I try to drink wine local to me, Crossing Vineyards and Winery does a great job, and is my wine of choice when at home. Now grᴉst tells me I can enjoy European wine with less eco-guilt then west coast wine. I wonder if my state store still has any Beaujolais Nouveau left. Gotta get the big bottle!
I’ve been whining about food miles for years! Well, to myself anyway. Plus I’ve never embeded a YouTube thing before, lets see how it works. I’d suggest you just skip it.
This Thursday is Yuri’s Night. I know nobody who celebrates, and even if there was a party closer then NYC to me I don’t think I could make it. Nevertheless I will try to entice my family out to dinner that evening and I will order a Vodka drink and, assuming dictionary.com is correct, I wall say ваше здоровье
and watch my wife and child look inquisitively at me while I try to explain it to them. Apart from, maybe 萬虎, Ю́рий Гага́рин was the first human is space. You can’t take that away from the Soviets.
Tonight’s dinner:
1 125g package cubed bacon (pancetta?)
5 cubes frozen spinach, thawed
1/2 pkg spaghetti
4 oz soy cream cheese
2 cloves garlic, minced
white wine
salt and pepper
Cook pasta according to package directions. While cooking:
In a non-stick skillet (we use our well-seasoned cast iron one), cook bacon to desired doneness and remove to bowl. Do not drain skillet! Add spinach and garlic to bowl, toss together. and remove to separate bowl/plate. To warm skillet, add cream cheese, and a couple spashes white wine. Cook, stirring, to sauce consistency. Add cream cheese mixture to drained pasta in a large pot, toss together, then add bacon and spinach and combine with pasta. Serve.
Today is expected to have a high of 38°F, tomorrow the low is expected to be 41°F. Since Monday it often been below 30°F. Last weekend it was in the fifties. I guess that’s Indian Winter? On a different note, but in my mind related, New Hope’s Blue Tortilla is one of the few places one can go in my area and actually get spicy food! It’s mucho deneras, but every now and then it’s good to get something that makes your mouth feel like it’s on fire.
Getting back into the swing of food blogging…
Today’s dinner: sausages and peppers over ciabatta bread.
The sausages were from Jane Russell sausages, their Italian ones. We get them from the market in Dun Laoghaire on Sundays, where they have a stall. These sausages are heavenly. Different from Italian sausages in the US, not as spicy, but the flavor is more authentic. And there is almost no fat coming off these, compared to the US ones.
Jane’s sausages work really well with the recipe from Barbara Kafka’s book, Microwave Gourmet. This book, given to me by my mom, is gold, GOLD I TELL YOU. I was one of the naysayers, the ones who say “What? Microwaves are for things other than defrosting and popcorn?” Then this book changed my life. Leek and potato soup in under a half hour. Chicken paprikas that is to. die. for. I cannot recommend this book highly enough; this and Vegan Planet and you’re set.
Erm, back to the recipe. Chop up some sausages, cook in the micro. Add some peppers, some onion, some basil (okay, we used dried cause the basil we did have in the fridge was *manky*. I forgot to pull an Alton on it and wash and wrap in damp paper towels). Now, you’re supposed to add some marinara sauce to it and then cook it a bit more. But no toms for this house. So we added 4 garlic cloves, some oregano and some olive oil. Served up over artisan ciabatta (also gotten at the market on Sunday), it was perfect for this nasty, rainy, windy day.
This year, for the first time, thanksgiving is at my house! I got everything all sorted out, apart from the dressing. I look it up on the web, and most things have more stuff in them then everything else I have to get combined! Humph.
On Sunday’s full moon, Daphne had just made some fried rice and cooked some collard greens chinese style. I was taking some bits out to the compost heap and I saw my first firefly of the year. I guess summer is now here for me.
The kitchen is about done. The counter came in yesterday, when I come home today the sink should be up and the dish washer working again. The down stairs bathroom is about done too, and useable. The last part, and the smallest of the three changes, the upstares bathroom. Demolition started yesterday, led paint flakes flying everywhere. So much so that Zoë spent last night at my parents house, and is likely to do so again.
The best part about tonight, I get to start moving back into the kitchen. I’ll be moving pots and pans out of the living and dining room and into the new cabinets. Just in time too, next week the Cherry Grove Organic Farm pickups start, at least a week earlier then last year. It’s so exciting.
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