Pat

Last night was roasted delicata squash halves stuffed with a mixture of garlicky greens*, basmati rice, and shredded Parmesan. I roasted the squash with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper. When they were about done, I pulled them out and added the cooked chopped greens and rice. Topped with the Parmesan and put back in the hot oven until it was all finished. We also had pita from Yellow. *Curly kale, plus dandelion and radish greens

I believe the cookies may have also had some cardamom.

Your photo of the pita is much better than mine, Don 😋. And I forgot about the little S shaped cookies at the end. I'd been trying to get a reservation for a while and finally got one by trying at the end or beginning of a month (forget now), right when they opened new slots.

We had a midweek dinner at Albi. The food was delicious and beautifully plated. The ambiance was LOUD. All those hard surfaces look cool, but it was hard to have a conversation across a table for two. And the tables were a bit too close together for getting in and out. In my twenties, I probably wouldn't have cared about either, but this restaurant didn't exist then either. So 🙃. As for the actual food, we started with both snacks (sfeeha and eggplant arayes), which are as small as the menu indicates they are. Very delicious bites, though. I love their pita at Yellow, and we ordered the baba ganoush, which comes with a giant puffy version of that. I was able to confirm that it's za'atar and extra sumac on top. The charred eggplant was wonderful. Fabulous dish. For our main we had the BBQ'd lamb kebob. What a gorgeous construction this is. The $82 price tag was mellowed a bit by the fact it was enough for two. Pretty much grilled perfection in addition to the aesthetic element. It was listed as ALC Lamb on the check, which I take to be a la carte, so it may also be part of the Sofra fixed price menu. Service was fine, but it was somewhat hard to hear what the various people were saying. Otherwise, we didn't get dessert, and I had a Lebanese beer (Almaza Pilsner). Puffy pita

Leftovers rock. The flavor builds up in them. I'm using leftover beef and lamb stock to make a beef stew tonight. The last of the quinoa salad and some bread to go alongside.

Tonight I made this with some chicken cutlets I bought on sale at WF. Served alongside basmati rice and braised kale with hot pepper sauce. The appetizer was the cream cheese with pepper jelly over top and Triscuits.

I cooked a few short ribs I bought on sale at Whole Foods in the InstantPot last night and used the shredded meat to make some pita filling. I added some of the cherry tomatoes that were part of the cooking ensemble and some chopped parsley to the warmed pita halves, plus a dollop of Little Sesame caramelized onion hummus on top. Pitas were from Yellow. I saved the rest of the liquid to make some kind of beef vegetable soup. This accompanied premade items I put on a platter: WF lemon pepper shrimp over Foxtrot Spicy Lime Red Quinoa Salad. I also scooped some of the shrimp quinoa mixture into halved avocados that had been sprinkled with salt, pepper, and lime juice and put them alongside on the platter. This concept worked really well and was super fast.

I made this squash beer cheese soup last night. It was pretty good. The rest of the meal was InstantPot turkey thighs with vegetables, herbs, and fresh and dried cranberries. The fresh cranberries were purchased at the end of last season and had been sitting in a clamshell in the refrigerator. Since they looked okay when I periodically eyed them. I never threw them out. I figured they probably weren't actually okay, especially over time, but many of them were, surprisingly, salvageable when I finally dug them out. The vegetables were onion, garlic, carrots, and celery. The herbs: rosemary and thyme. We served the turkey over jasmine rice.

R.I.P. Brooks, and my condolences, Don. It's hard to see your heroes go.

Rose's is celebrating their 10th anniversary October 4 - 14, with $150 pp special. I read the email right after it hit my inbox yesterday, started browsing the dates (Wednesday through Saturday only), and by the time I decided to grab an 8 o'clock reservation rather than 5:30, the 8 was gone. I watched the times for different days disappear as I browsed. I grabbed the 5:30. Basically, the whole selection of times had been picked over and depleted within 10 minutes of the email going out. So Rose's is still popular! Mostly what's left now are 9:30s. They promise old favorites, so I'm hoping for popcorn soup 🍿 😃

Market price for a lobster roll at Navy Yard yesterday was $37. My friend loves their lobster rolls, so it was worth it to her. She also had clam chowder and we split a half dozen oysters of different sizes. Of course I cannot recall the name of the ones I liked the most. I think they were listed as medium but were pretty large. From Virginia, I believe. I also got a shrimp cocktail and fries. The fries are back to being pretty consistently good. The shrimp cocktail here gets me nostalgic. It was one of my favorite things to order at restaurants as a kid. When we went out to dinner, I could order whatever I wanted. There were eyebrows raised about the price (even then!) but I was allowed to get shrimp cocktail. The only thing I couldn't order was the chopped iceberg and onion salad (plus a couple tiny cubes of not real ripe tomato) that came with a vinegar heavy vinaigrette. It was the standard salad at the red sauce Italian place we went to on Friday nights. My mother would order it and let me have some. With the amount of hers I polished off, you'd think she would have let me order my own.

Sunday night I made a hearty fall kind of comfort meal: pork loin roast* (air fryer), green beans, roasted garlic - Parmesan mashed potatoes, and (purchased) sauerkraut. Haven't made a meal like that in a while. The pork came out especially moist. It was really good. All I seasoned the pork with was some Schwartz's poultry seasoning my husband brought back from Montreal some time ago. He bought that and their steak seasoning. I'm almost out and wondering if I should re-order online, since both of the seasonings have been quite good, in my experience. Poultry seasoning, generally, makes a good crossover to pork. Last night was roasted wild Coho salmon* with a cognac cream sauce that was originally supposed to be Calvados, but I combined plain VSOP cognac and pear cognac. I roasted it on a sheet pan with halved cherry tomatoes and previously lightly cooked green beans and broccoli florets. Just avocado oil, salt, and pepper for seasonings. It came out really well. Served with Atwater's scalded rye bread. I had the sauce left over from making salmon not that long before, according to a recipe that called for pan-frying the fish and serving over a frisee salad. The recipe I followed said it would make extra sauce, but I'm kind of running out of things to use it on. *On sale at Whole Foods. With the prices of meat being so high (or seeming to be), I frequently decide what to make based on their prime specials.

This recipe for Thai-influenced chicken meatballs turned out pretty well last night. Served with white rice. I didn't follow exact amounts and it was fine. Not feeling terribly inspired these days. Aiming for a turkey meatloaf tonight, which is really what you want to do when it's almost 100F outside...

Bumping this thread up because I went searching to see if I'd had Floating Island here, which indeed, I had. When I got it at Bistrot Lepic last night, it wasn't subtitled in English on the menu, so it didn't occur to me that's what it was until I was writing up that meal. Then I got this feeling I'd had it at Montmartre but labeled in English. Bingo. They were too far apart to compare, but I loved both versions, so I guess this a French dessert I am partial to. R.I.P. Montmartre

A friend who had always wanted to go here organized a group of four of us (none who had ever been here) to go for a Restaurant Week dinner. Wow, was the food good. The service was quite accommodating and fairly efficient considering how busy they were. Having not been here before, I can't say, but the physical space appears to have seen better days. I sat at the upstairs bar for a glass of wine while waiting for the others to arrive. (I walked so allowed extra time and then arrived well early.) The bar looked a bit worn; I'll go with rustic. The back room upstairs looked like maybe it had been rehabbed more recently, though I didn't give it a close look. As to the $40 menu...First course: the salmon tartare was a big hit, and the person who got the escargots ($5 upcharge) liked but did not love them. Bonus points for serving in a special vessel with a slot for each snail so they didn't have to be removed from the shell. (It reminded me of the plates for deviled eggs.) I got the Salade Bistrot Lepic, which was assorted baby greens with fried cherry tomato. I was a little uncertain about the fried tomato in this, but it was all delicious. It was a simple salad and the dressing was just right. For the main courses, there were either 2 or 3 Trout Amandine, which were plate-clearing popular. I got the salmon in potato crust, which was magnificent. I had just made salmon the night before that I thought was pretty good, but this blew that out of the water (so to speak ). It also came with nicely dressed greens, so I got lots of salad. There was a change to the dessert menu so the chocolate cake was a chocolate tart with creme anglaise. Everybody but me ordered it. There was also a fruit tart with strawberries and raspberries. I went with Ile flottante - "Soft meringue served with sliced almond, caramel sauce and 'crème Anglaise'." I had no real hopes but ordered it because I didn't want either of the other, but it was spectacular, creamy and sweet and probably something that gets taught in pastry school. Floating island, I assume? I thought of it as the outlier on the dessert menu, but I would get it again. We either (1) completely negated the value of a $40 RW meal; or 2) leveraged the RW price to get more and better wine by ordering two bottles of Muscadet...(My friend who knows the wine well selected it. It was very good and must have been this one: MUSCADET de SÈVRE & MAINE, Bedouet Vigneron 55). The wine I had prior was this one: ALSACE, Pinot Blanc, Bestheim, Chasseurs de Lune 13. We also went through the better part of two baskets of (gratis; refilled when empty) sliced sourdough bread. This is the link to the RW menu.

I made a serendipitous discovery earlier this summer that blackberries pair well with salmon. (This is probably well known, but I stumbled upon it so I claim the discovery. 🙃). Last night I made air fryer salmon portions (salt, pepper, and a little fig balsamic dressing), plated them on a handful of Earthbound spring mix, and topped them with blackberries. We also had a composed fruit salad with cantaloupe chunks, blackberries, and ricotta with lemon zest; corn on the cob; and, the last of some leftover maple mashed sweet potatoes. A very pretty meal (but I neglected to take any of my legendary photos...)

I periodically stop in here for coffee or iced tea when I'm passing through the area. I'm glad to see this thread bumped up.

A friend and I had a meal here earlier in the month. The calamari was as good as I remember it. I love the marinara and aioli they offer with it. (What I had before on the takeout order was definitely not the aioli.) We split a Caesar salad, which she loved but I found a bit goopy. That may have been a function of their splitting the order between two plates, though. I might have ended up with too much of the dressing. (I appreciate their willingness to split the order, even if I sound whiny.) For an entree, I had what I was craving: the spaghetti and meatballs, which took me back to semi-regular Friday night dinners at a local red sauce place when I was a kid. I thought the meatballs were excellent. Presumably they are the same as if one orders just meatballs and sauce, so that means I enjoyed them even more than last time. Friend had linguine with white clam sauce, which she found too heavy on the lemon. It looked gorgeous. We had a half bottle of wine, which they don't list on the online menu. (I conveniently threw out the receipt shortly before deciding to write this up 😖.) The server (who was excellent, by the way) described it as an Italian equivalent of sauvignon blanc. We liked it, whatever it was. I also had a glass of limoncello after the meal and we split an order of cannoli. I wish reservations here weren't so hard to come by, but it's worth it.

I had bought skinless boneless chicken breasts when they were on sale. I always think I will find something to do with them, but I hate the process of pounding them down, which many recipes call for. So I buy them with the highest hopes, and then it's their expiration date and 🤷‍♀️. When I got these, I had imagined a chicken florentine type dish but then yesterday didn't have the energy to go through a whole process. So, I more or less followed this Bittman recipe [NYT gift link] (which is basically a template), since it didn't call for pounding or butterflying the chicken. I didn't have a pound of spinach, so I used the 5 oz. [?] clamshell of baby spinach I had and half a bag of baby arugula. This was still well less than a pound, but it was adequate. I also frizzled some prosciutto in the pan when the chicken was about done browning, having bought a small pack of it [on sale because all of the salamis were on sale at WF, and why this counted as salami, I dunno...] because one chicken florentine recipe I'd been looking at called for it. I subbed dry vermouth for the wine and mixed sour cream and ricotta for the creamy element. The chicken turned out delicious and really moist. We had this with sourdough bread from Christophe and a big salad.

My birthday dinner at Paraiso yesterday fired on all cylinders. The meal was good. The service was good. The environment was pleasant. Given current pricing generally, it was not insanely expensive, especially for a special meal. It came in just below $150 before tax and tip. We started with margaritas and the tortilla chips and trio of salsas, which is a go-to most times I'm there. My husband had a carnitas roll, which is an interesting fusion item and substantial. I liked the piece I had. There were a few rolls on the specials menu. I believe the others were all fish. I enjoyed my house salad and he loved his avocado salad ["Half avocado stuffed with roasted corn and gratinated cheese, crispy carnitas, cherry tomato, red pickled daikon, red onion, feta cheese"] and chicken tortilla soup. I got the enchiladas verdes entree and could not quite finish it. Often, he will finish the rest of my leftover meal, but he was pretty full with what he'd already had. They brought out a decent-sized piece of tres leches cake in honor of the occasion. It was excellent, very light, and perfect since we didn't have much room left. I noticed that on the receipt, they note the charge for the cake and then credit it back as "celebration." I like this place. They hit all the right notes.

Maybe we should compile a list of what to make when it's too hot to cook. A fruit and cheese or charcuterie plate works great for that, but sometimes I want something more like a meal, so that shrimp remoulade over salad sounds like a great idea. I've been buying shrimp already cooked most of the time I have it lately. My husband isn't that fond of shrimp, so it's extra work to cook, devein, etc., just to make something for me.

I bought a thick bone-in rib eye pork chop from Canales at Eastern Market and made a variation of the apple butter pork chop, this time with shiitake mushrooms instead of apples. It came out well. Alongside we had sourdough bread from Christophe and wheat berries with leeks and poached eggs. I originally was going to make the leeks and wheat berries with the salmon to try to recreate a dish I used to love at Montmartre (RIP). I've made it before but can't find any notes on what I did, and it's been a long time since I had the actual dish. I looked around for wheat berry recipes with leeks for ideas and saw this one, which I used for guidance. I abandoned the wheat berry/salmon combo when the salmon, beans, and cauliflower all really needed to be used ASAP the other night and so made the wheat berries, leeks, and eggs to go with the pork chop and mushrooms instead. Since there was pork in the meal too, it probably didn't also need the eggs, but I poached them perfectly 😎. (I didn't take one of my glorious photos, however.) That wheat berry dish would be excellent at brunch with a crisp green salad. I will definitely be making it again.

We had broiled salmon last night, wild sockeye from Costco. I also made one of my favorite cauliflower dishes: Mustard-Parmesan Whole Roasted Cauliflower, a recipe from Food Network. The cauliflower came from Deep Roots Farm, was huge, organic, and very expensive. I didn't want to let it sit in the refrigerator too long. Speaking of which, I roasted some carrots alongside that I found in the fridge, from the farmers market quite some months ago. For a "green" vegetable, we had purple string beans from Quaker Valley Orchards, with basil and toasted sliced almonds. They look just like very thin green beans when cooked. This is my husband's plate, which looked a lot better than this photo. If I were a food blogger, I'd have deleted this one. (He pointed out it would have looked good on a solid color plate. It surely would have looked better on our pale green milk glass plates.)

Last night I made a Smitten Kitchen recipe for zucchini spaghetti. It turned out very well. It was included in an email newsletter about her 10 favorite summer dinners. We had it with sourdough toast and a mixed greens salad with tomato and avocado and an avocado oil, lemon, & white balsamic vinaigrette.

I had most of a jar of pizza sauce left after making the French bread pizza sandwich and also some premade TJ's dough, and I used them to make something I've never made before: Hawaiian pizza. It (or my version of it) came out pretty well. I always answer those questions about opinions on Hawaiian pizza with some variation on, "Haven't tried it, seems weird, but it's probably decent." Now I've tried it, it was kind of weird, and it was better than decent. I used deli ham rolled up for the ham part and chunks of pineapple. I didn't have quite enough chunks for full coverage, and instead of cutting a ring into chunks, I put that in the center of the pie (which was free form round, done on a sheet pan). I added pepperoni around the edges. I still had some sauce left and made an eggplant stack with the sauce, some pepperoni, and mozzarella on top. Also had a salad.