Whatever happened to the big, bad wolf?

He ended up on a pizza at Lia's restaurant. Now wouldn't that be an ironic twist to that children's tale?! But according to the coupon I received in the mail weeks ago from Lia's advertising its latest wood-fired pizza creation, it has come to fruition!

 

Kinda looks just like prosciutto, right? The coupon offers $10 off to any customer who dines in on their latest italian cuisine offerings, one of which is the Spicy Lomo & Roasted Tomato pizza. For weeks now, that coupon has been starting at me on my desk and compounding my curiosity. What in the world is lomo? After going to Lia's website to search for the recipe (as advertised on the coupon), I still am not any closer to an answer. They said to substitute capicola for lomo if you can't find it. Well, if you don't know what you should be looking for, then how can you find it?!

Instead of googling "lomo" to put my confusion to rest, I decided to use my finely-honed linguistics skills and determine that yes, the lomo is the bacon of a "lobo," the Spanish term for "wolf." A wolf pizza.

And for a couple weeks now, I've had this stupid inner comical moment every time I look at the coupon. Wolf pizza, how stupid is that?! I'm not gonna go try it for a mere $10 off coupon! But today, after realizing it was time to salvage what was left of my frayed mind after two hectic work weeks, it was time to figure out the wolf pizza creation. I looked up "lomo" on Wikipedia to learn its boring definition: a dried, cured meat made from PORK TENDERLOIN. Oh, how boring!

Garden fresh

A couple weeks ago, my boss gave me some crops her dad had harvested in his garden in Front Royal, Va. I was excited for some fresh produce and decided to put it to use later that night. She pointed out that oddly enough, the jalapeños were only mildly hot whereas the banana peppers were smokin'.

My small harvest included a green bell pepper, two cucumbers (I ate one during work that day), some tomatoes and several hot peppers. And what did I decide to turn these veggies into you ask?

With the addition of some refried beans, taco sauce, sour cream (fat free!), red onion and shredded cheddar (full of fat!), I put the diced tomatoes, green pepper and hot peppers to good use in my favorite layered dip. This dip is usually nine layers, but I decided to keep it more simple this time. It certainly hit the spot, and nothing tastes better than fresh, locally grown produce!

Low and sloooow

Last night I broke in my new crockpot in preparation for the book club that I'm hosting this evening. I have never actually used a crockpot before, since I have never owned one, but am now a HUGE fan. Never before has cooking been so easy and never in my experience has cleanup been a breeze. I had been waffling for weeks whether to use the crockpot overnight or turn it on to do its magic while I'm at work. In the end, I decided to keep it under my watchful eye at night than be stuck at work worrying that the thing is exploding all over my kitchen.

The recipe I used was designed with a crockpot in mind. As our food theme this month is African cuisine, I found a recipe on Food Network for a slow-roasted Moroccan brisket with red onions, apricots and couscous. Preparation was a sinch. After adding a sliced red onion and chopped parsnips (the albino cousin of the carrot) to the bottom of the CP, I seasoned my 2.9LBs of brisket with an array of spices. I added dried apricots and poured in a mixture of red wine, beef broth and honey into the crockpot. Cook for 6-8 hours on low and viola.

 

Here's the pot of gold shortly after green-lighting the cooking magic. I turned it on just after 11:00 p.m. with the thought of getting up around 7:00 a.m. to cool everything down before I had to leave for work.

Sporadically throughout the night, I would randomly wake up to go check on everything out of both curiosity and concern (I was still haunted by a coworkers story of split-pea soup and ham hocks exploding from her crockpot around her kitchen). Much to my liking, the heavenly aromas from the low and slow cooking meat and aromatics were contained to my kitchen and living room. My bedroom was scent-free! While I do love the smell of slow-roasted meat, I am not a fan of it saturating every bit of of everything. The last place I lived was so porous and poorly sealed that the entire house wreaked of meat and aromatics for weeks after a multi-hour slow-cook fest in my oven. Finally, 7am arrived and I took the meat out of its wine bath. Done.

The brisket was definitely done. It started to flake when I lifted it from its onion-parsnip bed. I spooned out all of the vegetables onto a plate and poured the sauce into another favorite purchase of mine, the gravy-separator.

What's great about the gravy-separator is that the strainer on top catches any meat, vegetables, or other items from your sauce and isolates the good stuff. Then, by design, it enables you to pour out the finger-licking good gravy without taking the fat which has risen to the top.

After shredding the meat, I added it and the vegetables back into the removable part of the crockpot and poured that sweet, sweet gravy on top. After covering it with the lid, I put the ceramic pot into the fridge and headed to work. So easy! Now, I hope that the meat doesn't taste too dry. I think that I will only cook it for 6 hours next time. I'll see how it all tastes later when I reheat it all...back in the crockpot!

Grilling steak and re-frying beans

I've wanted to make fajitas for a while now and tonight, decided to finally throw together a tex-mex themed dinner. I bought two skirt steaks, guacamole ingredients, Spanish rice, peppers, onions and refried beans. The marinade I made for the steaks included white wine, red wine vinegar, soy sauce, minced garlic, ketchup, olive oil, brown sugar and some spices. I didn't marinate the steaks for very long, but even so, the sauce did it's work on making the steaks brown quite nicely!

Then I decided to see if I could recreate the refried bean experience typically encountered at tex-mex restaurants. After googling a few recipes to see how refried beans were actually made, I had a plan in mind. I emptied the can of refried beans into a skillet and then added some water, diced red onion and picante sauce. It all heated up nicely and got creamy pretty fast. I also spruced up the sour cream by adding some garlic, bits of guacamole and some smoky hot sauce. Yum.

Then I sauteed some garlic, red onion rings, red pepper slices and green pepper slices and cooked up the rice. Soon it was time to take the skirt steaks off the grill. They cooked pretty quickly since they were so thin. After letting them rest, I sliced them up thinly and prepared for some fajita making!

Look at that tender meat! I will sheepishly admit that I refilled my plate three times during this meal. The second and third times, though, I made sort of a rice bowl and mixed everything together. Next time you're looking for good, cheap meat, go get you some skirt steak!

The early bird gets the mac and cheese

This Friday marks the second office lunch potluck of the year. My coworkers and I decided to have it this time to help us cope with our first full-day Friday since Memorial Weekend. Friday's were sweet with only having to put in four hours of work before starting the weekend early.

And this morning, I got up super early to make my contribution to the potluck. And by super early, I mean 7:15am. For me, that's early! It's sad that I can get up early to make mac and cheese but not so much to work out or do something useful. Now this much-loved mac and cheese is one that my roommates and I used to make for every gathering we hosted. It's a Martha Stewart recipe and has always won the hearts of whoever stuck a fork in it.

I usually just use grated parmesan instead of Gruyere in this recipe. And this time around, I decided to not only mix it up and use small shells instead of elbow macaroni, but add some extra zing in the form of crispy hickory smoked bacon crumbles atop the crunchy bread topping.

Here it is in its naked glory before the bread topping arrives.

And here it is fresh out of the oven with its crunchy bread topping. The bacon, which I baked in the oven to spare my kitchen the wrath of all that grease and smoke, is hanging out on my desk in a ziplock bag at the moment. I decided to sprinkle it on top after I reheat the thing to retain its crispy-ness. I will be sure to let you know how it tastes with the bacon addition. Bacon makes everything, better, right?

The other parts

To answer Mehul's burning question regarding the whereabouts of the leftover parts from when I carved my 3-0 cake, see the picture below. These pieces were saved, partially iced and fully devoured last night and this morning.

Back to basics

For my birthday dinner, I decided to go to Potenza in D.C. with la familia. Weeks earlier, I had been waffling between Brasserie Beck and Potenza. I had dined at Potenza's cafe bakery several times and eaten lunch there, so knew it was a solid win. And after going out to BB's sister restaurant Mussel Bar the week before, I decided to go with Potenza for my dinner. And it sure didn't disappoint!

My brother and mother split the pan-seared Bronzino with ravioli. It looked tasty, but I zeroed in on more classic italian food.

My younger brother tried out the pizza with spicy sopresatta. I stole a couple pieces of the sopresatta and thoroughly enjoyed.

 

And for moi? Spaghetti and meatballs! I can say without a doubt in my mind that Potenza's meatballs are the best I've ever had at a restaurant. Ever. I've had the meatballs in a meatball sub once for lunch and loved them. But what made them so good was how delicate they were. There was a good amount of meat (pork, veal, beef) in them, but they were packed so lightly that they just fell apart with a fork. The sauce was a perfect complement and the spaghetti was also probably the best spaghetti I've ever eaten at a restaurant.

At the fancier Italian joints, they use handmade, fresh pasta. For some reason, I've never been a fan of the fresh pasta due to its consistency. More commercial Italian restaurants, such as Maggiano's and Carmine's have decent pasta, but it's clearly the straight-out-of-the-box kind. If I wanted that, I'd make it myself. So whatever Potenza did with their spaghetti is the perfect medium. They deserve a high five and a fist pump for their efforts. And if you haven't already been to Potenza, I strongly encourage you to check it out!

They day the calendar died

 

Today is my 30th birthday. Today is also the day I will stop counting how old I am. I'm going to be one of those people who not only forgets how old they are, but forgets when their birthday is. At least this is how I'm feeling about all of this now.

This is the cake I made for my birthday before it was iced. I decided to get a little more creative this year. I knew I wanted to make circular cakes that I could cut out into a "30," but then also experimented with some upside-down magic. I sliced a quart of strawberries super duper thinly and tossed them with dark brown sugar. They quickly got nice and juicy upon mingling with the sugar. Then I lined the bottom of my cake pans with them before pouring french vanilla cake mix on top. For the icing, I made cream cheese frosting (cream cheese, butter, confectioners and vanilla) and mixed in four minced strawberries. I thought it turned out well! Next time, I might put more strawberries in the cake pans and less in the icing as the icing wasn't as firm with more liquid in it.

Maybe this will be my next cooking experiment--to see how many different combinations of upside-down cake I can make. Stay tuned!

Napa Valley in DC

Testing my patience, I ventured over to Bobby Flay's new burger joint in DC earlier today. Having only opened a couple weeks earlier, I knew that wait time would likely still be an issue. And it was. Along with my brother James and friend Phill, we waited...waited...and waited. And watched as one lone cashier took orders from a dozens of people. One cashier?! Frustrated, Incorporated.

After being in line for an HOUR, we finally arrived at decision time. What was it going to be? The Dallas burger with its slaw, jack cheese, bbq sauce and pickles? Or would it be the Napa Valley burger with it's goat cheese, watercress and honey mustard vinaigrette?

I went with the Napa Valley! The picture says it all. Juicy, gooey, greatness.

James got the Dallas burger and it looked just as good as the Napa one!

We then shared some sweet potato fries paired with a tangy honey mustard horseradish sauce.

And then I washed it all down with a creamy vanilla bean milkshake! If you have the patience, and the time, I highly recommend giving Bobby's burgers a try. As I prepare to descend on Napa Valley in two months with some of my best girlfriends, I can only hope that the trip is as good as my burger was.