Pat

I fiddled around with the recipe(s) I've been making using D'Artagnan sirloin tips. Last night I made a vegetable heavy beef stew (mirepoix, garlic, thyme, yellow and orange carrot coins, Yukon gold potatoes, shiitake and button mushrooms, and green beans). We also had striata baguette from Radici and more baby greens salad.

There aren't many of us left, but with the recent passings of Joe Willey and Joe Heflin, maybe it's a time to try to gather together again. If people are interested, I'll look for a place. Somewhere in DC near a metro station seems like the safest bet. If anyone has a connection to a particular place, speak up here or via DM. My December is more or less open.

Oh no. This is so sad. What a loss.

Yesterday I made the apple butter and sage pork chops recipe again, after finding it a good cold weather recipe last year. Served with roasted green beans and romanesco. We also had a salad of baby greens, dried cranberries, cucumber, and avocado.

We were in Manchester over Thanksgiving. Bistro Henry, alas, has permanently closed. We arrived around 7:30 PM on Wednesday, and most restaurants stop serving between 8 and 9, so we went to Mulligan's (3912 Main Street), which was across the street from the inn where we were staying. They were friendly and the food was abundant and pretty good tavern-type fare. Portions are very large here. I ordered the Crisphead Wedge $16.99 Chilled iceberg wedge, house bleu cheese dressing, applewood smoked bacon and boiled egg. Interestingly enough, it was plated on top of what what seemed to be a spring mix salad with cucumber slices and grape tomatoes. I don't know if this is typical or was because the kitchen was closing shortly after we got there and they had it to use. (They were closed the next day.) The bleu cheese dressing made me happy. My husband got the Ramen Noodle Bowl $18.99 Prepared with spinach, snap peas, red pepper, mushrooms, green onion and roasted corn in an Asian seasoned broth. Your choice of roasted pork or shrimp. He got the pork, and it was a ton of food, a large and deep bowl. I had thought just a salad wouldn't be enough, since I was famished, so we ordered the small size nachos to share, which was pretty big. Nachos $11.99 Crispy tortilla chips smothered with tomato, olives, green onion, Jalapeno pepper, Jack and cheddar cheese. They ran this under a salamander/broiler, and the plate had a delightful rim-to-rim coating of hot cheese. We had too much other food to do gustatory justice to this...and no way to store leftover food. 😦 Sad for the amount that went to waste. It was sooo good. I would be remiss not to give a shout out to The Inn at Manchester, where we've stayed a couple times now. Great people and space. The breakfasts included with the stay are excellent.

Thinking of a bread recipe I'd seen, I bought 4 fuyu persimmons at the farmers market yesterday. Later in the day, I realized a couple of them were really ripe and soft, so decided I wanted to make something savory with them for dinner instead. I had chicken breasts, greens, and butternut squash to use as well. I roughly followed this recipe for Harissa and Persimmon Chicken, using Cava harissa and no olive oil in the marinade. The chicken was plated over boiled garlicky mustard greens and spinach with a little of the pan drippings. I also made a pasta course with TJ's butternut squash ravioli topped with cubes of roasted za 'atar - spiced butternut squash and some grated Parmesan. This was a lot of food, but I'm planning to ride various leftovers right up to Thanksgiving.

Last night we had the very last of the tuna, coated with sesame seeds, reheated in a skillet and served over Chinese noodles with scallions and peanut sauce. In addition we had a plate of hard-boiled eggs, sliced avocado, and vegetable futomaki from Yes!

Last night was more of the tuna salad on arugula, sourdough bread, and a frittata. The frittata came out quite well. I didn't know what to make to go with the salad, so I decided on a frittata and just started grabbing things. The add-ins were Jasper Hill Farm Whitney cheese, pepperoni, leftover takeout french fries, scallions, and basil.

I turned some of the leftover tuna into tuna salad, made with (purchased) sriracha mayo, a dollop of Greek yogurt, chopped celery and sliced scallions. It was plated over baby wild arugula from TJ's. We also had leftover Costco rotisserie chicken, wheatberries cooked with sun-dried tomatoes and onions, and more of the sourdough bread.

I had bought a bunch of gorgeous greens (not all of which were green) from Deep Roots Farm at the H Street market yesterday and left them out with the stems in water. They started to wilt rather quickly. I boiled the heartier of the greens (some of which may have been mustard -- there was a mustard tang as I was sampling the raw ones) along with dino kale I had and some garlic. After the greens cooked down, I seasoned with a little black pepper, soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar, and let them simmer until the rest of dinner was done. The rest of dinner was seared ahi tuna, two gorgeous wild tuna steaks via Costco. I sort of followed this recipe, using a cast iron pan and avocado oil. Don't know about the 6 minutes in the title. While it wasn't a long process (I marinated about 25 minutes), it wasn't just six. I used a little TJ's spicy honey for the marinade in addition to regular honey and omitted the cayenne. The tuna came out great and was served plated over the greens. We also had sourdough bread from Boulangerie Christophe. That same loaf of bread has gone up quite a bit in price over the past couple of years, but it is so good I splurge when I'm nearby the store.

I added some more lettuce to leftover salad and we had that last night with a surprisingly good improvised savory pie. I had impulse purchased a box of Pillsbury pie crusts on sale weeks ago so I got out a deep-ish dish glass pie plate and a bunch of stuff and put together a pie. I spread some Dijon mustard on the bottom crust and layered deli baked Virginia ham over top and then deli American cheese. I added a veggie* layer topped with some Roasted Garlic Onion Jam, another layer of ham, and then the rest of the veggies. I topped with the second crust and baked in a hot oven until it was nicely browned. I had some foil over the top for a while to keep it from browning too much and then removed the foil and brushed with a little cream when it was getting close to done. *I chopped up the remaining roasted cauliflower, squash rounds, and rice stuffed mushrooms and cooked them down with the last tiny bit of the chicken stock and rice pilaf.

Those service things are odd, but it would make me hopeful that it's just one person behind it. (Congratulations on the transition from DINK.)

We had leftover sausage-stuffed ravioli in marinara with ricotta last night; sauteed sliced white mushrooms (butter, fresh thyme, red wine, minced onions, garlic powder); a big salad; and, rosemary bread from Atwater's.

I made an improvised chicken soup last night too, with homemade chicken stock, leftover rice pilaf, fresh thyme, and roasted fresh yellow tomatoes. (I bought them as green tomatoes a while ago and hadn't used them so they were yellow by last night!) Some greens would have been good in it. I had originally thought of making a greens and beans thing with the stock, changed my mind, and then decided soup would be good at the very last minute 🙃. We had this with a whole roasted cauliflower slathered with Stonewall Kitchens Roasted Garlic Onion Jam. The other item on the menu was mini squash and mushroom stacks. I roasted delicata squash rounds and large white mushroom caps separately (with evoo and fresh thyme in the caps). Near the time they were done I stuffed the caps with a little bit of rice pilaf and Parmesan and stuffed them into the squash rounds to finish. I had enough pieces of slightly different sizes that everything fit somewhere. It was a kind of haphazard meal that all worked out.

A little story. I hadn't been in for a while and they sent me a $5 off takeout or delivery code. I was going to be near the Navy Yard location around dinnertime so I put in an order. I would have liked pizza and it would have been much cheaper, but I had a long walk home and holding a pizza box flat that whole time seemed too much. Since I usually get pizza when I'm eating in and sometimes salad too, I went with items I may or may not have had at some point but which looked good and would travel in bags. The order was for a Caesar salad and a house salad and eggplant parm. I could not decide if I should get the meatballs or not. After dillydallying, I decided against and put the order in. Then, D'oh!, I realized I forgot the $5 code. So I put a second order in for the meatballs and used the code. It looked okay, but it didn't take. Ugh. I got to the restaurant and signs they were closing in a bit for a private event, so just asked for a manager. It didn't seem like the simplest process for her, but she was able to take the $5 off. I brought the food home and reheated the eggplant and meatballs for a little while in the oven. We enjoyed it. I really like their salads. Each of the four items was in the $16 - $18 range, whereas one pizza with extras would be about $22, so I wasn't too bargain savvy here. But the nice manager did get me the $5.

Baked chicken leg quarters with BBQ sauce, baked sweet potatoes, buttered green beans, rice pilaf

Breakfast for Sunday night dinner: pumpernickel raisin French Toast with butter and maple syrup; bacon; and fried potatoes, peppers, and mushrooms.

I wasn't feeling very motivated or energetic tonight. I baked some bacon in the oven and roasted some kale in the bacon fat, along with cherry tomatoes. They were seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes. When everything was pretty well cooked down, I drizzled a little balsamic over it for the remaining time. When we were about ready to eat, I tossed some cubed feta in with the rest and returned to the oven briefly until the feta got melty. This all got mixed together with wheatberries I'd cooked in chicken stock, some of the bacon (crumbled), and pine nuts I'd toasted in a small pan in the oven. This was pretty good. We had it with some sourdough bread.

Unfortunately there was no popcorn soup. The server said something about how it would be back when the weather got colder.🤷‍♀️ The bread (challah with rye toast and caraway seed butter with honey) was as spectacular as it's ever been, however. We asked for a second one and ate most of that too. I'm going to attach a menu. The Fois Gras Tart is listed under small plates but was brought out first as an amuse bouche. I personally enjoyed the pasta courses (i.e., Cacio e Pepe and Stuffed Gnocchi) the most. For the main course we had the Eggplant Parm, which was my second favorite course. Chocolate Souffle for dessert. The malted vanilla ice cream that came with that was fabulous. They even packed up the tiny bit of souffle that was left for us to bring home. For our $150pp+ we had leftovers, plus they also gave us 2 half sandwiches for later and Capri Suns. I think the meat was lamb but not sure. (My husband had them for lunch.) They gave us tote bags to carry it all home. It seemed like a pretty classic Rose's experience, except we didn't have to wait in line . It certainly hit the memory notes just right for a 10th birthday/anniversary dinner. The thing about Rose's that has always struck me is the generosity of the hospitality. That is basically their mission statement. This had that, where our previous visit--which was still very expensive just not quite as much--didn't have that feeling so much. I don't drink Capri Sun. (My husband drinks them when we get them there.) It's a 90s thing, which tracks with the ownership and management of the restaurant and is one of their distinctive features, along with the pork and lychee salad. The intentional branding has been there since day one. Aaron Silverman knows what he's doing and turns out great and creative food. I'm hoping that post-pandemic they can continue to thrive. I felt like they really nailed the hospitality element again with this. The experience, the feeling--those are hard to conjure.

We had an early dinner at Lupo Verde on 14th two Saturdays ago. I hadn't been in quite a while and it really has an Italian feel to it. It did before but it seemed more pronounced to me now. My husband was really wowed by the meal. I enjoyed it too, but he was raving about it. The last two meals we had out before this were at Rose's and Albi, so his enthusiasm is noteworthy. Normally I think it's good when restaurants keep changing their menus, but in this case I can't tell from the online menu what we had, because it's rather different. 🙁 We both had the Lupo Verde Salad, which was Caesarish and enormous. It was more like a Caesar salad than what a lot of places promote as a Caesar. It now appears on the menu with a description close to the one I described above from quite a long time ago (hazelnuts, etc.). They now list a Caesar but it has grilled Romaine. Ours was not grilled. Nor was it chopped, which was one of the few things that made it seem less traditionally Caesar Salad. Our mains were pasta. My husband's was Fettuccine Alla Norcina. There is a Tagliatelle Alla Norcina on the current menu, and the description (sausage, porcini mushrooms, truffle) looks close. I had a thinner pasta* with a vodka sauce. I didn't expect I'd need to remember it so soon or I would have taken notes 🤨. Both were delicious. Portions were large enough that we brought food home. Service was decent but could have been a bit more attentive, though the person who filled the water glasses was super attentive. We finally asked for bread pretty far along. It was an excellent focaccia with bits of green olives. The food that passed by also looked wonderful, including the whole roasted branzino (?), which was encased in something and set on fire to be brought out. We got to see the whole spectacle, down to the flames being put out expertly when it was presented. Wow. If I lived closer I would be here more frequently. *Edited with the middle-of-the night recollection that it was not thin pasta. It was ravioli stuffed to its limits with oh-so-moist shredded short rib. It suddenly hit me that I had told my husband it seemed like a rustic homemade pasta, as the dough was pretty thick. It had to be to hold that much meat without bursting.

Turkey meatballs, vodka sauce, and basil over eggplant ravioli Polenta stacks, mozzarella, basil, and vodka sauce Not as fancy (or homemade) as it sounds. I made the turkey meatballs myself, but that was about it. The pasta sauce and polenta were from TJ's (and the polenta was leftover from slices I previously cooked). The ravioli came frozen in a box from Whole Foods. The mozzarella was pre-sliced from Costco (that was the only kind of low moisture mozzarella they had when my husband went). Basil came from a vendor at Eastern Market.

Roasted wild salmon with blackberry sauce, roasted broccolini with nutritional yeast, and buttered green beans last night.

Last night was a skillet meal of roasted butternut squash, hot Italian sausage, basil, cream, and butternut squash ravioli. Parmesan on top. Sourdough bread.

I roasted a whole Bell and Evans chicken last night in the oven, using the convection roast setting. I roasted a couple whole sweet potatoes at the same time. (I poured a little maple syrup on mine because I love maple syrup on sweet potatoes.) The chicken roasted on a bed of sliced onion and a mixture of quartered bell and poblano peppers. Some of the peppers were more to the side. I took the pepper and onion trimmings and mixed with some cubed stale striata baguette (improper storage = hard bread. Gah.). That mixture went into the cavity for an impromptu stuffing. Otherwise...melted butter over the chicken, plus lemon juice, salt, and pepper. I cut up several of the season's last tomatoes from the farmers market and threw them into the mixture closer to the end. It all melted together nicely. The roasting pan was left to me by a friend who passed away 7 years ago. It's a well-loved and-used Descoware Belgian pan. It is perfect for a roasting a whole chicken with veggies around. I think of her every time I use it. ❤️ The Descoware, after cleaning:

There is now a Sala Thai in the Park Kennedy Apartments near Stadium - Armory metro (1901 C Street, SE). It opened a few months ago, but yesterday evening was the first time I stopped in. I got some food to take out, and I have no idea* why I made the choices I did. I got one order of Pad Se Ew with Marinated Pork (flat rice noodles, Chinese broccoli, and egg; $16) and one order of...Beef Sukiyaki (cellophane noodles, special sauce; $17). Given that they also have a sushi menu, I suppose getting a Japanese beef dish in a Thai restaurant isn't completely bizarre, but I preferred the pork. In addition to the sweetness being a bit too sweet, the sukiyaki had some sort of aftertaste I couldn't quite identify. I'd happily order the pork again but maybe one of the curries to go with it. This said, it was a ton of food for the price. It was heavy carrying it home. Locating near metro stations seems like it should be a pretty good strategy, but when I looked at the online menu for the [.pdf warning] Minnesota Ave. location, it looked pretty different from the [.pdf] Park Kennedy. On the other hand, maybe that shouldn't be a "but" and it's a product of demographic research. *I also got a covid booster and flu shot yesterday and felt terrible (last October: same 2 shots and felt fine), so this may have had something to do with my scattershot ordering and impressions. My taste buds seem a little off, still. But, I didn't have to cook last night!