monavano

The market was packed last Sat., which is really great to see. Mirai corn from Toigo Blue curled Scotch kale (HUGE bunch for $3) and red bliss potatoes from Three Way Farm.

^ Thank you!

Oh, I want my chicken to have at least 2K miles on it. Make sure it's been in a nice hot container too, please. Localschmokal

Groupon now has Groupon Reserve. Pertaining to restaurants, when you make a reservation through Groupon, a percentage of your bill is automatically discounted. No prepay, no vouchers. From the article: "The Reserve reservation platform gives customers a discount off their entire check without requiring pre-payment or vouchers and provides local businesses an important tool to drive traffic during slow periods by utilizing flexible pricing." Would this change your view of using discounts like Groupon?

Are hatch chilies around now? Where did you get them, if fresh?

CI's Peruvian Chicken with green sauce. Delicious and moist. A must-try at home if you like the offerings we get around here. I cheated with the sauce a bit by starting with Duke's mayo instead of using egg and oil. I think the pickled jalepenos and good old yellow mustard are brilliant. The CI method uses the Norpro vertical roaster. Well worth the $25 or so. The chicken is baked at 350 for 50 min., then is taken out of the oven while it heats up to 500, when the chicken is returned to the oven for another 20 min. The top of the chicken tends to get burned by the heat, but tenting with foil mitigates this problem completely.

SLT has opened a store in Old Town, in the old CVS space across from the town square on King St. La Cuisine and WS have some competition now. SLT is open until 9 most weeknights, which is later than WS. I'd say Old Town is a home cook's shopping destination now, with the Crate and Barrel outlet, WS, SLT and La Cuisine all within a small radius.

Art festival? We took our beardie and strolled around a bit on Sunday. Always lovely. In Old Town, should you find yourself in that neck of the woods, I'd try WF or Balducci's.

Perhaps you're referring to Slavin's on Glebe road? More Arlandria, but closed a couple years ago. Nothing else is popping to mind.

Grilled peach and red onion with burrata salad topped (and marinated) with a honey lemon vinaigrette. Leftover prime sirloin steak was used up in quesadillas with rice and beans on the side. Mirai corn. Key lime cheesecake (well, Persian lime cheesecake fwiw)

Our neighbors went with a suite of Kenmore appliances when they redid their kitchen (just before we did ours), and they love them-- the dishwasher in particular was gushed over (pardon the pun).

We get the Cascade packets from Costco and occasionally plop Jet Dry in ( it really works!). When researching for appliances, I read AJ Madison's site and GardenWeb.

I can add this-- I would not want the top layer utensil thingy. That seemed to be more of a higher level $$$ model. Crap- I grab a bunch of utensils and plop them into the trays and that's that.

I've read many great things about Miele, but I will say that Bosch is great. Love ours.

Caramelized cherry tomatoes and shallots (Mt. Vernon market) were an homage to summer Yam steak fries (also Mt. Vernon) Costco's prime sirloin, marinated in finely chopped fresh rosemary, garlic, s+p and evoo. I'm telling you, this prime sirloin could be the one reason you enjoy a Costco membership. Mr. MV grilled it to a perfect med. rare.

"Summer Chili"- It's a lighter chili with mild seasonings, fresh corn and lima beans and stewed tomatoes. Served over rice with a dollop of sour cream Dessert was a boxed brownie mix, baked with a caramel sauce and slivered almonds. Caramel swirl ice cream.

There's a newish Italian restaurant in old La Strada space, and A La Lucia in N. Old Town.

Except it looks quite small Then again, I'm an over-cooker I set out to make a nice minestrone this morning, and made enough to feed an army! At some point, it just got out of hand...

Would love the recipe. A trip to the Giant may be in the cards today

This was our "kitchen" for 4 months. I had a microwave opposite on the folding table, and occasionally used a single burner on the dryer. Good times

^ That, and laundry!

Labeling 9 quarts of tomatoes to go in the freezer. A box of tomatoes-- just rough chopped and simmered with onion, garlic, evoo and salt. Left them chunky, just because.

I'm loving this papalo! So far, my imagination is going as far as pesto/chimichurri with it. I also picked up a box of tomatoes from Ochoa's for $20 (along with the usual suspects of veggies and basil). Twin Spring also had plenty of seconds and are selling bulk.

Grilled rosemary and garlic flank steak with papalo basil pesto, paprika garlic potatoes and rapini.

I've been using white balsamic more lately and agree with Pat that it provides a brightness similar to citrus or a splash of crisp white wine and heightens flavor (and probably cuts back on salt). Balsamic vinegar is great for salad dressings and sauces, even stews and braises. It's transforming splashed on lentil soup. Maybe it's chefs' little darling now? Trendy or trite? I really don't eat out enough to know, so, however much it's used out there isn't influencing how I use it at home. eta: some very good balsamics are very easy to find at discount stores nowadays. My bottle of Passione white balsamic is from Home Goods. So, perhaps for the home cook, it's being used more because the good stuff is more accessible and not a splurge or gourmet gift from Williams-Sonoma.