Catching up!

Wow, where does the time go, it's been too long since I sat down and wrote and so much to write about!


First we had a wonderful breakfast two weeks ago at Danny Meyer's Maialino located in the Gramercy Park Hotel. We started with Donuts and Cream and Toffee Glazed Brioche.  Both were heavenly pastry beginnings!  Next we enjoyed Ricotta Pancakes with Peach Compote and Maple Syrup and Baked Eggs in Spicy Tomato Sauce & Guanciale, both of us chose roasted potatoes with rosemary for our side dish.  The food was amazing, the room is bright and open with huge windows overlooking Gramercy Park.  Service was relaxed and sufficient.  All in all a very good experience.  Want to return for Dinner soon!!


From there we browsed through Fishes Eddy, on of all time favorite places, to stroll the displays of dishes we don't need!  If you've never been go, or visit online it's always tempting!


After Fishes Eddy we went to Paragon Sports to do some sneaker shopping.  Got a new pair of high top Nikes.  Haven't even had a chance to break them in! 


Now we trek up to 23rd and Fifth to check out the newly opened Eataly.  It literally had opened the previous afternoon @4 p.m.  First impression: WOW!  You can read the details in an article from EATER, NY here. It is truly a sensory overload!  Of course it was busy, and we arrived a little after 11.  We marvelled at all the food counters and amazed and the fresh products then strolled the "grocery aisles" filled with wonderful imported Italian products from dried mushrooms, to dried pasta, to the Olive Oils and Vinegars!  By 12 the place was jammed with lunch-goers snapping up tables and ordering from the various venues! 


We walked around in awe and decided to take it all in this trip and come back prepared to shop in the near future!  We did succumb to temptation in the wine store and brought home two bottles of Bastianich wines, one a Rose, that we weren't overly impressed with. We drink Roses in the summer a lot and this year discovered some awesome Spanish versions to join our usual French favorites.  But the Bastianich was weak in comparison.  Have higher hopes for the white we brought home.  Will report on it after we've drunk it.


Nana got to shake Joe B's hand, that was the only sighting we had, Mario and Lidia were not there or at least not visibly.  It's a very exciting market and we all hope they do very well.  Already planning to add it to our out of towners lists of must dos on their next visits.


Here are some random pictures and you can see more in the article referenced above.

Drooling for our return trip!  More "cathcing up" to come, stay tuned!

Corn finally cooked!

Finally, got around to cooking the corn we bought at the farm over the weekend! I wasn't feeling like corn before today and kept wavering back and forth as to what I wanted to do with it.  This morning Mark Bittman was on the Today Show with fresh corn recipes which you can find here. They include Corn Salsa; Guacamole with Corn; Cornbread; Corn and White Bean Salad and Corn Chowder!  That's it, I want Corn Chowder.  He took the corn cobs and boiled them in water for broth and cooked other ingredients adding the broth and half and half. 

Chicken Corn Chowder is another childhood memory of a visit to a Lancaster, Pennsylvania summer fair where the volunteer fire department served the best soup I'd ever had at that point in my young life!  It was Chicken Corn Chowder, my Mother's Uncle was instrumental in making sure we got a good serving.  I've followed bunches of recipes over the years and while nothing was ever inedible nothing was star quality.  Even ones from "authentic" Pennsylvania Dutch cookbooks!

Tonight that is all changed.  Yes, I have learned a thing or two over the years about cooking, proper seasoning, how to combine flavors etc.  But, also, I have learned that trying to duplicate taste memories is folly for the most part!  So I've begun focusing on making a good quality, fresh tasting, well seasoned version of whatever I'm creating.  So I read another recipe of Mark Bittman's for Corn Chowder, from August 2008, and went to the kitchen.

Here's what I did:  I stripped the corn from the cobs and put the cobs in 4 cups of water and simmered them with some salt for 20 minutes.  Sauteed a diced yellow onion and 2 diced white potatoes with salt and pepper.  Added the corn kernels and sauteed a bit, added a pinch of sugar and a tablespoon of flour.  Strained the corn broth and added to the pot, stirring to fully mix. Simmered this for awhile to thicken a little. I might suggest a little more flour for a thicker soup, if that is your preference. I added 1 1/2 cups half and half and heated through, did not let it boil. Tasted and adjusted the seasoning, adding salt and white pepper.  Meanwhile I poached two boneless skinless chicken breasts simply in chicken broth with salt, pepper, sprigs of parsley and rosemary. 

For serving I pulled the chicken out of the broth cut into 1 inch cubes and placed in soup bowls, ladled the corn chowder over the chicken and garnished with chopped scallion and chopped roasted red pepper.  The tasty result can be seen here:

It was very good, and made a wonderful meal with a sliced heirloom tomato with Russian Dressing and garlic bread!  Can't beat summer farm fresh ingredients!

Road Trip: Farmstands in Old Brookville, NY

We drove out to Old Brookville on Long Island's "Gold Coast" on Saturday to visit two farms that we love.  Purchased lots of goodies.  The first one is Rottkamps on McCouns Lane see here: 


 
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Here we bought wonderful Tomatoes, yellow, green and red heirlooms; three colors of Eggplant: lavender, white and graffiti;. Yellow and Green Zucchini; Pale Yellow Hungarian Bell Peppers; Corn; Basil and Yellow Melon; Peaches and Nectarines.

Next we went to Young's Farm on Hegeman's Lane here: 



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At Young's we bought Blueberries, Blackberries and Red Onions in the produce section and in the Annex we got a delicious Dark Cherry Pie, Tangerine Shortbread Cookies and a jar of Tart Cherry Jam.

On Sunday I got busy cooking these wonderful finds.  First I made a gratin inspired by Claire Robinson on the Food Network show: 5 Ingredient Fix. Her recipe was with Green Tomatoes & Caramelized Onions with a Breadcrumb & Bacon Topping that you can find here.

In my version I cooked two strips of Bacon, removed them for later, caramelized a sliced Red Onion in the Bacon Fat and drizzled them with Balsamic Vinegar.  Placed them in the bottom of a glass deep-dish pie pan and layered thinly sliced Green and Yellow Zucchini on top.

Then I sprinkled with Dried Oregano, Olive Oil, Kosher Salt and shredded Parmesan Cheese. 

Next I sliced the Green Tomatoes and seasoned them with Kosher Salt, Dried Basil, Olive Oil and placed them atop the squash layer.

I toasted Bread Crumbs with a chopped Garlic Clove in the remaining little bit of Bacon Fat and added the crumbled bacon.

I placed this on top of the tomatoes and put it into the oven for 40 minutes and then topped with shredded Parmesan Cheese and baked for another 5 minutes.  The aromas were incredible! 



While cleaning up I went to pour the remaining bread crumb mixture into a ziploc bag for storage and had a slight mishap as  you can see here:

My beautiful breadcrumbs literally down the drain!

This was dinner along with a salad of Roasted Yellow Beets, Crumbled Goat Cheese, toasted Marcona Almonds and Arugula. My vinaigrette was Orange Muscat Champagne vinegar, dry mustard, chopped shallot, sugar, olive oil.  It was very tasty and good pairing with the cheese and Arugula.  Found some frozen Sun-dried Tomato Foccacia in the freezer and heated it up and served it with a dollop of basil pesto sans Parmesan!  Another highly flavorful summery meal! 

                 

I also made roasted vegetables using the Lavender and Graffiti Eggplants, Green & Yellow Zucchini, the Yellow Pepper, Red Onion, and Garlic.  Will use these as side dishes and on top of grilled Polenta Squares as an accompaniment to the Sun-dried Tomato Sausage and Diced Tomato Saute I cooked up. 

Used the Basil for a batch of Pesto most of which I froze without the Parmesan Cheese added. This way it's more versatile when used in the future. 

Need to cook the Corn tomorrow, still considering what I want to make with it, am leaning towards a Corn, Red Pepper Risotto!  Sounds interesting!  Or maybe a corn puree like we had @The Mermaid Inn on Friday night! It was under Grilled Scallops with cubed Bacon and Fava Beans!  Awesome dish!

Although, honestly, I have been really craving old fashioned Corn Relish!  Stay tuned, I'm sure it'll be interesting!

 

Summer Lunch @Home

Do you think maybe, watching DVR'd cooking shows while working out on the Elliptical is a bad thing?  Today I caught a dated Molto Mario where he made a salad with a frittata.  It's called:
Frittata Salad: Frittatine Verdi in Insalata  it sounded wonderful. But I didn't give it a second thought as I didn't have a lot of those ingredients on hand.  After exercising I watched another stored episode where he stuffed a veal roast--saved that idea for the winter!

However, when I went foraging through the fridge for lunch fixins' I thought of the frittata and wanted a salad with eggs.  The herb drawer proved to be a big disappointment today, so much for Mario's inspiration.  So I grabbed Arugula, two Eggs, Sun-Dried Tomato Gouda Cheese, a small remnant of Parmesan Reggiano, and a Cantaloupe. Still not sure where this is all gonna fit, and at the last second before closing the fridge door I grabbed bacon.  Cause everyone says everything is always better with bacon.  Also the left over piece of French Baguette, which is hard as a rock!  Think like a "Chopped" market basket of ingredients!  I was up for the challenge!

First I rub the baguette with water and tightly wrap in foil. Preheating the oven to 375 and prepping the bacon, I decide not to go the brown sugar route and used freshly ground Black Pepper.  Pressed the pepper into the bacon placed on small rack on small sheet pan and put into the oven along with the bread.

Thinking of what to do with the eggs I plan to add Fines Herbes from the dried collection to the lightly beaten eggs.  Heated butter and olive oil in nonstick skillet and added eggs gently pushing the edges to the center until a nice "pancake" is formed. Drizzle on some shredded parm, flip the frittata when I feel the center is almost completely set and finish less than one minute later!  Set this on the cutting board to cool before cutting into strips.  Why? Because Mario said frittata's are good warm, room temp and even chilled.

The Cantaloupe is cut in half, one half wrapped and stored for later use, the other peeled and cut up into pieces and served as a side dish to the salad rather than in it. Since now I've decided to grab a lemon and make a quick vinaigrette with lemon, dijon mustard, fines herbes, black pepper and what else?  Bacon Drippings! Cause everything goes better with Bacon!

Plating--Sliced the Frittata into strips tossed with arugula and chunks of the still warm bacon and a drizzle of vinaigrette.  Two slices of Sun-dried Tomato Gouda and several very thin slices of the crunchy baguette. I was using the soup and sandwich plates we have from IKEA, for this so I placed the melon chunks in the bowls and sprinkled them with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  I know, never heard of seasoning your Cantaloupe?  This is the way we ate it at home with biscuits and butter, and it was perfect following to the peppered bacon and pepper in the vinaigrette!  See, a peppery theme!  

Lunch was greatly appreciated and once again the opportunity to utilize ingredients on hand saved a trip to the store in the heat!  Now I need inspiration for dinner!!  To quote a chef friend:  "...chef advantage, we can always come up with something!"  Thanx for that tidbit Christine! 

BUTTERMILK CHANNEL

This restaurant in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, has been on my list to try for quite some time!  So last Friday, after an impromptu trip to DUMBO to surprise Nana with a Chocolate shopping spree @ Jacques Torres, we decided to explore some more neighborhoods in Brooklyn. When I crossed Court Street I remembered that I've been thinking about checking out a lot of restaurants nearby, so we drove up Court Street and located a few on the way then found Buttermilk Channel.

From the outside our impression was that it would be an enjoyable place to dine, ambiance-wise, and if the food was as good as it's been touted to be. that would be a great bonus.  Kept on driving discussing the reviews and dreaming about a day when we would go prepared to eat there. 

Now neither of us is hungry so we do the IKEA shopping experience: (strolling the showroom and then hitting the marketplace) purchased one package of lime green cocktail napkins!  I've never, ever, left Ikea having spent less than $3.00!  Unless I was only there to measure and design!

At this point it's a little after 7 and the thought of going all the way back to Queens in Summertime Friday City-exiting traffic and then to start dinner was not a happy one.  So we drove around Red Hook for awhile and found the Red Hook Lobster Pound, perfect! A Lobster Roll is just what the Doctor ordered!  Whipped the car around to see that they were locking up....they close @7 p.m.   Arghhhhhh!

Now we figure we're dressed OK for an outdoor cafe and we'll head back to Carroll Gardens and find something casual on Court Street or a side street.

As fate always plays it's hand at the most opportune times, I drove up Huntington Street to Court forgetting that Court is one-way! At the light of  Huntington and Court we notice that we're at Buttermilk Channel--AND--there are empty tables outside--and better yet an EMPTY parking space directly across Court Street.  I say--let's go for it! Nana agrees and I make a rather illegal maneuver with the car to snag the parking spot and we are now justifiably excited for dinner!

Buttermilk Channel is named after a tidal strait between Brooklyn and Governor's Island you can read the legends here.  And a great interview with Doug Crowell, owner here; and of course one with Chef Ryan Angula here.

The biggest buzz about this restaurant is the Fried Chicken w/Cheddar Waffles and Savory Slaw. And all that Buzz is deserving! This is picture from their site: 

We started with Grilled Flatbread with House-Made Buttermilk Ricotta, Squash Blossoms & Lemon Oil.  It was a slice of heaven on our plates. The Creamy Ricotta had just enough body to keep the Flatbread crispy underneath the generous bed of cheese! And Squash Blossoms and Lemon Oil were the perfect bonuses!  Score two points! Pictures are not great as they are from my Blackberry and photog I'm not!

Nana ordered the Caputo's Fresh Linguini with Sweet Corn, Roasted Mushrooms, Brown Butter & Pecorino and she loved it!  It was a very healthy portion and provided her with enough for lunch!

I was really torn-the Duck Meatloaf was calling my name but ultimately I had to try the Fried Chicken. I was pretty sure that was the way to go but I still asked the advice of our waiter.  He pointed out that we were dining outdoors in 90º weather and what better way to enjoy Fried Chicken and save the meatloaf for when we dined indoors or in the fall!  And really, honestly, truly I was a very happy "picnicker"  The chicken was crunchy on the outside and perfectly cooked, moist and tender on the inside.  The waffle was a great foil for the chicken and the slaw just enough to ensure you ate your vegetables! Good thing Buttermilk Channel isn't on the corner of our block! 

We drank a wonderful bottle of Vino Bianco from Channing Daugthers Winery from the Hamptons on Long Island. This blended table white wine as perfect for a hot day, very sippable al fresco, and excellent with our food choices. It's made up of: The 2007 version is made up of 32% Tocai Friulano, 25% Sauvignon Blanc, 17% Pinot Grigio, 9% Chardonnay (Dijon clone 96) and 17% Chardonnay (“Musque” clone).  Crisp and golden in color, lots of tropical fruit flavors and a very slight hint of oakiness.  Good thing, cause I'm not a big fan of any Chardonnay that is very Oaky.

We topped off our meal with one scoop of Van Leeuwan pistachio ice cream!  Couldn't pass it up on a hot night.  The perfect end of a great meal...another impromptu adventure and part of Nana's extended birthday celebration!

Our server, Doug, was quick, bright, efficient, friendly and just chatty enough to make our experience enjoyable beyond the setting and great food. Everyone we had contact with here were professional and friendly.  We observed the hostess telling many people about the wait for tables inside and she always smiled and maintained her excellent demeanor while some of the potential guests expressed their frustration at least with visual facial expressions! Kudos to all for providing us with a great evening.

Throughout our time dining outdoors we watched the sky darken with clouds and become a bit threatening.  Eventually, by dessert, there were some lightening flashes in the dark sky and we had joked with our waiter that we'd be grabbing and running inside if it started to rain. We asked for our check and it was brought with promptness. The second it was signed the first of many large drops of rain fell onto us. Nana grabbed the check and ran inside to return it to our waiter and thank him again, while I dashed across the street and got the umbrella out of the car.  I went back to the restaurant and got Nana to the car in a dry state (for the most part).  By the time we were a block away the downpour had lightened up to a drizzle.  Listening to the radio on the ride back to Queens we heard all the reports of wind damage, rain-caused accidents AND that Manhattan had been under a tornado watch much of the time we were dining outdoors in Brooklyn!  They also said the storm hit the Bronx, Queens and Long Island the hardest and seemed to barely skim over Brooklyn!  Chalk that up to the same fate that provided us with a parking space and empty table at our new Favorite Brooklyn restaurant: Buttermilk Channel!

We'll be returning to Buttermilk Channel soon!

Friday Roundup

This week went by too quickly!  Cooking highlights were a new Rabbit recipe.  Used an English recipe for Rabbit and Leek Pie, but only made the stewed Rabbit with Leeks and added lemon zest & juice for the sauce.  It was very yummy! The rabbit was boneless, the first time I've dealt with boneless rabbit!  Most of the other dishes were repeats. 

At home we had the Veal Rolls! Double Yum and Nana asked for a Mario Batali dish she saw him produce on Rachel Ray's Show: Stuffed Manicotti with Beef.  I made a basic tomato sauce for it then prepared the beef ragu.  We cooled these and stored them overnight. Nana finished the recipe the next day for our dinner.  It was really good, I can't wait to make the Ragu again, so tasty.
I'm posting the cleaned up version of the recipe here.  There were a few issues with the recipe on the site, some typos and one major issue was that it told you to make the stuffing while you were heating the water for the pasta, meanwhile the stuffing needs to cook for 1 1 /2 hours!  So I rearranged the directions just a bit! Here's two pics of the process and plated:

On Friday we lunched in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with our Daughter @Dumont Burger we sat outside as it was a gloriously beautiful day, a tad warm but not scorching.  It was a great meal, Nana had the Mini Burger w/Fries; Tiff had the Chickpea Burger with Onion Rings and I had the Turkey Burger with Salad.  All were delicious. But the real star was the Fried Pickles we enjoyed for an appetizer:

After a walk of the neighborhood and a bit of shopping, we found our way to the Van Leeuwen Ice Cream Truck!  Diets beware!  We tried three flavors-Mint Chip--Chocolate--Pistachio. All were perfect and refreshing! We had them in cups and no one spilled any on their clothes, therefore enjoying every last drop! Triple YUM!  It's just a good thing the truck doesn't come to our neighborhood, we'd embarrassingly be chasing it down the block!!

While I was at the Queens Health Food Emporium on Thursday, shopping for ingredients for my client, I saw the most gorgeous English Peas.  So on Friday Nana and I went back and bought a bunch along with Ricotta Cheese.  Came home and made Farfalle with Pea/Ricotta/Mint puree tossed with sauteed shallots and extra peas.  Served this as a side dish along side of grilled boneless chicken breast.  Here's the yummy picture:

Not a bad week for Foodies eh?

Baby Artichokes

Stumbled across them at the grocery store the other day and couldn't remember the recipe we had wanted to make with them but figured I'd find it somewhere in my collection of to be tried!

Turns out it was a Rachel Ray Recipe, we had seen her make on her daytime TV talk show.  It contained pancetta, so my ears perked up immediately!  The title to the recipe is: Springtime Spaghetti with Baby Artichokes and Herbs and can be found here.

I followed the recipe perfectly, I know, I know, highly unusual, but here's what I will do differently next time:  A little more wine and braise the chokes a little longer; peel them better left a few tough petals; saute some crushed red peppers along with the garlic.  And maybe a generous squeeze of lemon for brightness just when plating.  Otherwise it was a great meal!  Similar to a stir-fry, have all your ingredients prepped ahead lined up and ready to go. 

We enjoyed a few slices of thinly sliced whole wheat Ciabatta bread toasted, just like we had at lunch.  Nice meal for two with enough leftover for a lunch.

Sauteing the ingredients:

Plated:

Spice & Easy

Food Network has a new show called SPICE & EASY.  I keep missing it and forgot to set the DVR for it for several weeks now! Finally, today I made sure I watched it.  It is a pretty good show, the hostess is Janet Johnston, who with her husband are the owners of three spice shops in Colorado called Savory Spice Shops.  Actually, a friend from Cookstalk forum has visited the shops in Denver, and told us about the show!  You can also order from their website.

Janet has a passion for herbs, spices and cooking so she's a natural for explaining how to "spice" things up!  Today's show was about a barbecue blend that they make from a recipe submitted by a customer during a contest held in the stores.  She made Ribs with Peanut Barbecue Sauce made with Chinese five spice; Chile Glazed Shrimp with Pineapple Ginger Salsa; Celery Root Slaw with wasabi and honey. And her dessert was Grilled Spiced Sugar Bananas with Spiced Nuts.

She used a brine to prep racks of ribs and then after slow baking them she basted them with the Peanut Barbecue Sauce. This got me thinking, I had boneless chicken breasts that needed to be cooked today in the fridge, why not use this brine and sauce for them? I had all the other ingredients as well and love Chinese five spice!  I also had broccoli/carrot slaw mix, so I'd make the dressing from her slaw too!  Yeah, two new recipes to test out today, admittedly tweaked, but still new! 

Brined the chicken breasts for 1 hour then baked @375º for 10 minutes; basted with Peanut Barbecue Sauce and baked for another 20 minutes until done!  Very moist and delicious!  I cut back on the wasabi as Nana is not a fan, and probably will go full on next time, it was so mild she didn't even notice it was there!  Also looking forward to trying the Celery Root version!  I used the broccoli, carrot slaw mix and added scallions, we finished it all! 

I think I'll make the shrimp in Rhode Island next time we visit, they would love it!  And maybe the bananas too!

Check out the show and definitely try the recipes!

Long Fusilli with Roasted Tomatoes

As some of you know, I'm a big fan of big, bold flavors and recipes with a long list of ingredients to accomplish that boldness!  But, honestly, I am also a practitioner of simple flavorful cuisine. Today's dinner was a perfect example of that method. 

I started out by receiving a request for Pasta for dinner from Nana.  So I headed to the kitchen to see what pasta would inspire me.  I found plenty of choices in the pantry: Farfalle, Penne, Spaghetti, Orzo, Faro Linguine and Long Fusilli.  We bought the fusilli in Philly's Italian Market at Claudio Specialty Food.  From the kitchen I headed to one of the many cookbook shelves and selected all three of my Lidia Basitanich tomes. Quickly scanned the indices for Fusilli and came up with: LONG FUSILLI WITH ROASTED TOMATOES in Lidia's Italy.  I posted the recipe on facebook here. 
It was delicious and fairly simple.  Only a few tweaks (I know you're not surprised) I used more basil than called for, adding some chopped to the olive oil that is infused with garlic slices and I also heated the oil to just below the bubbling point before tossing it with the pasta!  Also, used Sapore Sweet Cocktail Tomatoes as the plum tomatoes weren't that good at the store today! The Sapore are packaged on the vine and smaller than the Campari but bigger than grape or cherry tomatoes. Cooked them just a little bit less time wise and didn't slice up the halves, tossed the whole halves onto the pasta!  Next time I'll add shavings of cheese to the finished dish rather than grated, I love a bite of cheese with my pasta! 

This is a light appearing dish, but we both felt is was just right for a summery supper!  Enjoy! Here's the pics: before, during and after!

SONO BAKING COMPANY & CAFE

Traveled to East Providence Rhode Island, on Friday, to attend the celebrations of the 5 year old grandson's birth!  We started out a bit later than usual and immediately joined the millions of trucks on the road and crawled across the Throg's Neck Bridge into the Bronx.  Finally on I-95 in Westchester County we were able to travel at the speed limit. Then, as usual, we slowed down in Connecticut.  So, since Nana was driving I pulled out the Blackberry and did a search for something to eat in the Norwalk area. 

Suddenly, I remembered SONO Baking Company and Cafe.  Got onto the GPS and let it navigate us to the Bakery in SONO (South Norwalk).  We had attended the Martha Stewart show on the day they taped the episode where John Barricelli brought out his new book entitled: The Sono Baking Company Cookbook, and as audience members we received two copies! 

The book is great, I really enjoyed reading it and will start testing some of the sweet recipes soon!  In the book he talks about the Cafe and the breakfast and lunch menus, they sounded interesting, so we set out to see what it was all about!  You can sit inside with picture window views of the staff working in the bakery preparing pastries and baking breads.  Or there are a few umbrellaed tables outside to dine al fresco.  

Meanwhile we enjoyed our lunch at the cafe!  Nana had the Club sandwich with Turkey, Ham, Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Avocado with Horseradish Mayo!  I had the special salad with Grilled Salmon, Romaine, Tomatoes and Blueberry/Balsamic Vinaigrette.  We also bought a loaf of Seeded Semolina bread for our planned Spaghetti & Meatball dinner and two Cherry Chocolate Chunk Cookies for the car!  The cookies were awesome and the bread was perfect.

Of course now we're trying to figure out how early we have to leave RI on Monday to make it back for lunch on the way home!!!

Friday Roundup

Decided to post quickly before our trip to RI.

  Will post a weekend roundup on Monday!  Looking forward to a great time in RI, tonite we're having Italian Grandma's Spaghetti and Meatballs!  Haven't planned the rest of the weekend's menu as of yet, will be feverishly catching up on Food Magazine reading in the car on the way to RI and hopefully get inspired!! (Like that's ever a problem!)

Here's two pics of meals we made this week at home.

First is the Roast Chicken with Tapenade from Alex's Day Off on the Food Network.  It's from Chef Alex Guarnaschelli who says it's from her fond childhood memories of the food she ate at home.  You can get the recipe here, the only things I did differently was to add a clove of garlic in the cavity of the chicken and I started it by roasting breast side down for 15 minutes then turned it over.  The tapenade was plentiful and we ate it later in the week with little baguette toasts.  The side dish was steamed baby carrots and asparagus with ramp pesto!  Awesome way to use ramps!

Yummy, yummy!

Second Picture is of my own version of Roasted Yellow Pepper Soup. Simple ingredients list:
Roasted yellow peppers, peeled
White onion chopped and sauteed
Chicken broth
Heat all then puree
Served with a dollop of Greek yogurt and chopped chives.

The inspiration came from the soup I had at Motorinos earlier in the week!  Delish, and soooooo easy!  Really just try it!

This was Nana's plate with a slice of her leftover

Brussels Sprout Pizza!