Monday, October 4, 2010

A bit of Batali, and other deliciousness

For the past several years, I've been a huge fan of Food Network and pretty much anything cooking-related. One of my particular favourites is Iron Chef America, though I can rarely eat the things the chefs cook. My favourite chef from Iron Chef? Mr. Mario Batali.

Mr. V and I were lucky enough to eat at one of Batali's restaurants while we were in Vegas on our mini-honeymoon. It was, without exception, one of the best meals I have ever eaten. So, I was excited to find some recipes from him on the website of Food and Wine Magazine. I had planned to try this pasta early last week, but circumstances prevented it so I finally made it on Wednesday night. It was absolutely delicious, though making the sauce ended up being quite messy as the tomatoes are meant to be squeezed by hand just before putting them in the sauce. I may or may not still be cleaning up splatters all over my stove and walls. Without a doubt, I would make it again however. I didn't realize it would be quite as spicy as it was though. I don't have an issue with spice, but for those who are, leave out the hot chili flakes.

On Thursday night, I attempted to make vegetable yaki udon again. The noodles weren't an issue, but I blanked halfway through making the sauce and almost forgot the cooking sherry. Luckily Mr. V came home just as I was mixing up the sauce with the vegetables, and a small crisis was averted.

In yet another triumph in cooking (we're not going to discuss the state of our apartment right now, due to having a giant Ikea bookshelf box in the middle of our living room as we haven't had time to build it into our office yet), I discovered a new love for corn tortillas. Prior to this past weekend I had only seen hard corn taco shells, but never enjoyed them. We had plenty of vegetables, so we stopped by a local Mexican importer and picked up some soft corn tortillas, along with guacamole and red corn chips.

It was like a revelation. First off they're way healthier than the huge flour tortillas that I usually buy, and secondly they were delicious. Though I prefer the flour for my grilled veggie wraps, we will definitely be using corn tortillas for fajitas and tacos from now on.

Thanksgiving is now this coming weekend, and I will certainly be earning my Perfect Housewife stripes. Between the two family dinners (one Saturday, one Sunday) I will be making two batches of hot spinach and artichoke dip, one peanut butter and chocolate cheesecake (using this recipe) and a traditional chocolate cake. At least I don't have to cook dinner for either day!

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