Monthly Archives: October 2008
  Tonight we roasted a sugar pie pumkpin which was filled with baguettes, cheese, wine, cream and veggie broth … the end result was a creamy baked fondue. Served with Vampire Wine from the Central Valley and Grilled Aspargus drizzled with blood oranges, olive oil and sea salt. Very good! *All was local except the cheese – Wisconsin.
I was flying back from Madison and decided to pick up the breakfast issue of Saveur at the airport. I always love the photos in Saveur but I really never make anything in them. It is definitely more eye candy for me than anything else. I squeeled with delight, when I started flipping through the pages and the first one I stopped at was a recipe for Chilaquiles. I could not believe it! It clearly was meant to be! As a regular reader you know we really don’t do breakfast at our house, so I knew these dishes would clearly become dinner.
 I was very excited to see October’s challenge listed on the DB site – Basic Pizza Dough, by Peter Reinhart, I am so glad that Rosa over at Rosa’s Yummy Yum decided to continue with this challenge. She was suppose to host this challenge with Sher at What Did You Eat, unfortunately for all of us the lovely Sher passed away last summer. We love making pizza at home and this recipe was very easy, even the tossing of the dough – which was too fun, so much in fact, we forgot to snap photos. The crust was thin and crispy and very flavorful. We topped ours with arugula, fresh tomatoes, olive oil and sea salt – so good! Be sure to check out the other Daring Bakers, too! …. after a long spin night, the last thing I wanted to do was cook something new for dinner. So, I took out the leftovers I had intended for us to have for lunch tomorrow, heated them up and this is what we got.
 my version … nicely spaced food
 Lenny’s version …. so very French & 5 star’ish VOTE for our Mashed Potatoes! Please!
* Local meal, everything was except the Panko Breadcrumbs and the chili peppers.
 Clara over at I Heart Food for Thought was our gracious host for this weeks Tuesday With Dorie (TWD) challenge and she choose Chocolate Chocolate Cupcakes! I heart chocolate as well so I knew this would be a fun challenge for me. As well we had a birthday celebration to go to over at Bryan’s house and I knew this would be the perfect gift for his girlfriend, Erin. The recipe was pretty simple, chocolate, flour, sugar and buttermilk, basically. In fact, it was so easy, that I kept reading through it thinking I had missed something. As with all of Dorie’s recipes, that I have made so far, it was true to the serving amounts – twelve cute little cupcakes. Kept going back and forth on whether I should fill them or not. I really wanted too, but, I was not sure I would have time and I did not want to use store bought fluff. Right before the final step, I whipped up a batch of Dorie’s Marshmallows flavored with cardamon to use as my fluff! The finishing touch was a very deep bittersweet chocolate ganache topping with whimsical sprinkles! Very fun birthday celebration! The end result: very easy recipe, great flavor but a bit on the dry side. I may try again before going back to my fall on cupcake recipe; but, I will add more buttermilk and bake a short amount of time. Be sure to pour yourself a big glass of milk and head over to nosh on more cupcakes with the other TWD bakers!
 Lenny & I have been battling our first cold of the season. When we are run down we tend to turn to comfort food. I decided to make a dish we had in Boston earlier this year, Lil’s Chicken Cutlets. The recipe is really easy …. pound the heck out of a plump chicken breast, coat it in some egg and flour and then toss it in some crushed panko. Tonight I seasoned the panko with left over croutons and used grapeseed oil, which you can heat to a high heat without burning. They came out very light, not greasy and incredibly moist and juicy. Since we were really going for comfort I decided to make more of those fantastic celery root mashed potatoes, presented with some Harissa. The end result was a very “comforting” meal to help chase away our colds. We are also submitting these tasty mashed potatoes into Chowhounds (Chow, now) Food Fight for Thanksgiving Sides – Please vote for us!! * Local meal, everything was except the Panko Breadcrumbs and the chili peppers.
 I love to make a “nice” dinner on Sunday night. Ending one week and moving into another on a good note so to say. I stumbled upon this recipe for Merguez Spiced Lamb Shanks with Chickpeas in the November issue of Food and Wine and just knew we had to make it for the following reasons: I love lamb, Lenny loves chickpeas and we both love spice. The dish said to slow cook in the oven for an hour and a half, I kept it in there for 2 and a half hour, which was perfect as it came out very moist. The scent of the dish was really intoxicating, the way a Moroccan market must smell, with the addition of cumin, fennel, coriander, paprika, allspice, cayenne and a bit of sweetness. The lamb came out very moist and the pieces of meat fell off the bones with a mildly intense flavor. We served it with a whole wheat couscous, some roasted squash and a very nice bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. the Eat Local Challenge. I cannot believe it is the last week of the eat local challenge. I had all all intentions of doing most of our shopping at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market but I got a late start today and I am coming down with a cold. So, I did one stop shopping at Whole Foods. 90% of the groceries were local and/or organic. A weeks worth of groceries including 3 bottles of sustainable wine and an additional dinner with dessert to take to a dinner party came up to $175.00 This week’s menu will include: Straus Yogurt for breakfast Fair Trade cafe lattes w/local milk Fresh baked Zucchini bread for breakfast & for a gift Cereal – Organic Steel cut Oats – Organic Chicken Stock – for the freezer Lasagna & two containers of Straus ice cream w/homemade toppings (dinner party) Merez Lamb w/roasted squash Lil’s Chicken with potatoes & grilled asparagus Salad with pomegranates and prosciutto Baked Pumpkin dish Fresh Fruit for snacking Roasted Almonds for snacking Zucchini bread for breakfast & for a gift Pumpkin Creme Brulee Homemade Meyer lemonade drink |
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Whenever we travel we always like to eat what the locals eat, no pizza (unless we are in Italy) or grilled cheese here – yes, I use to travel with people who would order these items no matter what country they were in, can you say “boring”! Even though I had been to Mexico before, on our first morning in 
