The Car Luge

Driveway, 7:00 AM

It was a fun ride down the hill this morning. After we dug a tunnel to get my car out, we slid down to the lake.

Wild ride!

No mail today



Front Yard

It's a family Affair!

In all fairness, some of this fell yesterday. 

A message to Mother Nature:

Suck it. This is absurd. I've been driving with the air on and my windows down, burning my trash (especially plastics) and leaving every light in my house on (incandescent) so that we wouldn't have to do this anymore.

And the plow guy went from hero to zero real fast. Overwhelmed...we all are.

Snow Cage

Beautiful.

There used to be a walkway here.

Possibility of some drifting snow.

Shrimp Spiedini with Pesto, New Potatoes, and Chickpea Aioli

That's a lot of words for Potatoes, Shrimp and basil sauce...

Real good, but a lot of work for dinner.

Maybe we'll do this when we're showing off to friends and neighbors. Not that we would ever do that...

State of the Lamb Leg

As I stand before this chamber, I am proud to announce that the state of the Lamb Leg is Delicious!

I confess: this is not nearly as exciting as sitting in front of your flat screen for an HD view of the State of Dis-Union. However, if you're interested in good food and things that you can actually swallow, check this out:

Broiled Leg of lamb with Mustard Glaze. It took about 30 minutes to make, and came out perfect. Unlike Joe Biden's hair doo. Oh, btw, that is goat cheese on toasted french bread with a bed of brown rice. John Boehner has a pink tie. Dummy...

And you don't need to leverage your children's future with deficit spending to afford a meal this good. You'll need the extra cash, because paying more in taxes isn't punishing your success, it's promoting the success of America.  Enjoy!

Onion Soup

When your days look like this:

You need to have a dinner that looks like this:

Onion soup from Anthony Bourdain. It was excellent. There are few things in life better than good Onion Soup. I could eat this every day.

Tell me that doesn't look great!!

Braised Veal Shanks

Sorry about the blurry, half eaten picture on this one--but it was that good. I couldn't wait and had to start eating. This was another very easy to make meal--and delicious too. We had beats and fettuccine with it. We'll definitely have this one again.

French Food...

Behold, Boeuf a la ficelle:

Good, easy comfort food. It was great on the night of the terrible Blizzy. The mustard and salt goes really well with everything in the dish. We'll do this again--

Blizzarded, 2011 style

And it's still snowing.

This is the remnant of a drift against my garage door after the plow guy cleaned the driveway.







This is a full sized Subaru, non the mini kind.

I did make it up the driveway though. Thanks Plow guy. All-county Landscaping--that's right--support your local plow guy.







The Drive--After 16 hours of snow--not bad.

Do you have any Grey Poupon?

Remember that old commercial? Here it is in case you need a reminder.


I mention that because we employed good old Gray Poupon for our meal last night: Baked honey-mustard chicken breasts. Here is the result:


Very good taste and the chicken was moist. Not a knock-out dish, but still good. Accompanying the chicken are some brussel sprouts. We give the meal three out of five stars.

A Dusting...

It was a lovely drive into work this morning. Check out the view on Rte. 44:

And we're in for 4 more hours of this!

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Sometimes you have to improvise...

This recipe called for fresh, baby artichokes. We couldn't find any at the store, so we settled for canned artichoke hearts. Worked out just as well:
Yummers! We'll make this one again... After 60 days...

Falafel wasn't so awful

We made homemade falafel for Sunday dinner. It was yummy, but the frying didn't go so well. We learned online that we'd have better luck with uncooked chick peas, which we'll have to try next time. But even though our falafel was a little mushy, it still tasted delicious.
Here's what we've got planned for the rest of the week:
Monday: Baked chicken with artichokes
Tuesday: Baked honey mustard chicken
Wednesday: Boef a la Ficelle
Thursday Braised veal shank

We updated out master spreadsheet with ratings for each meal so far. The winner was Thursday's chili, which was courtesy of Jacques Pepin. You go Jacques! We'll see which meal comes out on top this week.

Diana's Pool in Winter

Burger Time

Catsup and Mustard in Manchester for lunch:

Bacon, Cheddar, Pastrami, Burger, Horseradish. Enough said...

Pork Sammiches!

Oh, yeah! Carolina eat your heart out--the best coleslaw I've made since the last time I made coleslaw.

Zach is coming in tonight through the storm for a few days, so I'm sure we'll be cooking less and eating out more. So look for an update on Sunday. 

Oyster Bar in Grand Central

Christina and I went to see a taping of the Late Show with David Letterman--it was an excellent time. Seeing the behind the scenes activity was as entertaining as the actual jokes and guests.

Either way, we ate dinner at the Oyster Bar in GCT. Food was pretty good. It was, of course, overpriced. The oysters were fresh and delicious: I had 3 Chincoteagues and 3 Belons.

Check out the menu below. Do you think they serve fish?

There will be the promised Chili con Carne tonight!

Veal w/ Sage and Prosciutto

Here's recipe number two:

Christina did the cooking. It was Phenomenal!!!!!

I'll be doing the chili tonight so we can enjoy it when we get home from Letterman tomorrow night!!!

Chicken Florentine

Here's day one:

It was pretty good! 

Here are the recipes...

Christina and I have picked the 60 recipes we will be using. Here's a link to the google doc we've created to track them:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AqPsQnFqZF0hdDVIdE5jcGtkTDFDUkx6bVJENGZ4d2c&hl=en&single=true&gid=0&output=html

60 Days, 60 Recipes

Christina glanced up at me from her Anthony Bordain cookbook and declared, "We're going to make a whole fish."

60 days. For the next 2 months, we're going to start using all those cookbooks we've been stockpiling for years. 60 recipes. No repeats. Each dinner we make over the next 60 tries will be different. Shrimp spiedini w/pesto. Sweet and sour tuna involtini. Boeuf a la ficelle. Yeah, we're going there.

The fun starts Monday. Check back for updates on the success we've had and our take on the recipes themselves.

Here's the menu for 1/3 through 1/7:

Mon: Chicken Florentine

Tues: Veal with Prosciutto and Sage

Wed: Chili con Carne

Thurs: Felafel's, naan, and veggies

Fri: Pulled Pork and Coleslaw

We may skip a day and go out to eat--we'll tell you about that in advance--and give you the lowdown on where we went and if it's worth it.

Hope you enjoy!