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

We wrapped up the holiday of eating giving thanks with a light delicious meal at Bar Symon in the Pittsburgh airport before our flight home.  I had wings, Dan had a burger topped with a fried egg (one of the best burgers he’s ever had) and we shared the fries with cheddar and bacon.  Bar food at its finest.

When we got home, we were delighted to find another shipment of olive oil from our adopted tree in Italy.  I think I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s worth another shout-out and thanks to Dan’s brother and his lovely wife for the awesome gift (thanks S & I!)  This particular shipment included 3 tins of flavored olive oil:  garlic, mandarin and lemon.  They are flavored via the “agrumato” method, in which the flavor ingredients are crushed together with the olives in the olive press.  These types of oils are customarily used to dip, drizzle and/or finish off dishes and each tin has suggested uses.  We can’t wait to try them all and I’m pretty sure there is a cheese plate with some good dipping bread in our immediate future.

We had an amazing dining experience this week at a small Italian restaurant called Lucia, located in our old neighborhood.  We had heard good things about Lucia and became even more intrigued when we discovered how difficult it is to get into.  We made our reservation about 6 weeks ago.  Part of the reason it can be tough to get a table there is because it’s pretty tiny, but it also lives up to its exclusivity in terms of the food, atmosphere and service.  The menu changes daily, based on availability of as many seasonal and local ingredients as possible.  They prepare many of the ingredients in-house, from the cured meats, to the pasta, to the marinated olives that appeared the moment we sat down at our table.  Our server was charming, very knowledgeable and made us feel like we were new friends attending a dinner party at her home.

Just about every bite of food was exquisite.  We started with 2 small antipasti courses:  the “salumi misti,” which on that night included house-made black pepper salume, soppressata lonza, and crostinis with duck pate and chicken liver; and the crostini with Red Wattle lardo and honey caramelized mushrooms.  For our pasta courses (which were also available in smaller portions), we had the cocoa-infused tagliatelle with Red Wattle pork ragu and the tajarin (similar to spaghetti) with porcini broth and fresh procini.  We decided to share the “secondi” course and had the tasting of pork with Berkshire loin chop, Red Wattle polpette  crostini, and root vegetables.  Finally, we couldn’t resist sharing the salted caramel gelato with honey crisp apples and rosemary for dessert.  Divine.  It sounds like a lot of food, and it was, but the portions and pacing were perfectly balanced.  (Although I feel full just from typing all that we ate.)  Suffice to say that Lucia is our new favorite restaurant in Dallas and we will be stalking their website for reservation opportunities for our next several special occasions.

It has been unseasonably warm here lately, which means that our tomato plants have continued to flourish (there are some basil plants in the mix as well.)  They have pretty much taken over our sidewalk, are encroaching on the grill and have grown just about as wide as they are tall.  We long ago gave up trying to stake them or otherwise contain them and haven’t been able to cut them back because they are still covered in fruit.  We harvest cherry tomatoes pretty much every day and are now ruined for the store-bought variety since the garden-fresh ones are so much better.  Once it gets consistently cold here and the plants eventually die, it’s going to be one heck of a mess to break them down and clean them up (1-2-3, not it!), but we’re enjoying our tomato bounty in the meantime.

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

Sometimes a scary movie, a big bowl of Parmesan popcorn and a bottle of wine make for the perfect Friday night.  We watched “Silent House” on DVD last Friday — it was pretty good, but we liked either “The Cabin in the Woods” or “The Bay” a lot more if you’re looking for a good thriller/horror movie for your next movie night.

We’ve probably mentioned it here before, but Malai Kitchen is one of our favorite Asian restaurants and it serves an amazing version of Pad Woo Sen (stir fried glass noodles with chicken, green onions, cilantro and cherry tomatoes in a sweet garlic sauce with just a hint of spice.)  On our most recent visit, we were delighted to find that Malai Kitchen added another favorite as a permanent menu item, since it previously was only available as an occasional special — the Ahi Tuna Tartare appetizer is now available any time.  Except of course if they happen to run out, as they did the day we were there.

Our disappointment at the lack of ahi tuna was cured by the discovery of a new favorite  — the Garlic Lemongrass Poached Chilean Sea Bass with baby bok choy and thin rice noodles in a chile lime broth.  The fish was delicious, but the star of this dish was the broth — silky smooth and packed with chile, garlic, lime and lemongrass flavors.  It was addicting, and we both slurped it down like it was the last soup on Earth.

We made the trek to central Pennsylvania this week to spend Thanksgiving with Dan’s mom, his brother, his brother’s lovely wife and our adorable nephew.  Spending quality time with our favorite little redhead and the rest of the family made the trip more than worthwhile.  We are thankful to have them and all our family and friends in our lives and hearts.  And the little guy is especially thankful for the Fisher-Price “peoples”  that he can drop through the trap door of the Fisher-Price castle at “Bama’s” (Grandma’s) house.  Repeatedly.  And again.

Among our many blessings this Thanksgiving is the fact that we noticed that the oven was actually OFF, about an hour after we put the turkey in it.  But the oven had been pre-heated, so luckily it was still warm and we rectified the situation in the nick of time.  No matter if the issue was user-error or equipment malfunction (we may never know for sure, although we have our suspicions), the turkey was saved and we had a beautiful Thanksgiving feast!  Hope all of you had a wonderful holiday as well.

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

We are big fans of the show “Top Chef” and have watched every season.  The show is set in Seattle this time, and when we tuned in to the first episode, we were surprised and delighted to see a chef that we recognized.  Chef contestant Danyele McPherson is from Dallas, and the reason we recognized her is because she cooked for us once!  Dan’s brother and his lovely wife gifted us with a tasting menu at a concept restaurant called Fuego several years ago.  Chef Danyele cooked our dinner that night, alongside Chef Stephan Pyles.  It was an unforgettable dining experience (thanks again, S & I!), and we’re excited to see how Chef Danyele fares on this season of Top Chef.  We’ll certainly be cheering her on.

We had a couple of over-ripe bananas this week and decided to make banana bread.  We don’t bake very often — by “we” I mean “I,” and by “very often” I mean “ever.”  But I didn’t want the bananas to go to waste, so I found a recipe in our Cook’s Illustrated “The Best Light Recipe” book and gave it a shot.  The bread was easy to make and turned out well enough that we would definitely make it again.  Pro Tip:  If you accidentally forget to add the eggs to the bread mixture as instructed in the recipe, but notice them sitting on the counter just as you put the bread in the oven, you can quickly throw the bread mixture back in the mixer, add the eggs, put it all back in the bread pan, bake it, and not really notice a difference in the finished bread.  I win at baking!

Dan very sweetly surprised me with a “just because” bouquet of flowers this week.  He’s the best and I am a lucky girl.

We love sushi and enjoy trying new places, but Sushi Sake will probably always be our favorite (so much so that this is likely not the first time we’ve mentioned it in a Friday Favorites post.)  They have some of the freshest and best fish around, always expertly and perfectly prepared.

We cooked acorn squash for the first time this week.  We generally prefer savory over sweet when it comes to cooking with gourds (this butternut squash with gorgonzola is a Thanksgiving favorite), so we were intrigued to try this recipe that called for roasting the squash while basting it with a mixture of balsamic vinegar, honey, chopped peperoncini peppers, thyme and salt & pepper.  We also added some red pepper flakes (and might add more next time) to help contrast with the honey and sweet squash flavor.  We’ll make this squash again — possibly as a filling for homemade ravioli served with a creamy white sauce.

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

Ina Garten has a new cookbook called “Foolproof:  Recipes You can Trust.”  We have most of the Barefoot Contessa’s books and use them all the time.  As soon as we got this one, I picked a recipe for our weekly menu — Oreccheitte with Broccoli Rabe & Sausage.  Not only was it delicious (it is one of Dan’s new favorite pastas), but it was also pretty easy to make and, true to Ina’s word, foolproof.

Our garden has exploded with peppers.  We picked a bunch (all different varieties), made up a batch of our pickling recipe and canned 4 pints of pickled peppers.  We may never need to buy jar peppers again.

Although the temps are still in the 80s, fall is in the air.  We don’t get a lot of fall foliage around here, and when we do it lasts for about 5 minutes, but we enjoy the pretty colors while they’re here.

Our sister-in-law introduced us to the brilliance that is roasted kale chips in a salad (thanks Cary!)  All you do is trim the kale leaves off the stems, then drizzle the leaves with olive oil, sprinkle on some salt and roast them on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  When the kale is crispy, crumble it up and sprinkle it on your salad.  The kale adds great salty and bitter (but in a good way) flavor and nice crunchy texture to an otherwise boring garden salad.  And bonus — kale is a superfood!  We may never have salad without kale chips again.

No matter who you voted for, the presidential election is an excellent reminder of how fortunate we are as a nation to have the freedom and privilege to exercise our right to choose our leaders.  Democracy can sometimes be taken for granted, and aggressive partisan politics can be exhausting, but on Election Day we could not be more proud to be Americans.

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

We spent a long weekend (made even longer by Hurricane Sandy) in the Boston area visiting Dan’s older brother, our sister-in-law and our niece and nephew.  We could not have asked for better weather while we were there, except of course for the wind and rain when the storm blew through on Monday.  The only storm-related effects we encountered were a couple of cancelled flights, school closing for a day and a few hours without electricity — all of which added up to bonus time with family and great appreciation for how fortunate we are to have all that we do.  We know others along Sandy’s path were not nearly so lucky and our hearts (and a donation) go out to them.  We always cherish visits with family, but this one in particular seemed extra special — many thanks to our hosts (including the littlest ones) for a wonderful trip with lots of fond memories made.

One of the many highlights of our trip was a visit to a local farm to pick apples and get pumpkins.  It was a beautiful day (check out our nephew — wearing shorts!) and a really fun experience.  I had never been apple-picking before (around these parts, “apple-picking” means selecting them out of the bins in the grocery store) and am still shocked by how much better an apple plucked right off the tree tastes than the ones purchased in the store.

For Dan, every trip to the East Coast requires at least one meal involving lobster.  Although it was soft shell (meaning it had recently molted) which typically means less meat, it was plenty big and delicious and he thoroughly enjoyed every succulent bite.

We hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween — especially anyone affected by Hurricane Sandy:  hopefully you were able to escape the devastation for at least a little while and enjoy something spooky, sweet or otherwise festive for the holiday.  We made a big pot of beef & barley soup (complete with homemade beef stock — post coming soon!), put a scary movie on TV (The Shining) and delighted in handing out candy to lots of cleverly-costumed kids.

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

My parents were in town last weekend, specifically to visit the Chihuly exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum, now that the weather is cooler.  And to watch football — my mom is a die-hard Tennessee Titans fan (her allegiance goes all the way back to the days when they were the Houston Oilers — Luv Ya Blue!), but she only gets to watch them when their games are on network TV.  In order to follow his beloved Steelers, Dan has the NFL package on Direct TV, which allows us to view any (and all) NFL games every week.  So at least once a season, we try to plan a football weekend with my parents — all football, all Sunday loooong.  (Lest I sound bitter, we love visits from my parents and they are welcome here any time.  Love you guys!)  Anywho, back to Chihuly.  We packed a picnic lunch of cheeses, salami, crackers and “Le Sandwich” (our interpretation of the sandwich Dan ate every single day in Paris last Christmas — a baguette with good butter and proscuitto.  It’s a lot more amazing than it sounds) and headed off to the Arboretum.  After about 25 minutes of waiting in a line of cars later, plus a drive to the off-site extra parking, plus a wait in line to get on the shuttle, we had arrived.  A gorgeous day, plus the Arboretum’s seasonal Pumpkin Village, plus one of the final weekends of the Chihuly exhibit — equals a very crowded Arboretum.  But we found a perfect out-of-the-way spot for our picnic and thoroughly enjoyed our day, crowds and all.  Good news — the Chihuly exhibit has been extended through December 31, so go if you can — it’s well worth the trip!

For our lunch on football Sunday, we thawed some of our leftover pulled pork and made fantastic nachos — chips, plus bean dip, plus pulled pork, plus cheddar cheese melted in the oven, plus garnishes of tomatoes, lettuce and homemade pickled jalapenos — equals the best football food ever.  And bonus points for all the favorite teams (Titans, Steelers and Texans) all winning their games that day!

We have a new shortcut for thin-crust pizza on a weeknight — lavash flatbread.  It comes in white or whole wheat and is a crazy-easy way to make a quick “pizza.”  All you have to do is brush both sides of the lavash with a little olive oil, heat it in the oven (at 425 degrees) for about 3 minutes to get it crispy, then top with whatever you like (we did tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil for a margherita pizza) and put it back in the oven for another 6-8 minutes until the cheese melts.  The only easier and almost-as-fast way to get pizza in your pie-hole would be to have someone else call a pizza place and order it to be delivered to your door.  Bonus points — the lavash freezes well and thaws in about 10 minutes.  Which is awesome if you happen to over-crisp your first 2 pieces  by accidentally leaving them in the oven too long.  Not that I would know.

We are heading to the Boston area to visit our niece and nephew today and could not be more excited!  We love those kids so much and take our roles as Aunt and Uncle very seriously.  So much so that we had to check out a couple of local Halloween stores looking for ghoulish (but still age-appropriate!) treats to bring to the kiddos for the upcoming holiday.  Their parents will be happy to know that we did NOT purchase the tiny plastic pumpkin scream machine, but only because we are going to be there and the kids love to wake us up in the morning. . . On a related note, a small package is on its way to our other beloved nephew in New York. . .

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.

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!

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

Local Chef Stephan Pyles has a couple of restaurants around town, including his namesake eatery, where we have dined a few times (including the amazing multi-course tasting menu experience called “Fuego,” courtesy of an exceptional Christmas gift from Dan’s brother and his lovely wife.)  But last weekend was our first trip to Chef Pyles’ restaurant Samar, featuring small plates (think tapas) of various dishes inspired by cuisines from Spain, India and the Eastern Mediterranean.  We ordered at least one dish from each type of cuisine (including blistered Spanish chiles with hickory smoked sea salt; Tandoori chicken butter masala; and haloumi (cheese) stuffed squash blossoms) and thoroughly enjoyed every bite.  We’d love to go back sometime with friends so that we can sample even more of the dishes!  Tapas-style dining is a great way to try a bunch of different foods without having to commit to an entire meal of something you’re not quite sure you will like.

After dinner at Samar, we walked over to the Wyly Theater to see the comedy show “The Second City Does Dallas.”  You may be familiar with The Second City, the improv-based sketch comedy group where many now-famous comedians got their start.  The show was very funny, with smart sketches, entertaining improv and surprisingly shrewd “zings” that showed how the group had clearly done their homework concerning our fair city.  We loved it.  We also loved the “lounge” seating at the front of theater, with rows of eclectic, mis-matched and super comfortable plush loveseats and armchairs.  Such a fun evening.

Busy weekend for us — on Sunday we went to the annual Greek Festival at a Greek Orthodox Church in our neighborhood.  Same as last year, the gyro was our favorite food item at the festival.  We also sampled the chicken souvlaki and the loukaniko (Greek sausage.)  They were good, but nothing beats the gyro.  Next year — all gyro, all the time.

A long-time wish came true for Dan this week — television out on our back patio!  He has wanted to have a TV outside since becoming a home-owner, and thanks to the magic of technology, he finally made it happen.  This handy wireless device enables the satellite receiver for the TV inside to communicate with another TV, without having to add another receiver (or drill a hole in our house to connect receivers — something I was never too keen about.)  And it was surprisingly easy to set up, without the utterance of a single curse word.  A shocking amount of football is going to be viewed from the above location this Fall.  Technology is amazing and we are happy.

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

We went to a local Oktoberfest last Saturday evening.  We’re glad we went since we hadn’t been before, but we probably wouldn’t go again.  Conditions were less than ideal — it was hot outside and very, very crowded — which likely contributed to us not enjoying it all that much.  And maybe we’re old (okay, fine, we are old), but standing in long lines in the heat — first to get coupons, then to get food, then to get drinks — wasn’t our cup of tea.  Let’s just say we didn’t share the enthusiasm of the guy in front of us in line, who, after procuring his coupons, declared to his buddies “Let’s get sh*t-housed.”  It wasn’t a total loss, however.  The chicken schnitzel was good and Dan got to keep his commemorative beer stein.

Aside from soup, we’ve never really cooked with lentils.  But we’ve heard how nutritious they are and want to work them into our diet more often.  Lentils are high in fiber and protein and are known to help lower cholesterol.  They’re also low in calories and have almost zero fat.  How could we not eat more of these little nutritional powerhouses?  We adapted this recipe for a lentil/rice side dish that is as delicious as it is healthy.  Seriously, Dan had seconds it was so good.  We’ll definitely make it again and will post it here soon.

Aside from Christmas, I typically don’t do much seasonal decorating around the house.  But I couldn’t resist the bag of little orange and white pumpkins I recently spotted at the grocery store.  Placing tiny gourds on tables here and there provides a cheerful touch of Fall in our home.

And speaking of Fall, honeycrisps are in season!  With just the right amount of tart and sweet, the honeycrisp is by far our favorite apple variety.  They’re not available year-round (possibly making them taste even better), so enjoy them while you can.