Weekend Wrap-Up (August 21-22)

Fried Bananas

The weather wasn't so great in NYC on Sunday, so Tom was a little more prolific in the kitchen. He made a lot of stuff, I took a lot of photos. So let's just get down to it, shall we?

Weekend Evaluation: I know I-tey food when I hear it - it's all them 'eenie' foods (aka 'His name's not Fellini, it's Jake')

I feel like I'm only cooking Italian food right now; kind of boring myself, but you don't want to get in the way of these ingredients.  In the summer I usually cook a lot of mexican too, but this year I'm in a Mediterranean rut - we need to have some sopes or something soon.    I guess I shouldn't complain, the next thing you know we'll only be potatoes, cabbage, and winter squash everyday.

Speaking of which - we did finally make it to the Red Hook carts this weekend, the papusa was pretty good and I got my hands on some chicharron and beef tendon tacos.  I do think I prefer Tortilleria Nixmatel.

Weekend Evaluation: Working Hard or Hardly Working

I do wish I worked from home every Friday, I would get a lot more meat smoked.

Weekend Wrap-Up (Aug 14-15)

Tom and I have been busy this summer, so he hasn't had any real food 'projects' recently. Its mainly every-day type of cooking. Plus, it seems like all we've been eating are corn, zucchini, tomatoes, and eggplant. I guess that's summer for ya.

This past Friday, Tom decided to work from home, which gave him some time for a sort-of project. He smoked some pork ribs, and made beans and coleslaw.

Ribs, Beans and Coleslaw

Weekend Evaluation: Keeps the Hot side Hot, and the Cold side Cold

Gretchen's Mom was up this weekend, and we went to visit some friends who had a new baby, so it was busy yet again.  But I did cook a couple times, but didn't have any real projects.

Weekend Evaluation: I've Tried Nothing and I'm All Out of Ideas

Sometimes I have an idea that I'm sitting on for days, and other times I can't come up with anything until I'm actually cooking.

This weekend I had both - a gratin dish (nothing special) that I wanted to make for a while, and on Saturday I had no idea what to make.

Weekend Wrap-Up (July 31- Aug 1)

This weekend was almost like an episode of 'Chopped' at our house. If you're not familiar with the tv show on Food Network, contestants get a basket of random ingredients (typically things you would never think would go together- "here's potatoes, beef, and a chocolate bar!") and they have to make a dish using all the ingredients in 20 or 30 minutes, depending what round it is. We had a bunch of random ingredients in our fridge that Tom wanted to use up, so he spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to make with them.