Dinner Review #2

As the weather gets warmer I find myself craving summer foods--salads, cool dips, lemon, mint, fresh herbs. When I crave all of that I go for Mediterranean. I love the cool salads, the plates of hummus and tabouleh with pita bread, the feta crumbled over everything. All of this led me and my husband to Oasis Mediterranean Bistro for our first meal there. We have enjoyed Aladdin's and Sinbad's for awhile now and, while driving around town, happened upon Oasis and decided to give it a chance.
We were seated immediately upon arriving, which was nice on a Friday night (we weren't sure what to expect). I ordered the combination platter for an appetizer, so I could sample all of those classic Mediterranean dips and salads at once. Somehow our order got messed up and our main dishes arrived with no sign of the appetizer--I had to ask for it again and it seemed our waitress had totally missed it the first time. No harm done, though, because we were so hungry by that time that we still demolished our main dishes and the platter all at once. I thought the platter (composed of hummus, baba ganouj, dolmades, felafel and tabouleh) was decent but not as flavorful as some I've had. My Chicken Plate (marinated chicken thigh meat, grilled and served over a Greek salad) was delicious--the meat was crispy on the outside, moist and tender on the inside. Unfortunately it was listed under the "Atkins Friendly Main Dishes" section of the menu--I tend to resent food being grouped into fad diet categories but I was hungry for a good Greek salad. I know that I said on the last dinner review that I don't tend to get salad for a main dish but it seems I am eating my words. :) My husband enjoyed his Beef Kabob with Couscous--it came artfully presented with the couscous molded in a mound and a sauce drizzled on the plate.
The bill: a surprising $32.48 before tip. We realized the price was lower because we didn't order wine. My husband wanted to try the baclava but I was too full for any dessert! All in all, a cozy, more quiet, and decent Mediterranean place to eat if you're looking to avoid the crowds at the more well known places.

On My Husband's Cooking

Oh thing of great beauty and delight--a meal conceived and created by my husband. Every Monday I work late, and he does the selecting of recipes, the shopping and most of the cooking (depending on when I get home). And what a treat Monday nights have become! He serves meals with such care to presentation and detail--the soup always has a garnish (tonight it was a small sprig of fresh rosemary), the meal is served on our Dick Lang light green pottery set (a wedding gift), and there is always a perfect wine pairing (tonight was a French white wine called Pouilly Fume). He's also becoming quite good with portion sizes. Each meal he cooks usually includes a serving of soup, a perfectly sized main dish and a salad or side dish, all artfully presented. Tonight we enjoyed Chicken with Sauteed Pears and Rosemary Sauce along with Tomato Soup with Lemon-Rosemary Cream and a side salad of arugula, lettuce, pears, almonds, goat cheese, and raisins. You will note that both epicurious recipes include a small amount of whipping cream. This is because I bought some to use in making cheesecake for Easter and we had some leftover, so he found delicious, creative ways to use it up. I am so proud of his cooking skills. I'm almost worried because I think he's getting better than me, especially in the gourmet area of cooking. (Naturally, I beat him hands down in the Mennonite area.) But this is a small worry. Mostly I'm wildly glad for the delectable meals he prepares for me, and so grateful that I have a husband who loves food and cooks well.

Choices, choices

Dinner tonight: choice of Chocolate Swirl Cheesecake or celery and carrot sticks with dill dip. Actually, cancel that--the cheesecake is off limits until Easter dinner tomorrow. We decided to pick up a pizza. :)

Red Lentils

Last night my sister was here, and we always cook an international feast together. This time we cooked from the Mennonite cookbooks--I made Ethiopian Red Lentil Bowl from Simply in Season and she made Curried Peas and Potatoes from Extending the Table. A nice mix, combined with rice and raita. The red lentils were wonderful, cooked slowly with half a head of garlic, an onion and a few spices (ginger, paprika, black pepper). The recipe made it sound like a soup but it was more like a wat that you would eat at an Ethiopian restaurant. Definitely a recipe I will repeat!

Eggplant Scallopini Marsala, in the making

I can't wait for our CSA produce to start arriving...then my meals always start with cutting boards full of fresh, local, yummy produce. All of this produce is from Wegmans. The finished product (with fettucine) will be consumed at a church potluck in a few hours. Hopefully all the Mennonites won't mind a little cooking wine in the sauce.

Dinner Review #1

For our weekly dining out meal, my husband and I chose something a little more low-key and less adventurous than usual. We were tired. We just finished a busy week and the weekend isn't going to be any less busy. We didn't exactly feel like going out but didn't want to cook, either, so we finally decided on Hogan's Hideaway, a casual restaurant on Park Ave. It was a pleasant experience, a good mix of decent food and just the right kind of atmosphere. Unfortunately I had to notice a splatter of tomato sauce on our table as we were being seated, so of course I had to stare at it occasionally throughout the meal. The silverware was also dingy with dried rinse water patterns on it. That's the obsessive side of me speaking, though. My more gracious side says they were busy, and once the food comes, who cares? My wine (Mountain Road 2004 Pinot Noir, from New York, incidentally the most expensive glass on the menu) and my husband's beer (Hogan's Park Ave Ale) were excellent and our meals pretty good. I had a steak salad with blue cheese, red peppers and a roasted garlic dressing. I'm not usually a "salad for a main dish" kind of eater--that's a little too girly for me, but this salad had enough substance and my appetite was not as robust as usual so in the end I was satisfied. He had the Friday Fish Fry (cod-which I tasted and pronounced a little doughy as opposed to crispy, but I'm not a fish fry person anyway). The complimentary bread was a mixed bag--a soft white country-style loaf instead of the nice crispy crust we prefer, but laced with some kind of seed (either caraway or fennel, we couldn't decide) that made the flavor more exciting. The bill totaled $40.77 before tip, a little more expensive than what it was worth, maybe, but not bad.

Food Poetry #1

Mmm...two of my favorite art forms combined into one. Delicious. I hope to make this a fairly regular feature on my blog--there's a lot of good food poetry out there. It's my mission to share it with the masses. Here's a poem by Julia Kasdorf (who grew up in a Mennonite family/community) about Mennonite women and how we feel about food. This poem helps me explain to my husband why I tend to cook too much and why I must save everything in Tupperware containers. It's in my genes.

When Our Women Go Crazy

When our women go crazy, they're scared there won't be
enough meat in the house. They keep asking
but how will we eat? Who will cook? Will there be enough?
Mother to daughter, it's always the same
questions. The sisters and aunts recognize symptoms:
she thinks there's no food, same as Mommy
before they sent her away to that place,
and she thinks if she goes, the men will eat
whatever they find right out of the saucepans.
When our women are sane, they can tomatoes
and simmer big pots of soup for the freezer.
They are satisfied arranging spice tins
on cupboard shelves lined with clean paper.
They save all the leftovers under tight lids
and only throw them away when they're rotten.
Their refrigerators are always immaculate and full,
which is also the case when our women are crazy.


This reminds me--I need to clean the refrigerator. It's full, but definitely not immaculate. And one of my goals for this summer is to learn how to can my own tomatoes. And I have to cook a big pot of something for potluck at church Sunday, and a dessert to take to my family tomorrow. Am I crazy yet?

Little Chocolate Cakes in Ramekins

Yum. I made this dessert awhile ago in an attempt to learn how to cook well with chocolate. I found the recipe at my favorite on-line cooking website, epicurious.com. The recipe is called Molten Chocolate Cakes. Watch out for the mistake I made--overcooking them just enough so the insides were no longer molten. Still delicious, though--how could it not be with chocolate , butter, eggs and sugar?

Rice is Nice

First Draft

Here I am, at last with a blog. Not sure how to do this or what I'll do with it yet, but I'm thinking the main purpose will be meditations on food--eating well, eating in season, eating thoughtfully. I'm looking forward to hearing from others out there on these topics. Of course, in the tradition of blogs, this will be mostly self-centered--what I've been cooking recently, where I've eaten recently, new recipes, musings, etc. The title reflects a merging of my background--Mennonite roots (the standard cookbooks More with Less, Extending the Table, and now Simply in Season) mixed with more gourmet influences (epicurious, Gourmet magazine). Mollie Katzen fits somewhere in there too--I think she's an honorary Mennonite but also a little bit gourmet.