives, dried apricots and preserved Meyer lemon
Cous-cous
Haricots verts with roasted garlic and preserved Meyer lemon
Merguez lamb meatballs
Minted yogurt

2004 DiLenardo Refosco (a red from Friuli)

Saltimbocca
Fricasse of baby artichokes with lemon-mint sauce
Country Wheat baguette
Cacio di Roma
Half of an apple
H D Raspberry sorbet-vanilla yogurt swirl

Punjabi-Style Cauliflower and Potatoes with Ginger (aka Aloo Gobi)*
Basmati rice seasoned with cloves, bay leaves, cardamom and cinnamon
Salad with ginger-shallot vinaigrette
KitKat for dessert

*from Madhur Jaffrery's World Vegetarian cookbook

Fava bean crostini with EVOO, reggiano, fleur de sel and Serrano ham
2005 Yalumba Sangiovese Rose

Charcoal grilled tri-tip
Braised kale
Steamed new potatoes
2003 Capcanes Mas Donis

here did you find tri tip?

They were the last of the Sunnyside Organics Virginia Kobe beef that I bought In January and put in my freezer. But you can get a tri-tip from The Organic Butcher of McLean. You should call first to make sure he has some. 703-790-8300. You've lived in California, I presume.

Great sounding combo. How were the favas?

They were perfect--good size, but still young and fresh. Bright green color, tender, with a nutty-grassy flavor. The essence of Spring! I bought them at the Glover Park Whole Foods.

I succumbed to my lack of ideas.

Brown sugar glazed ham
Biscuits
Asparagus
Letter-perfect hollandaise. Nice to know I still have skillz.
Assorted sugar bombs from the kid's Easter baskets.

Don't look on it as lack of ideas, look on it as simple things done well.

Most of my menu was specifically requested, so we had brown sugar ham, new potatoes, buttered carrots, and fresh peas, along with a bottle of 2000 Bastianich Vespa Bianco. Later, there will be lemon meringue pie. Life sucks.