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Yup... Another birthday is here. And no matter what gifts she gets, it will be tough to top THIS reaction
when she walked in the door and smelled artichokes! NOW it's a birthday party!
And since there's gotta be an appearance by some starch at the party, we made a nice homemade pizza once the artichoke demolition was over.
Lastly, we blew out the candles on an orange cake with lemon frosting, sitting in a pool of homemade blueberry syrup. Great night.
There were some odds and ends around the house - some from leftovers, some from ambitious grocery shopping on the weekend - but it all worked out!
"Fricase de Pollo" with some Spanish Chorizo, the white beans over rice in the background and some really nice roasted asparagus. Yup, dinner has been served.
I love teaching my kids how the rest of the world eats. It's very American to do the whole "plate full of protein, starch and vegetable", and that's fine but there's always another way to see things. I like feeding them Italian-style with "primo piato" of pasta then "secondo" of a smaller portion of meat, poultry or fish.
Well, tonight was a night to give them a little practice in Tapas. I made three little dishes, starting with a cannelini bean soup with bacon and fennel.
The next two dishes were fried calamari along with some oven-roasted cauliflower. They were so good. One of my daughters decided that she liked them so much that she needed to show me what kind of wedding ring she wanted in the future...
Too bad she'll never be getting married! ;)
I have the most thoughtful of sisters... I got a care package at my office today from her latest shopping foray into Sonoma, CA.
Topping off the box was a nice disk of Panforte (imported from Siena), which I love almost as much as the memories of the Holidays it reminds me of.
There was this stunner of a pottery dish - so reminiscent of the kind of stuff our mother used to make. Tell me that doesn't look like water in the Keys!
Also included were two beautiful greeting cards...
Both heavily laden with good Feng Shui themselves.
And lastly, a big ole cookbook FULL of great breakfast recipes. Is there ANYTHING better than one of those big, lazy, weekend breakfasts? Now all I need is for the thoughtful Auntie to move a few states closer, so that she can hang out more HERE!
In my travels to the Italian Market this weekend, I scored a few of these beauties for $3 a pound. Beef shins they are, but I thought I could use them to make Rabo Encendido - which is the Cuban version of oxtail. They have a lot of connective tissue, thus collagen (sounding like Alton Brown more and more by the minute...), and they worked just fine.
Except it wasn't the meat that was the problem. It tasted like a nice Beef Bourguignon, it just wasn't any where NEAR my memories of Rabo. Oh well... back to the drawing board.
Took the Bud and his friend to a tournament this morning up in Broward County. Lo and behold, the courts were just a couple of blocks from my favorite Italian Market in South Florida: Doris'. I stocked up! In addition to some beef shanks I'm going to do "Rabo Encendido" style, some calamari, some extremely fresh finocchio, here were the highlights:
They've got the best Pancetta around. I use this ALL the time; carbonara, with lentils and all other beans. Way better than normal bacon in my opinion.
Picked up some frozen pizza dough for weeknight pizzas. I'm thinking a calamari pizza this week with clams.
Ever since drinking some rattafia in Frosinone with my father in 2003, I have had a think for cherries and liqueur. This looked interesting... I'll keep you posted.
How do you top that? Make a CD of Pop tunes with the gurlz and dance over and over and over to Jordin Sparks "Tattoo"... Man, I DIG that song! And SO do they!
It's just one of the all-time greats: Bistec Empanizado with chopped cilantro and onion, drizzled with lime...
And the obligatory big mound of white rice and black beans. This meal is SO coma-inducing... I could sleep for a week!
The Budro and I had quite the dinner tonight! Thanks to Auntie L, I made her Pad Thai recipe which, even with a hitch, came out stellar.
And then we just HAD to jump into the Devil's Food cake I made last night. Here's the picture pre-frosting. How can you NOT dig this stuff? It brought me back to my birthdays when I was just a punk kid ;)
Before cooking, there was fly-tying. I know that probably makes no sense to anyone else but me, but bear with me. As the child of two very artistic parents (one professionally so, one with a very high level of creativity and passion), I have always had a way to express my own artistic creativity. When I was very young, an artist friend of my parent's showed me how to tie flies. And it took. I was VERY into this as a child and then (like many of my authentic interests) it took a long hiatus. Then a while ago, I got back into it and jumped headfirst back into the mix, only to get caught up in the survival of a mid-life career change and lay all those "superfluous" hobbies aside while I built a second career.
It's clear to me that over the last few years cooking has become the favored expression of my artistic vein - and I get to do it every day! But, tonight, as I went through my fly-tying supplies and boxes upon boxes of flies, I decided that I am going to keep this expression going as well.
It was gray and rainy and cold all day long in Miami today. There's a "cold" front moving through and temps were in the 60's. As I walked into the supermarket, I wondered how many cold weather dishes I could make before the temps move back into the Tropical high 70's ;) It was the perfect temp for risotto.
No, that's NOT Mac N' Cheese. It's butternut squash risotto with crispy smoked bacon on top. I made my own chicken stock which made the risotto that much richer tasting, and I cooked the squash in that stock as well. REALLY nice. Polenta tomorrow? ;)
