Dinner Experiment

   Some of dishes that Britten concocted last night inspired me to come up with my own version tonight, so I stopped at Trader Joe's this afternoon to procure the ingredients. Roasted pork cutlets with sweet & spicy chili sauce and matchstick Granny Smith apple & mango (this would make a great wrap with Romaine lettuce too); fresh tofu with ginger-soy gyoza dressing, and purple potato latkes with spicy peanut sauce. For dessert, Mary Ann's homemade Texas sheet cake. Kinda fun to play without a playbook and cross your fingers, and everything was soooo good... I'll make this one again for sure!
   Reminds me of a quote I read this week that I love, from one of my favorite chefs, who just happens to be local. And a genius: "Expectations are the death of pure experience."  — Jonathan Justus

Feast Your Eyes

   I've been cooking for a couple of hours now and just sat down to catch up on Project Runway (I'm currently all three episodes behind!) and enjoy the feast that resulted from my ridiculously huge grocery run Friday night. (Well, some of it anyway.) Barbequed pork chops, and two new recipes: roasted root vegetables (sweet potatoes, red potatoes, and parsnips), and a Greek couscous salad.

   It seemed like kind of an odd combination at first, but there was actually good balance between the sweetness of the caramelized BBQ sauce and the garlicky roasted veggies; the lemon juice in both the veggies and the couscous, offset by the the veggies' natural sugars and the crisp cucumber in the salad, and the sourness of the feta. There was a good variety of textures too. And the plate looked like an artist's palette! (Crappy Blackberry photo aside)

   I've learned two things: 1) Parsnips are DELICIOUS. And thank goodness, because I had to buy a whole bag. They look like white carrots, and taste similar, but with a little more aromatic spiciness. Yum. Kristin said that parsnip puree is to die for. That may be up next.  And: 2) One SMALL box of couscous makes a LOT of couscous. If anyone is in the mood for Greek salad, please, for the love of God, don't make any. Help me eat mine!