Pat

Last night was leftover chicken thighs, broccoli, cole slaw, and mini quesadillas (made on 6" flour tortillas from TJ).

i made some quick curry from the last of the lamb, with Anaheim peppers and onions. Served over couscous, along with braised kale and tomatoes. There was also leftover salad and sourdough rye bread.

Last night was a big salad, sourdough rye from Atwater, (convection) baked chicken thighs, and roasted asparagus. I topped the chicken with lemon juice, butter and a mix of Penzey's Northwoods and Northwoods Fire seasoning (the only difference is the amounts and types of chile powder). I seasoned the asparagus with sesame oil, soy sauce, and sesame seeds. I also made some croutons of a sort to have with the chicken. There was half a pita from Yellow in foil in the fridge that had been there too long. I tore it into small chunks and, once I had removed the chicken from the sheet pan, I tossed the bread pieces into the rendered fat and stuck the pan back in the oven until I had nice croutons. Everything came out especially well.

Update: My husband met me at the game last night and brought in 2 pizza slice boxes from Whole Foods and a bottle of water. He had no trouble at all.

Kind of a weird meal last night, but it was good. We had an appetizer and then pasta. I was going to wrap halibut cubes in bacon but had bought mortadella on impulse at Eastern Market, so I wrapped each first in a strip of mortadella, then in bacon. The bacon had previously been cooked but was still flexible. (I don't go all the way to crispy when I pre-cook bacon.) I had baked the fish cubes with some lemon, olive oil, and sprigs of thyme until they were just cooked, let them cool a bit, and then did the wrapping. I put them back into the oven for a few minutes, until the bacon was rendering its remaining fat. For the rest, I boiled some fusilli to round out what was left of a box of ziti and served that with a sauce made from leftover ground pork enchilada filling and the remainder of a jar of Rao's marinara. Anyway, weird but good.

I haven't tried carrying food in recently, but when I checked the rules because I thought I might have extra restaurant food with me (I didn't), I'm not quite sure how you even hand carry much stuff in. What qualifies as "single-serving food items" per their policy? I haven't tried any of the food concessions yet, but my friend had a bad experience at Shake Shack, which is surprising, given how good their customer service typically is. Beer prices are nuts, but the self-serve cooler setup actually works quite well. And, I agree, cash will not be coming back.

I wasn't feeling up to much for Easter and surprised myself with how much I managed despite that. We had warmed pita from Yellow, along with their Beiruti hummus; a shaved asparagus salad that was very good; a deviled egg platter*; and, roasted boneless leg of lamb over roasted sliced potatoes. I riffed off this recipe for the lamb and potatoes. The lamb was 2 lb., from TJ, and was very good. I managed to hit a nice medium rare. I parboiled several Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced them about 1/4" thick, and made concentric circles in the bottom of a large cast iron skillet. Lamb went over the center. My husband thought there was a little too much anchovy carryover flavor on the potatoes-which there was--but I liked it. *I only filled 8 inserts in the egg platter, so I filled the other 4 with excess pistachios.

We had this enchilada bake for dinner last night. It came our really well and looked great. My husband asked if we could have this again while we were still eating the meal, and I suggested we'd have leftovers to eat first. (Of course, getting the leftovers out of the skillet and packing them up was a little tricky...) Since we've been eating a lot of rice, I just heated up a can of drained black beans for a side dish. I added as couple squeezes of lime and sprinkled some extra cilantro and scallions over the beans. (I had prepped more garnishes for the skillet meal than I needed.) I used ground pork from TJ's for this, 80/20, and expected I would have fat to drain before proceeding, so I didn't add the olive oil (at all) or the onions and chopped poblanos right at the beginning. Surprisingly, as the meat cooked, it rendered a fairly small amount of fat, so I added the vegetables in to cook in that fat as the meat finished browning. I also used TJ's salsa verde, their shredded Mexican cheese blend, and their home style flour tortillas. I don't think it needed all of the second jar of salsa.

I stopped by outside on Wednesday, too, but before the game. I was disappointed in the fries again. They were not exactly greasy but noticeably wet and only somewhat crispy. I had just wanted something to eat before the game and walked up to the park from that direction. Definitely not the fries I used to rave about. I think the price may also have gone up. My memory could be off, but I don't recall them being $9 before. Service was very good, however.

A few months ago, I saw tamarind sauce at Trader Joe's and bought a bottle to try it out. I always used to keep a bottle of Pickapeppa sauce on hand but hadn't been able to find it in a store in a long time, and that had tamarind and some other overlapping ingredients in common with the TJ's sauce. (I now see from googling that Pickapeppa is still available from the company directly, Amazon, etc., but it no longer has tamarind as an ingredient. So...) Well, so, yesterday I got the idea to use a couple of tablespoons of the TJ's tamarind sauce to marinate a pork tenderloin. I did it in a ziploc bag, and added a couple crushed garlic cloves and some black pepper as well. I pan seared the pork and then put in a 375F oven for about 30 minutes until it was cooked through. It came out really well. My recollection of Pickapeppa is that it's much more vinegar heavy than the TJ's sauce, but I only used small amounts of that in cooking and never used it as a marinade base. I don't know what else I'll use this sauce for, but it's excellent as a pork marinade. I also baked some sweet potatoes and macaroni* and cheese with bacon. It was a well-integrated menu. *actually a mix of ziti and cavatappi, no elbows

Last night was very simple. We had leftovers of the big salad, sourdough toast with butter, and cheese ravioli that I cooked most of the way and then layered in a small casserole with some Rao's marinara and topped with shredded mozzarella and grated Parmesan. Put it in a moderate oven for a little while, until the cheese was melted ans starting to get a little browned.

I made a huge salad for dinner last night, not quite a chef's salad, but the bottom components were tossed and the top was composed. The dressing was a mustard and white wine vinaigrette. (My husband also had leftover stuffed eggplant.) Base: Radicchio Baby spinach Sliced button mushrooms Sliced cucumbers Thinly sliced red onions Torn bacon strips Top: Cooked asparagus (two bundles on either side of the center of the bowl) Sliced hard-boiled eggs (at both ends of the bowl) Cubed avocado (between asparagus bundles and edges of the bowl) Crumbled feta (over all but the center) Cooked cubed potatoes, soaked in dressing while hot (center of the bowl) Remainder of dressing (drizzled over the rest of the top) Chopped parsley (over top of everything)

Yesterday was really busy but did involve me getting to Georgetown for the first time in a while, so I bought bread, lots of good bread. I got a loaf of sourdough at Boulangerie Christophe and a pack of pita at Yellow (Their Navy Yard location closed but they opened a nice spot on Wisconsin just above P and not far north of Christophe.) I also bought some Beiruti hummus, which looked closest to the carrot hummus they used to have. (It turned out not to be the same but was all right. The hummus comes with house-made pita chips, and these I thought were better than the pita chips at the old location.) When I got home, I cranked the oven and got an aging eggplant in there to roast. Meanwhile, I boiled 2 cups of Texmati white rice in homemade chicken stock to which I'd added some saffron threads. When that was done, I added the last of some chopped cooked broccoli and mixed it through. Once the eggplant was done and I could handle it, I scooped out the insides and mixed with part of the rice and some torn baby spinach, raisins, and crumbled feta. I refilled the eggplant halves and put them back in the 400F oven until it was heated through and the feta was melty. We had the stuffed eggplant with pita, pita chips, and sourdough and two kinds of hummus. (The second was the caramelized onion hummus from Little Sesame, which we love.)

We finished the baked ziti last night. There was enough left for two moderate portions. To round out the meal I made a fennel gratin using what was left (actually a decent amount) of rustic bread that had been getting stale. I was contemplating a hybrid bread pudding kind of thing. Searching around for recipes, I drew on an Ina Garten potato - fennel gratin in which the raw potatoes are soaked in milk, which then go into the casserole with sauteed fennel and onion, cheese, etc. I also tossed the leftover cooked oyster and shiitake mushrooms from when I made mushroom tacos a while back into the bread mixture. I didn't have Gruyere for the cheese component so subbed Jarlsberg and some Parmesan. (I also looked at her fennel - Parmesan gratin and drew a little on that too.) Ina calls for lots of cream. I used whole milk and a little really good heavy cream (from the cheese monger at Eastern Market). I baked it for almost an hour at 375, until the top was nice and brown. I reassembled everything in the skillet I did the sauteed vegetables in instead of getting a casserole dish out. (That was a tip from The Kitchn in an article on making Ina's recipe.)

Judging from the help wanted signs throughout the months, they have had a hard time getting employees, so maybe people who are hired can get away with quite a bit. It sounds like they still don't have the text system working too well. First time I ordered from them, I went down at the time they said it would be ready, got my pizza, and then an hour later got a text saying my pizza was now ready for pick up. I'm happy they're there but they're not my first choice, unless the only criterion is proximity. I'm just as likely to walk a much longer distance home balancing an enormous pizza box from Slice Joint at The Roost

Made something last night I hadn't in a long time: a large casserole of baked ziti. The intention was to generate leftovers and that succeeded. I supplemented Rao's marinara with more onion and garlic, plus chopped button mushrooms, diced red bell pepper, and diced fennel. I added sliced black olives in as I layered the pasta and sauce. Mascarpone (layered in), mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses (on top). It was excellent. We had with rosemary focaccia from the outside bread vendor at Eastern Market that is not Ravenhook. I intended a salad but ran out of steam.

I made nachos last night, which was enough for me. In addition, my husband had the last of a rotisserie chicken (drumstick and some white meat), spinach, and carrots. I ran out of white/yellow tortilla chips so made some out some blue corn tortillas I had bought at Whole Foods that I didn't really like in tacos. They were okay and filled the need.

Tonight we split a pan-fried boneless strip steak with sauteed mushrooms. Also on the menu: simmered asparagus topped with fried eggs and Parmesan, and boiled carrots with butter and parsley. The steak took a little longer to cook than I first estimated but came out great, a perfect medium rare, with a bit of crusting on the outside from the cast iron skillet.

Scattershot meals lately. I improvised a delicious mushroom stroganoff several days ago. My turkey meatballs with sambal oelek were slightly less successful but salvaged by making them hot and sweet meatballs by finishing a sauce with fig preserves. The meatballs were first served with Royal Blend rice and baked sweet potatoes. Last night they were reheated with something from the freezer (tofu, broccoli, same rice blend) that I doctored up (chopped Calabrian chilies, chickpeas, and diced tomatoes). There have been a bunch of salads as well.

Last night was a beef stew made with bone-in short ribs, carrots, onions, and garlic. I cooked the beef and sauce in the Instant Pot the day before and let it rest in the refrigerator overnight. I reheated it and thickened with a cornstarch slurry. I more or less followed this recipe from The Kitchn I served it in bowls over polenta, along with some extra cooked carrots. We also had slices of a striata baguette from Radici and a green salad (romaine, tomato, radishes, thinly sliced red onion, chevre, and marcona almonds).

I don't know offhand but have someone I can ask. (His wife is from Morocco.) I should see him at some point this weekend.

A few nights ago, I made a recipe for one-pot creamed corn bucatini from the Half-Baked Harvest Super Simple cookbook. I was a little wary of the process, which involved adding 9 1/2 cups of water along with pasta to the pot in which the vegetable portion had been cooked. It was supposed to cook down and leave a sauce. I was tempted to cook the pasta separately, and that's what I should have done. The water did not cook down sufficiently to make a sauce. I used my regular pasta pot to make this, but it might have helped to use a bigger pot. In the end, I drained the pot into a colander set inside a pan to see what I could salvage. The pasta itself was fine but the enhanced pasta water was not thick enough for a sauce. I didn't want to throw it out, so I saved it (almost a quart of liquid), thinking it looked like it would be good in chowder. So, that's what I did. The next night I made a salmon, corn, and potato chowder using that as the bulk of the liquid. I also added some milk. Cornstarch slurry to thicken. It was excellent, like really impressively good. My husband had that along with some leftover rice and vegetables from the freezer and chicken sausage. I had the last slice of pizza along with mine. I'm not going to go through that whole process to get the liquid again but I might save some pasta water from something and use that. Last night was air fryer chicken drumsticks, broccoli, and Royal Blend rice mix. We also had a salad of baby arugula, Campari tomatoes, chickpeas, and feta.

I've noticed they're also open for lunch. I'm not sure if that's every day or not. I'm glad all the years of work (and probably a boatload of money) they've put into this spot are paying off.

Tonight my husband had one leftover piece of chicken, the last curry-stuffed squash, and the last of the spaghetti. Then he finished what I made for myself and didn't finish. I was craving eggs, so I made myself fried eggs over a bed of baby arugula. Before making the eggs I cooked some thinly sliced yellow onion, a sliced garlic clove, and two sliced cremini mushrooms in some olive oil. That went over the arugula first and then the eggs. (I had sprinkled a little grated Parmesan and black pepper over the arugula before the toppings went on.) Some chopped parsley to garnish. It was fabulous. I'm typing it out so I can make it again. Both plates looked really pretty but I didn't take photos... We also had some sourdough bread.

Last night was air fryer chicken thighs, steamed broccoli, and a wild rice blend (Rice Select Royal Blend--white, brown, wild, and red).