There's really no good reason for having waited so long between posts; there've been plenty of good culinary creations to report on. Honestly, it's mostly the online episodes of
Lost that have kept me from the Blogger (we're now up to season 4)...
Last Thursday after leaving work early to attend a gallery opening on Newbury Street with wine and nibbles, Melissa and I made dinner of a chunk of brie and a loaf of bread.
Friday Happy Hour at the medical school ended early for us, since we got the call that the framer had finally finished with the painting we bought for our first wedding anniversary back in May. Evan went with us to pick it up, then Amanda joined us back at our place to help with the installation.
Melissa ended up whipping together a late dinner for four of grilled teryaki chicken, julienned telegraph cucumber and coleslaw (made with Kewpie Japanese mayo this time). You can see the new painting in the background of that food photo, but here's a better close-up:
It's an abstract in acrylics on handmade paper by an artist named Michael Kessler from Santa Fe, New Mexico, and we bought it from
Lanoue Fine Art on Newbury Street here in Boston. He does amazing things with layer after layer of thin-stretched acrylic paints on paper or wood panels, and the layers give the pieces a visual depth that sometimes approximates the interior light that you'd see if you were nose-to-nose with a perfectly finished slab of polished maple. We hope to visit his studio when in Santa Fe for a scientific meeting I plan to attend early next year.
I worked a half-day in the lab Saturday, and Melissa decided to make a variation on her much-loved pork-ball soup for dinner.
It was really spicy this time, with Thai green curry paste in the chicken-stock base and cilantro and garlic in the pork balls. Along with lima beans and sliced cabbage, it was a real treat, although the Thai curry began to sneak up on me -- not for the weak of tongue...
Monday we had a favorite meal of ours since I introduced the concept of fish tacos to Melissa a few years ago. Pan-fried tilapia fillets with a little sea salt and flour, sliced avocado (or guacamole if you're in the mood to make it), and Melissa's new favorite salsa (recipe given in our last posting) were wrapped up in a soft tortilla and seasoned with a little smoked chipotle Tabasco sauce. We can't get any decent store-bought flour tortillas here in New England -- they're all waxy and dry. So we use whole-grain tortillas with flaxseed oil; the oil keeps them moist and provides a good soucre of omega-3's to boot. They're not the best-tasting thing in the world all by themselves, but they do a perfectly good job of wrapping up all the goodies in a fish taco.
Tuesday dinner was a great quick-meal tip, the closest Melissa comes to "dinner from a packet." Store-bought parmesan couscous is really easy to make and tastes great. Melissa added in fresh tomatos, red onion, Italian cucumber and sliced avocado to make a fast and delicious vegetarian meal. I licked the pan. Cleaning up is my job, after all...
After our regular Wednesday night drinks and dinner at The Mission with Evan last night, tonight we had a pork and lentil curry. As I type up this post I am enjoying this rich dish with a glass of 2006 petite syrah from Bogle Vineyards (Sonoma, CA). Boiled lentils seasoned with curry powder and parsley from the garden with a little peanut butter for flavor and consistency. To the lentil stew Melissa added carrots, potatoes and cubed, pan-fried pork loin. Mmmmmm.
I'm going to go see if there's any left in the pot...
Recipes and notes coming soon
1 comment:
Its so cold here its been curries and stews. The girl is an inspiration!
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