Friday, March 28, 2014

Food lately

Slowly, spring is coming and the desire to make big vats of comfort food--mac and cheese, chili, anything the requires the oven--is lessening. Valentine's Day 2014, however, was all about comfort food: cheese and champagne.

Valentine's Day was a Friday night and Stephen and I knew we wanted to be as far away from a restaurant as possible. We like to dine on random weeknights when there are happy hours and unique specials, not on days where reservations reign. And we had a house to see right after work (FYI: no luck on the house search).

When we got back after the long day we popped open the champagne* and I started melting things for fondue. I used a basic recipe of garlic (rub it on the inside of the pan), dry white wine, and a combination of cheeses. I used three cheese: Swiss, Emmental, and Gruyere. 

Melting, melting, melting

When the cheese fondue was ready, we sat down with soft pretzel, green pepper, broccoli, green apple and pear. Delicious, and very filling!

What a pretty table
I don't think I have cooked (if melting is cooking) anything quite so exciting since. Currently, I am trying to add routine into our meals without getting boring. This week I instituted a new policy: a pizza night, a sandwich night, and a salad night. All of these options have to be made at home but toppings etc. can be different. This week I made both a Margherita and a tuna pizza with Trader Joe's crusts (I am hoping to make my own dough and freeze it soon). Later we had smoked salmon sandwiches with cream cheese, capers, and cucumber. Finally, we had our standard salad with greens, feta, and this time with added crab. How do you keep things fresh in the kitchen without being mundane?

* Full disclosure: France, it was actually a Spanish Cava. I apologize. I accept your punishment but please do me a favor and don't work with Italy and Switzerland to change the name of cheeses. I'd be so confused.

1 comment:

  1. Mmmm.....the fondue looks wonderful! I tend to decide during the day what I want to do for dinner, but we tend to have a pizza night (now that I found a crust recipe I like), a curry night, a sandwich-or-veggie burger night, and then some sort of fish with vegetables. I'm sure things will change again as the weather gets warmer. More salads, please!

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