Sometimes a new recipe from a tried-and-true cookbook is a bit like the promise of a new day after a particularly trying one. Feeling confident that a dish is going to turn out delicious, even if you’ve never previously cooked it, can be as comforting as knowing that frustrations or disappointments of a previous day won’t seem nearly so grim after a good night’s sleep. We have that kind of confidence in Ina Garten’s recipes and cookbooks. The Barefoot Contessa knows her way around the kitchen, and she is often our go-to source when we want to try out a new recipe. This panzanella recipe is just one of many we have tried from her book, “How Easy is That?” and we have to say, not only is it pretty darn easy, but it’s addictingly good with fresh ingredients (rustic bread, cucumber, red bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, red onion) and Greek flavors (olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, dried oregano, Dijon mustard, feta cheese and kalamata olives.) And just like that, we have a new favorite salad to add to our rotation.
Author: Mrs. FoodieLawyer
Cincinnati Chili
When we saw the Steelers’ schedule and found out that they played the Cincinnati Bengals, we knew we would be making Cincinnati Chili for the Steeler Opponent-City Challenge. Cincinnati is famous for its chili — so much so that during the pre-game hoopla, they played a clip of this peculiar chili being spooned over spaghetti and hot dogs, we suspect from one of the most famous Cincinnati chili restaurants, Skyline Chili. Cincinnati chili is different than any other chili we’ve ever had, from the flavor (a mix of sweet, warm cinnamon, and spicy) to the way it is served, over spaghetti. We affectionately refer to this chili as “peculiar” without intending any offense — we liked the chili a lot, but initially had our doubts when we saw that the recipe we adapted called for boiling the ground beef and combining a pretty unusual mix of ingredients (e.g., cocoa powder and Worcestershire??) We had similar initial concerns about the football game (and Mike Wallace’s seeming inability to catch a pass), but both the chili and the Steelers ultimately turned out to be winners, bringing the current S.O.C.C. record to: Steelers 3-3, Foodie Lawyer 5-1.
Weekly Menu (Oct. 20)
Saturday
- Grilled Branzini, Sauteed Spinach
Sunday
- Kansas City Ribs, Zucchini Slaw, Baked Beans
Monday
- Chicken Wings in D.C. Mumbo Sauce, Fried Rice
Tuesday
- Pizza Margherita
Wednesday
- Pork & Black Bean Stew w/ Rice, Salad
Thursday
- Take-Out
Friday
- Dinner w/ Amesbury Conrads!
Friday Favorites
Some food-related (mostly) things we enjoyed this past week:
After the show “Homeland” won so many Emmys this year, we figured we should give it a shot. We downloaded Season 1 so that we could watch a couple of episodes on the iPad when we flew to Chicago, and have been obsessed with the show ever since. Almost as obsessed as Carrie herself is with exposing Brody as a terrorist. She missed something once before, and she can’t let that happen again.
Our roses are thriving in their Fall bloom stage. This is an unedited shot of our coral-pink roses; we also have light pink and peach ones.
Some of you may be surprised to learn that Dan briefly had a part-time job as a clown, back in the day. (If you know him in real life, you will not be at all surprised by this fact.) As part of his clown duties, he learned how to make balloon animals. He doesn’t do it very often, but couldn’t say no to the opportunity to help raise some money for the United Way campaign carnival at his office this week. Being out of practice, he made a few at home the night before the carnival while I made our favorite shrimp dish.
We were lucky enough to attend another movie screening this week — we saw the movie Lincoln at Studio Movie Grill and thoroughly enjoyed it. Even if you’re not a history buff, it is a very entertaining film, and Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance as Lincoln is absolutely incredible. Five (out of four) forks up!! (This is the only photo I could get to memorialize the occasion because we had to leave our cell phones in the car — and they searched purses and wanded us before we went into the theater — they were serious about preventing any illegal recording!)
I’m always on the lookout for any type of kitchen gadget or tool that will make cooking easier (for me.) This cookbook stand turns out to be even more handy than I expected it to be. It will hold cookbooks (even heavy ones), printed recipes (you can display 2 different recipes at once!) and the iPad, and having the recipes sitting upright instead of flat on the counter makes them SO MUCH easier to read and follow. And makes me less likely to spill food on them while I’m cooking. But the best part? The stand folds up into a small book shape, so when you’re not using it, you just put it on the shelf with your cookbooks. This makes my clutter-hating heart happy.
During a recent trip to the grocery store, I was delighted to see tiny olive trees for sale (cheap!) and couldn’t resist buying one for our patio. It probably won’t ever actually yield any olives, but it’s cute and reminds us fondly of Italy and Napa, some of our happiest places on Earth.
Nashville Hot Chicken
In the Thursday game last week, the Steelers played the Tennessee Titans. Coming up with a food for which Tennessee is particularly well-known for the Steeler Opponent-City Challenge wasn’t easy. And apparently neither was playing the Titans, since the Steelers lost the game that they were heavily favored to win. Since the Titans play in Nashville, we focused our search on that city and discovered Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, which is famous for, you guessed it, their “hot chicken” — fried chicken sauced with a very spicy paste. Prince’s is also famous for the story behind the chicken. The current owner of Prince’s explains that she had a great-uncle who was quite the ladies’ man and once got caught by his live-in girlfriend after cheating on her with another girlfriend. To get back at him, the jilted girlfriend made him a breakfast of super spicy fried chicken. Her hot dish of revenge backfired, however, because he loved the chicken so much that he started serving it in his restaurant (and reportedly continued sleeping with other women.) The dish was a hit with the locals and became so popular that there is an annual city-wide festival and competition honoring it. Understandably, the actual recipe for Prince’s Nashville Hot Chicken is a closely-kept secret, but we found this recipe, which we adapted by using coconut oil instead of lard to make it a bit more healthy and about half the amount of cayenne pepper to make it tolerable for our delicate constitutions. Continue reading “Nashville Hot Chicken”
Weekly Menu (Oct. 13)
Saturday
Sunday
- Cincinnati Chili
Monday
- Chicken Thighs in Garlic-Almond Sauce, Green Rice Pilaf
Tuesday
- Olive-Oil Baked Shrimp, Good Bread
Wednesday
- Take-Out
Thursday
- Seared Pork w/ Lemon-Thyme Sauce, Greek Feta & Cucumber Salad
Friday
- Dinner Out
Friday Favorites
Some food-related (mostly) things we enjoyed this past week:
We had a quick getaway to one of our all-time favorite cities last weekend — Chicago. It’s such a beautiful city with historical architecture, tons of shopping and amazing restaurants. The streets are always immaculate and well-appointed with flowers and greenery. We usually go in the summer, when blooms are plentiful, but were pleasantly surprised to see that they bust out the mums and other fall foliage to change with the season. Wonder what they do along the streets in the winter? Pretty sure we’re never going to find out. We love the Windy City, but not enough to brave it in January.
Whatever the season, for Dan, no trip to Chicago is complete without deep dish pizza. It’s like a pizza pie, without the top crust. The bottom crust is crisp and buttery, then it’s layered with cheese, meat andor veggies of choice, then topped with rich, tomato-ey red sauce. Most deep dish aficionados are strictly loyal to their brand of choice. Among the most popular are Lou Malnati’s, Giordano’s and Gino’s. After much sampling, we have decided that Lou Malnati’s is our favorite.
In other Chicago food news, we had one of our top 5 ever dining experiences at Topolobampo. We didn’t take any pictures because we were too busy enjoying the food, and any description in this blurb of a post would not do the restaurant, the food or the service justice. We can only say that if you’re ever lucky enough to go there (they suggest making reservations 8-10 weeks in advance, they are not kidding, and it is absolutely worth the advance planning), we highly recommend that you do one of the tasting menus. And make sure that at least 1 person in your dining party orders something with mole sauce (as long as that person is willing to let everyone have a taste.)
While in Chicago, we also ran a marathon! Just kidding. We watched thousands of other people run by our hotel (at around the first mile-marker), then went out for a huge breakfast. It was a cool thing to see — very inspiring (but not inspiring enough to make us want to actually train for a marathon. Or even run a single mile.)
We got to see a screening of the movie Argo this week and thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s an entertaining film with edge-of-your-seat thriller moments relieved by the occasional laugh-out-loud one-liners and rounded out with top-notch acting performances across the board. The movie is even more compelling when you know it’s based on actual events. We give it 4 (out of 4) forks up!
Today we participated in the 5th Annual AlixPartners Chili Cook Off. It was our third time to compete (click for the first and second), we were defending our First Place Champion title (co-title actually — we tied for First last year, if you must know the truth), and all was going well, right up until the fire. No big deal, just a small, propane-cylinder-changing accident that resulted in 8 foot high flames that melted the burner and caught the tablecloth on fire. Oops. We’re still not sure how the fire happened, but nobody was hurt and thanks to quick thinking and action by the AlixPartners folks and several of our chili competitors, the fire was put out quickly, our chili was rescued and we were back in business in no time. Seriously, the people from AlixPartners literally lived up to the slogan on their website that they provide services “when it really matters — in urgent, high-impact situations.” Like the business equivalent of when a table is on fire. We’re so glad they were there! And, although we didn’t win for our chili (we did win the “burnt spoon” award, for obvious reasons), we had a lot of fun, met a lot of great people and ate some really good chili. To Jeffery from AlixPartners — please add a small fire extinguisher to our ingredient list for next year, thanks!
Shredded Pork Tostadas (w/ leftover pork)
Over the summer, we cooked an entire pork shoulder in the smoker, which resulted in a ton of delicious pulled pork, a lot of which we froze for later use. Always keeping an eye out for creative uses of leftover pork and other proteins (this sugo was a good one), we were excited to find a recipe using shredded pork in Cook’s Illustrated’s “Mexican Favorites” magazine. (What? You don’t get your thrills searching through magazines and cookbooks for innovative ways to transform leftovers into new dishes? Well then, you’re seriously missing out.) The original recipe calls for braising a pork roast with some onion, garlic, thyme and salt to make “tinga,” or Mexican shredded pork. Whenever we run out of leftover pulled pork (next year sometime?), we’ll try the tinga recipe, but until then, the smoky flavor of the pulled pork adapts well to the chipotle-infused tomato sauce for a flavorful tostada topping. In fact, we loved these tostadas so much that the next time we thaw some of our pulled pork, we’re going directly to this recipe. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not seek out other uses of pulled pork. Continue reading “Shredded Pork Tostadas (w/ leftover pork)”
Chicken Cheesesteaks w/ Chipotle Cheese Sauce
Following a bye-week, the Steelers played the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday. Despite being located in the same state, there is no love lost between these two cities and their football fans. Dan tells me that Eagles fans are so notoriously unruly that their former stadium actually had a jail and a courtroom in it, so that belligerent patrons could be dealt with immediately. Drunken violence zealous team support aside, Philadelphians know their way around a sandwich — specifically, the cheesesteak sandwich. Legend has it that the very first Philly cheesesteak was made by hot dog vendor Pat Olivieri in 1930, and became famous when a cab driver smelled the beef cooking, asked for a steak sandwich and spread the word to fellow cabbies. Although the original and truly authentic cheesesteak is made with beef, we decided to try a healthier adaptation using chicken for this week’s Steeler Opponent-City Challenge, inspired by the chipotle chicken cheesesteak from this sub shop. We used a chipotle cheese sauce also inspired by that sandwich, instead of the Cheese Whiz used in the authentic version. The chipotle adds a spicy, smoky flavor that takes the cheese sauce to a whole new level. Although different from the genuine Philly cheesesteak, we actually like the chipotle chicken version better. Much as we liked seeing the Steelers beat the Eagles with a field goal in the final 3 seconds of the game. Just don’t tell any over-served, hostile Eagles fans that our sandwich is better than theirs.
Continue reading “Chicken Cheesesteaks w/ Chipotle Cheese Sauce”
Weekly Menu (Oct. 6)
Saturday
Sunday
- Take-Out
Monday
- Pastitsio (Greek Lasagne), Salad
Tuesday
- Buffalo Chicken Lavash Pizza
Wednesday
- White Bean Ragout w/ Toasted Ciabatta, Salad
Thursday
- Veracruz-Style Tilapia, Rice w/ Lentils
Friday
- Dinner Out