Some food-related (mostly) things we enjoyed this past week:

We finally got around to disposing of several old, outdated, heavy and giant-backed TVs cluttering up our garage.  We haven’t used them in years, and I think one of them may even belong to my brother (sorry J!), but didn’t really know what to do with them.  I discovered that the city of Dallas has a free “e-cycling” program for old TVs and computers, so we loaded up the car and dropped them off.  We also got rid of an old desktop computer that hadn’t even been turned on in maybe 10 years.  Kind of makes you wonder what will eventually replace the super-slim HD TVs and lightweight laptops, iPads and smart phones we currently use.  Microchips in our brains maybe.

The end of summer means the beginning of football season, which also means fantasy football drafts.  Dan had his first one the other night (he’s in two leagues) so I was solo for dinner.  We happened to have a couple slices of leftover cheese pizza, which I topped with some prosciutto torn into small pieces, then re-heated in a dry skillet on the stove (best method for getting a crisp crust on leftover pizza.)  It tasted even better than the original pizza, and Dan drafted a pretty decent team.  Win, win.

Dan’s fellow lobster-loving friend (Hi Chris!) and superstar-restaurant-sleuth has discovered the hands-down best lobster roll in Dallas.  Chris is great at finding and recommending all the best eateries around town, and 20 Feet Seafood Joint is right up there with some of his other quality finds.  Dan says the lobster roll was so authentic that if it hadn’t been 102 degrees at lunch that day, he would have thought he was in Maine.  He also said the clam chowder was equally authentic and amazing.  With a food friend like Chris around, Dan’s going to have start working out more.

This week marked five years since Dan’s dad passed away after battling a brain tumor.  Since then, the National Brain Tumor Society is a charity that has become important to us, as it fights brain tumors through research, advocacy and patient services.  Thursday seemed like a good day to honor the Big Guy and help us feel empowered against this terrible disease by making a donation to the NBTS.  Cancer sucks, but we will always have an anchor of hope that someday there will be a cure.

Some food-related (mostly) things we enjoyed this past week:

We had a really quick trip to Evanston, IL last weekend.  Evanston is the first suburb north of Chicago located on Lake Michigan.  It’s also the home of Northwestern University.  It has a cool little downtown with a couple of high-rises, lots of shops and tons of great restaurants.  Beautiful public beaches are just a short walk from downtown.  It’s a great little city and we had fun exploring it.

The eating portion of our Evanston tour began with lunch on a patio (the weather was glorious there last weekend — we ate every meal outside) at a tapas place.  Dan researched the restaurant before we went, so we felt compelled to follow reviewers’ recommendations to try the bacon-wrapped dates, even though it’s not something we typically would order.  The perfect match of savory and sweet, they were our favorite bite of the entire lunch.

The next stop on our food tour was a charming little Italian “trattoria.”  Although we both enjoyed our entrees (Dan had the bronzini and I had the shrimp risotto), the hands-down best food of the evening was the homemade meatballs appetizer.  Rich (but not too rich), meaty flavor with a sweet (but not too sweet) tomato sauce — the meatballs were just right.

Even though we were still full from a late breakfast, we couldn’t leave Evanston without trying the highly-recommended Edzo’s burger.  In addition to the regular (fresh, never frozen) beef that is cut and ground in-house each morning, Edzo’s offers beef “upgrades” of locally-raised and/or grass fed beef that you can order either “griddled” (thinner patty cooked on a griddle) or “char”  (cooked on a grill.)  We split an upgraded char burger with classic garnishes (cheddar, lettuce, tomato, pickle and onion.)  It was one of the best (if not THE best) burgers we’ve ever had.  Perfection.  We’re just bummed we didn’t have the time or belly room to try one of their many varieties of fries (garlic fries, “angry” fries, buffalo fries, “crazy” fries, oh my!) or hand-dipped shakes (nutella, oreo, peanut butter, as well as other specialty and seasonal flavors.)  I just noticed on their menu that they also have hot dogs and sandwiches that are probably pretty amazing too.  No wonder this little burger joint is touted as one of the best restaurants in town.

We arrived back in Big D to find our first crop of home-grown okra so far this season.  A couple of them should have been picked a little earlier (you can tell they are over-ripe if they make a loud crunch when you cut into them, which means the texture will be too woody to eat), but the other two were still good and made a nice (tiny) addition to our zucchini and tomato medley that we cooked with our parchment-roasted tilapia this week.

Some food-related (mostly) things we enjoyed this past week:

Inspired by this post from Michael Ruhlman, we tried a new (to us) method of preparing eggs for breakfast.  We are fans of Le Creuset and use our Dutch oven at least twice a week, so we couldn’t resist purchasing a set of these mini cocettes.  (In case you’re curious, “cocette” means small fireproof dish in which individual portions of food are cooked and served.  It also means prostitute or promiscuous woman.  Insert bad dirty joke here.)  The dishes are stoneware and oven-safe.  Cooking the eggs this way was really easy — we just put some thinly sliced ham in the bottom, cracked 2 eggs over the ham, added a bit of green chile sauce leftover from dinner the night before, topped it all off with grated cheddar cheese and baked it in the oven heated to 325 degrees for about 15 minutes.  The cocettes cool down surprisingly fast, so there is no need to transfer the finished eggs to a plate — just serve them in the cocettes.  The eggs were really good, although there was a bit of extra liquid in the finished dish, perhaps from the green chili sauce.  The cocettes came with a cookbook, so we plan on trying other recipes in these tiny one-pot-wonders, in addition to other variations of egg dishes.

Speaking of green chiles, it’s one of our favorite times of year again — Hatch green chile time!  As usual, our Central Market goes all out, hosting their own Hatch festival, complete with recipes, specialty foods made with Hatch chiles, and of course, the chiles themselves — hot and mild, fresh and roasted.  You may have noticed from our weekly menu last week that we incorporated Hatch chiles into just about every dinner, and we didn’t get sick of them at all.  The chiles will be available from Central Market through August 20, so we’ll be back to stock up on our supply to portion out and freeze for use throughout the year.  And if there is a Chuy’s restaurant where you live, be sure to stop by for Hatch green chile food (and drink!) specials during their festival from August 19 to September 8.

Dan had a quick trip to San Jose, CA this week for work.  Any time we go to that area of the country, we are always impressed by the perfect weather, picturesque scenery and laid-back vibe.  The distance from our family and friends, as well as the high cost of living preclude us from ever seriously considering a move there, but we always enjoy visiting.  And “trying on” a different city in another part of the country to wonder whether we could love living there is a fun thing to do.

While out and about last weekend, we stopped by Gordon Biersch for a late lunch and discovered a new favorite “small plate” offering called Mediterranean nachos:  flatbread chips topped with artichoke spread, tomato, olives, cucumber, roasted red pepper, pepperoncini, feta cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.  Creative AND delicious.