02.08.13: blizzard tapas (roncal-stuffed piquillo peppers, creamy scrambled eggs with shallots and scallions, and bacon-wrapped shrimp)

Roncal-stuffed piquilo peppers

Michael didn’t really believe me, I think, when I first mentioned that a storm was coming this weekend (and said storm has since blanketed the Northeast with a sizable amount of snow), but he willingly went along with my plan to stay in on Friday and Saturday and cook anyway. He balked a bit when I came home Thursday night laden with bags of provisions–likely thinking I was going overboard–but lo and behold, my instinct to stock up was right on the nose. That I was also able to get in and out of Fairway despite the fuller-than-usual parking lot was simply a bonus.

So while the snow fell and the wind howled on Friday night, we opened up a bottle of prosecco and got to work on a tapas spread. The one you see above was a bit of a punt. A delicious, delicious, punt.

8.21.12: dinner (poached egg sandwich with frisee, bacon, and gorgonzola)

Poached egg sandwich with gorgonzola, frisee, and bacon, from overhead.

I’m not a big fan of breakfast-for-dinner because, well, we’re not big make-at-home breakfast people. Special occasions like long weekends or holidays tend to be the exception and not the rule, as regular weekends we’ll have some yogurt and maybe some eggs if the mood strikes Michael. It’s not that I have anything against breakfast food, but we don’t really have room for a waffle-maker, and pancakes just aren’t as good, and in our household bacon is an anytime snack.

So the sandwich pictured above, found in the breakfast sandwich chapter of ‘wichcraft, is about as close to breakfast-for-dinner as we can muster, and only once or twice a month at most. Not because it’s not easy to make–it’s my go-to if I need something fast on a night Michael’s working out and I need to make dinner in a hurry–but because it’s not really the healthiest thing we eat.

Don’t let that bed of frisee fool you.

07.29.12: dinner (pericatelli with tomato, thyme, and bacon and veal rib chops with compound butter)

Welp. I didn’t realize how long it’s been since I hit “publish” on this blog until I saw that my last update was in May. Early May. I can offer no good explanation for this–I know when this kind of extended silence happens elsewhere in the blogosphere, it’s usually due to news of great import, but I can assure you that is not the case here at all. Between the new job, various summer outings, visitors, and finally getting into Game of Thrones, the summer has been full so far.

01.03.12: dinner (first pizzas of the new year: tomato pie with scallions and bacon and a white pie with ricotta, prosciutto di parma and arugula)

Tomato Pie with Jumbo Scallions and Bacon

I hope the holiday season gave you all time to be still and reflect on the year as it passed perhaps via most golden and perfect of all meditation opportunities, fooling around in your kitchen with no pressing need to generate a large or timely meal, maybe utilizing a night or two in that golden week between Christmas and NYE. If you did not have this opportunity, I guess you missed out.

By the end of it all, even I had had enough. Lasagna and Thanksgiving Food Dinner II with the families, a standing rib roast for the two of us, fried chicken on NYE and a sundry of interspersed meals inspired by greats like Tom Colicchio and David Chang. You might think I’d give up after this feastish onslaught and say “meh” on this particular evening, but the last night before the return to work, waking up early and wrestling I-95 called for something delicious, if not seasonal. E suggested making some pizzas and that felt perfect.

12.28.11: dinner (momofuku’s chicken and egg)

 

Momofuku's chicken and egg

Neither Michael nor I said the actual words over the course of the last week of 2011, but in retrospect it was pretty clear we were both missing our tiny kitchen after four days of holiday celebrating with not much opportunity to get behind the stove. Day two of our mini-we-miss-New-York-Week (subtitle: the week we bounced back and forth between Tom Colicchio and David Chang’s cookbooks) was another “let’s take on a Serious Project!” day–although while this is a dish that takes some time to make, with a little planning I could see us enjoying this on a random weekday evening. It was also a great opportunity to break in one of our Christmas presents (although that is a very poor choice of words given what it is):

07.11.11: Cobb Salad (Bachelor Chow 1)

Deluxe Cobb Salad

Last week the Mrs. was outta town for work,  leaving me to my own devices. Said devices were less than thrilling, as E left me for the beginning of the work week only and save for some serendipitous short-notice primo sport seats, not much can go down without the wife in town on a Tuesday. Maybe it’s a lack of imagination on my part.

05.30.11: dinner (steak dinner from the broiler)

NY Strip Steak with Arugula-Lamb-Mache Salad and Baked Sweet Potato Fries

These lovely pictures were snapped by E on our first weekend in Stamford. We were still surrounded by boxes but we decided we needed a break from packing tape and our piles of treasured shit and return to the center of our New York power- we visited our beloved Fairway. [Ed.--one, if not both of us visited Fairway every day over the Memorial Day weekend, including Friday.]

Briefly (I think E is planning a far more detailed breakdown for a later date), the food fanatics behind Manhattan’s best supermarket, Fairway (131st St and 12th Ave), have opened a branch right here in our new little corner of the metro world in Stamford on Canal St in from what I can tell from Google Maps was a vacant lot. But I digress.

01.09.11: dinner (beef bourguignon, first attempt)

Bœuf Bourguignon

Looks good, doesn’t it? Another delicious plate of braised goodness to enhance a lovely Sunday afternoon, right? Nothing like taking some delectable ingredients for a long, wet thermal haul in the old dutch oven on top of the stove, right? Well, not exactly.

This lovely dish starts in that most delightful of French way: bacon. I usually start a braise off browning meat in olive oil, then moving onto the veggies and finally building the liquid up before adding the meat back in and walking away for a good couple-a hours. To make something French, simply make bacon lardons thy fat source and replace any diced onions with pearls. I don’t mean to demean the difference, in fact these simple swaps can makeover a dish and take something you know how to do and turn it into something new.

02.27.11: dinner (beef and oxtail bourguignonne)

Beef and Oxtail Bourguignonne

[Editor's Note: Michael is filing this while at a conference in California, so he deserves a few props.]

Over Christmas,  I made a point of requesting a large number of cookbooks in the name of expanding my culinary repertoire boldly into the realm French cookery. One of my first attempts was an as yet unpublished, seemingly straightforward Beef Bourguignonne. While everything seemed right on the surface, the final product was a bit too dry for my liking. I wondered if our very lean American supermarket beef was to blame for the discontinuity. We resolved to try again, this time with an ingredient that we hoped would be more foolproof.

02.06.11: dinner (Super Bowl tapas without football–well, American football).

Gambas al Ajillo de José Andrés

Ours is not a football home so the Super Bowl is not appointment television unless the Eagles happen to find themselves playing in the game, so it’s seldom that you’ll find us gathered around the television to watch the game, even to watch the commercials. That isn’t to say that we don’t celebrate in our way, often seeing the game as the perfect excuse to make a big pot of chili, but we’re just as likely to nosh it while watching a movie. Besides: I’m looking forward to the third week in April as that will mark two meetups between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid in the span of three days for El Clásico and the final of the Copa del Rey. You’ll likely think that I’m nuts, but I’m already planning on what we’re going to have for dinner on those two days…but I digress.