EVOO again

Had another lovely meal at EVOO in Cambridge tonight. I've always eaten well there, the service is good, and the Chef is incredibly nice. I'm at EVOO once a month or so for work - I run the student Chef for a Night program where a culinary student gets to work with Chef Peter McCarthy to add three items to his regular menu. I usually drag Adam along with me and since the menu changes so frequently he has literally never ordered the same thing twice. I always order the student's menu, which means I've never ordered the same thing twice, either!  Tonight I had a squash and apple soup, seared arctic char over the most buttery leeks I've ever eaten, and ginger pear crisp with toasted almond ice cream. That's Robin, the student chef, up there in the photo, and over here on the internet.

Stuffed Squash

Dinner! I mentioned to you recently about how I deal with leftovers, but I forgot to mention this other thing I do, which is to stuff leftover things into vegetables. Sometimes tomatoes, sometimes zucchini, most often delicata squash. I LOVE delicata squash - did you know you can eat the skin? Because you can, and it's delicious. So here is what I did this morning.

Stuffed Squash

Cut two delicata squashes in half and scoop out the seeds. Salt them and oil them up a bit (not too much!) and put them cut side up on a baking sheet. Stick them in a 375 oven for about half an hour, or until they're tender all the way through. Then mix together the following:

2 cups leftover cooked rice (or any cooked grain)
1/2 cup leftover chimichurri  (or some chopped herbs and a splash of vinegar and oil)
1 cup leftover cooked spinach  (or other leftover veg)
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (or other melty cheese)

Taste the mix and adjust the seasoning if necessary with more salt or vinegar or lemon juice.

Pile this mix into the squash-boats. At this point, if you like, you can put the assembled stuffed squashes into the fridge until you get home from work. Then, put them in a 375 oven until the rice on top is crispy and the cheese is melty and delicious. Took about half an hour for me. Yum.

Ouch.

Slacker post alert: my knees hurt too much to blog. Probably from all that running I did yesterday.

Also we had these for dinner tonight. Still a damn fine sandwich. 

30x30: Month 9

Here is a picture of my celebratory beer from lunch today. You know why? Because I FINISHED A HALF MARATHON. At the moment I'm pretty sure my knees are about to explode but I FINISHED it and I didn't even cry. I wanted to, but I didn't. Woot! So I'm officially swapping out "finish a half marathon" for my "run a 10k in an hour" goal. Which brings me back to the list, on which I owe you an update.

SO.

Culinary goals: 2/6
I still have to make croissants, make sausage and throw two dinner parties. But I've checked off two out of six!

Professional goals: 1/4
I taught a class! But I still have some pretty heavy hitters on this list. I'm pretty sure these ones are not all going to happen.

Personal goals: 4/10
I've gone to Europe, cleaned up my google reader, purged my cookbook collection (and my whole book shelf, actually), and watched the Godfather Trilogy. I'm on day 278 of Project 365 and I'm on book 25 of 30, and I've managed to do a first pass at our wedding photos. I still have to deal with my 401(k) and my wedding dress and learn to use my camera's manual setting.

House Stuff: 6/7
The only thing left on this list is to figure out if my sewing machine is working or not, but not only did I buy curtains for the living room instead of making them, but I re-arranged the entire room, including a rug and some new shelves and a new TV stand. Basically our living room is now the coolest room in our house.

Fitnessy Things: 2/3
I still have to find a yoga studio, but I did two chinups and I'm trading out running goals: instead of a 10k in under an hour, FINISH A HALF MARATHON. Which I did. Today. So I'm going to go take some more ibuprofen.

Total: 15/30. Sweet, 3/4 of the time is up and I've accomplished half the goals. Hm. Looks like I'm going to have a busy couple of months.

Chimichurri!

Chimichurri! Such a great word. It sounds like an order to have fun, doesn't it? If you haven't heard of it, here's the story in brief: it's an Argentinean condiment used sometimes as a marinade and sometimes as a sauce (and sometimes both, woo!). It is extremely delicious with steak, and that is how we ate it yesterday. Traditionally chimichurri includes parsley and oregano, garlic, red wine vinegar and olive oil. My fresh oregano plant is put away for the winter but we got parsley and cilantro in our CSA share so, here's what I stirred together:

3/4 cup very finely chopped parsley (one big bunch)
3/4 cup very finely chopped cilantro (two smaller bunches)
5 cloves garlic, minced into a paste with a pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup red wine vinegar, or more to taste
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, more if you want a thinner consistency
salt and pepper

Then I let the chimchurri sit and mingle for a bit while I steamed some potatoes and pan seared two tasty steaks (we like New York Strip). The potatoes were tossed with harissa that I thinned out with some olive oil. The chimichurri was spooned generously onto the steaks and then greedily slurped up. If you're looking for a spot of green, garlicky brightness in your winter meal rotation, try chimichurri.

Friday night!

Apologies for brevity, but it's Friday and I've been drinking tasty cocktails. Tomorrow I'll be back with chimichurri, woo!

Beans & Basil and My Dinner Routine

The other day, Erin, who inspired me to jump on the NaBloPoMo bandwagon again this year, posted about the recipes she actually really makes, not just for blogging, but for regular eating. It got me thinking. Do I even make anything from this blog more than once? Most of the time, I blog about things after making them once or sometimes twice. I'm usually too hungry to style my photos (heck, it's rare that I bother to properly light the shot, ha). I almost never throw away "failed" dinners, because I can almost always find a way to rescue my missteps. But I am not very good at just eating the same thing over and over again (though I do have my methods for repurposing), which might be why I've been such a lackluster food blogger. Sure, I make cold brewed coffee all summer long and these buttermilk biscuits show up on our breakfast table every few months, and we just had this chickpea soup a week ago, but for the most part I'm an improviser. And improvising doesn't always lead to reliable, recreatable recipes.

Luckily I've got a willing dining companion who doesn't demand meat 'n two veg for every meal, and I don't mind eating mix-and-match dinners. Tonight we ate beans, which I soaked this morning and simmered when I got home with a bay leaf and some onion until they were tender. We had some basil in the fridge so I tossed a chiffonade on top of the beans with a drizzle of olive oil. I also roasted some vegetables: we got two tiny cauliflowers and one little head of broccoli in our winter CSA share this week, and we had a few turnips and a butternut squash around, too. Beans, roasted veg, some baguette with butter. That's dinner. When we have a lot of vegetables in the house (that is, most of the time), this is how I usually pull dinner together. What about you? Do you have favorite recipes you make over and over or do you pull together dinner from what you have around?