Outpost 505

I brought home another five pounds of tomatoes from the garden on Sunday.  The Romas were set aside for roasting and for last night’s goulash, but the rest went into a small but fantastic batch of pasta sauce:

They simmered and sweat away in our big stock pot until the juice rendered out, then I ran [...]

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The June 2009 issue of Bon Appetit lingered on my dresser, unread, for nearly a year until Maria pointed out the profile of Niagara-on-the-Lake, which led us to a couple of delicious destinations on our recent trip.  Since then, we’ve made at least three dishes from this issue, including last week’s wonderful polenta with a [...]

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I’m not sure what I had in mind tonight. Our planned meals got all switched around this week by my moods and our lack of interest in things that seemed fantastic a few days previously. To some extent, this worked out in our favor tonight, as we had a bit of a lot [...]

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Fava beans weren’t on the shopping list on Saturday, but an impulse buy from Tantré Farms turned into stocking up when the helpful market staffer told me that they’d just done the last fava pick of the season.  No more favas?!  But we just found a new favorite pasta dish!  No more favas for another [...]

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For our second go-round with this recipe, I made a few alterations – some improvements, others just alterations.  Last time I drained and used a jar of whole tomatoes from last summer – we’ve since run out of tomatoes and didn’t pick up enough from the market, so I used a can of diced [...]

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I bought fava beans at the coop late last week with no real idea of how to use them.  Or what they tasted like.  Or the fact that you have to peel them twice.  All I knew was that I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to figure out what the heck I could do [...]

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Dinner was simple and delicious.  I made a tomato sauce last night to save time for tonight’s prep – so making dinner was as simple as warming up the sauce and boiling the pasta, then tossing a few handfuls of fresh spinach into the sauce at the last minute.  When combined and then dotted with [...]

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Remember that pasta we had at Logan a few months ago?  Asparagus and penne in a light cream sauce?  I think that’s what I had in mind tonight, except that I wanted to use up a couple of chicken breasts as well.  I sliced the chicken breasts and the asparagus into penne-sized pieces, then browned [...]

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We were given a copy of Michael Symon’s Live to Cook, the first cookbook by the Cleveland restaurateur and Iron Chef America personality of the same name.  We keep talking about going to Symon’s two restaurants in Cleveland, but the closest we’ve gotten is tonight’s macaroni and cheese.

Yeah, yeah, I know this isn’t the most [...]

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I don’t know what’s happening, but I just haven’t been feeling the cooking love this last week.  Maybe this is the dénouement of the exciting wedding weekend?  Maybe I’m feeling spoiled after a few weeks of eating out on trips and with visitors?  I dunno.
The net result, though, is that we plan meals and then [...]

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