Meatball and Barley Soup

Exceptionally delicious soup. Homemade meatballs, homemade turkey broth, butternut squash, carrots, parsnips, & barley oh my. Made some Foccaccia bread to go along with it. Yum!

Pork Pizzaiola, Mashed Potatoes and Zucchini

Sorry no photos tonight.
Chris picked up dinner from Bradley and Wall. His selection was quite tasty. The container of Pork Pizzaiola was so large. It reminded me of something my mother would have packed up for us. And it was also very good. The sauce was amazing.
He also picked up mashed potatoes and zucchini as side dishes. You can never go wrong with either of them.
What a delicious meal.
Thank you Chris!

Pasta with Meat Sauce

Early morning vistor.

Yes it is that time of year when Pasta with Meat Sauce will be appearing once a week. What can I say. It is good and easy. No fuss and did I mention how good it was.

What! Archie doesn't like my sauce!

Turkey Breast, Stuffing and...

We had an additional Thanksgiving feast this week.

We started with some Roasted Walnuts, recipe from Mark Bittman.
And you can not eat just one.

Roasted Turkey Breast

Chris's Thanksgiving Stuffing. Oh it is delicious.

Roasted Carrots, recipe from Proud Italian. I love this recipe!

One of our favorite wine.

And Pumpkin Pie.

Excuse me, did you say turkey?

Homemade Fettuccine with Vodka Sauce

Don't you hate when you go to make dinner and realize you forgot to get an ingredient? I do. I forgot the cream for the vodka sauce. But fear not, I opened the cabinet to find a jar of one of my favorite sauces - Paul Sorvino's Vodka Sauce. Excellent substitute for homemade.

The pasta recipe was from Giada De Laurentiis Every Day Pasta.

3 cups all purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. olive oil

Place the flour in the bowl of a food processor. In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs. Add the salt and olive oil to the eggs and stir to combine. Add the egg mixture to the food processor with the flour and pulse to combine the ingredients, scraping down the sides once or twice. Continue, with the machine running until the liquid is evenly distributed, about 1 minute. The dough should stick together if pinched between your fingers and be cornmeal yellow in color. Some of the dough will be clumping together, but it will not form a ball.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Gather the dough into a ball and knead gently until the dough is smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes before rolling and shaping as desired.

I cut the recipe in half and it was just enough for the 2 of us.

Dinner was so good. The pasta was perfect and the sauce was super easy and I can submit it to the I Heart Cooking Club for this week!

Chicken Cutlets with Tomato Saute

Simple recipe from Real Simple site. Chicken Cutlets with Tomato Saute. For sides we had rice and the vegetable croquettes which were the one of the side dishes from yesterday's feast.
Today I went to see Today's Special. I loved this movie.
Tonight I was checking out YouTube and found this all time favorite clip. The Honeymooners - Chef of the Future.

A Few Thanksgiving Snapshots

Love the antipasto!

I woke up this morning thinking about these artichokes!

My sister makes an amazing soup.
Did I take a photo of the star attraction, the turkey... No.
Did I take a photo of the side dishes, awesome stuffing... No.
And the pie. Any pie photos... No.
And that is why this post is named "A Few Thanksgiving Snapshot"

Happy 94th Birthday!

Actually on Tuesday he'll be 94 but we took my Dad out for dinner today to Leon's. Excellent meal and great service.

For Appetizers we had the Cured Meat and Cheese Plate (wonderful Prosciutto!), Pane Cotta (a Leon's Classic), and perfectly cooked Fried Calamari.

For dinner my Dad, Grace and my sister all had Veal Pagliacci. Ann had Sea Scallops with Pesto over Linguine. Stephen had Striped Bass. Ralph had Spinach Fettuccini and Chicken Livers. Chris had Scallops Athenian. And I had Gypsy Chicken. All the meals received rave reviews.

We had a couple bottles of Villa Cafaggio Chianti Classico 2006. Excellent choice Chris!

My Dad had a plate with a mini cheesecake and ice cream. Candles were in place and we all sang Happy Birthday. We also had a platter of mini Cannoli.

It was a very nice dinner with the family.

Happy 94th Birthday Dad!

Caesar Salad and Vegetable Croquettes

Croquette recipe was from La Cucina Italian magazine. Next time I make them I will add more seasoning. They were a little bland. I did not have the right cheese, of course, but I had Fontina. I Googled a replacement cheese and Fontina came up! But I need more practice with this sauce.

The salad was as usual very good.

Happy Birthday Chris!

For dinner we went to Friend's and Company. Chris had a steak and I had Pork Osco Bosco with Butternut Squash and a Rosemary Reduction. Wow. Sorry no photos.

I made cupcakes instead of a birthday cake using the 2 Egg Cake Recipe. And the frosting was also homemade. I never make good homemade frosting. But this was amazing. Happy Birthday Chris!