purplewiz

I made the "breadsticks" from the cauliflower pizza dough tonight, and even though I measured carefully, I still had the same "middle not sticking together even when the edges are getting dark" problem I had with the pizza. The breadsticks were very good, and I loved the crispy edges they got on the second baking. But they were still not as firm as I would have liked, and had a bit of a...well, grainy mouthfeel. I mixed some oregano and Penzey's Sunny Paris seasoning (dried onions of various types) into the dough, and used some leftover pepperoni slices on top. I didn't use any additional cheese because I figured there was enough in the dough, and I was right. Again, they're not bread by any stretch of the imagination, but they're very good just being what they are. I am starting to think that this recipe requires for a finer textured ricing than I usually do with the processor when I make cauliflower rice. (I don't dare grate by hand because I'll take my knuckles off with the slippery and while they're low in carbs, they're not high in taste.) Next time I try this I'll go for something just short of puree and see what happens. And I was thinking baking this off in ring molds until set, then without the molds to crisp up the edges and using it as the base for a stacked dish, or maybe individual vegetable stratas with layers of grilled vegetables. (As for lasagna, I do something similar using layers of grilled eggplant slices and it's just wonderful. It's very popular around here! That's also how I usually make a "pizza flavored dish" - a layer of grilled eggplant slices topped with pepperoni, sauce, and cheese.) Marcia.

I topped it with a thin layer of pizza sauce, more cheese, and pepperoni. Very traditional . I think I would like it with zucchini because I regularly make zucchini fritters that are somewhat similar. I never thought of baking them at high heat, though - I'll have to try it because I really hate pan frying (the house smells for days). The top of the crust was definitely browning all over in addition to the burning edges when I took it out, so I was very surprised to see the middle so soggy. I've been thinking of other things to do with this crust - I could see it as the base of a vegetable strata with things like grilled zucchini and eggplant - a very elegant side. It's always hard to find interesting vegetable sides. How did the crust hold up overnight? I often attend a potluck where there are a few vegetarians attending, and this would certainly be a change from the mac and cheese they're often stuck with! The breadsticks will have to wait a bit since I'm out of shredded mozzarella right now!

This was strange enough that I just had to try it. I'm wondering if I patted it out too thin, because the edges were definitely burning before 15 minutes were up. But after topping and broiling, the inside was still somewhat soggy - to the point where it wasn't holding together very well. It was definitely cooked through, though. It also stuck like crazy to the pan even though I sprayed the heck out of it with cooking spray. It did taste really good, and really didn't taste much like cauliflower at all (I do like the taste of cauliflower). It's no substitution for a real chewy pizza crust, but it's a very good dish all on its own. I'll probably make it again and leave it a bit thicker next time, with thicker edges and a thinner middle rather than try to get it even. I'm definitely going to try the "breadsticks" idea with the cauliflower because it intrigues me. Marcia.

Fontina Stuffed Veal Meatballs, Food and Wine, Feb. 2008. I admit to making two substitutions: first, finding ground veal around here is like finding hen's teeth (and costs more), so I used ground beef of a similar fat percentage. Second, something was VERY wrong with the fontina I'd bought - it was nasty and bitter and inedible. So I had to make a last minute substitution for Jarlsberg because it was all that was available at the time. It's a very good thing I taste tested the cheese or I would have had to throw the whole mess out. It was that bad. But that shouldn't have given me meatballs that fell apart, cheese leaked all over, and honestly, didn't have much flavor. They weren't inedible, just kind of ugly, but for that amount of work, they sure weren't worth it. I'll stick with my own meatball recipe. But there was a silver lining: the simple tomato sauce part of the recipe was excellent and I've used it again. Marcia.

We're back from Las Vegas, and here's a quick summary of the food portion of the trip: Mandalay Burger Bar: we'd talked about going to Lotus of Siam (still haven't been) after we got in Thursday, but the landing was very rough and I was still green and not up to another cab ride. So we decided burgers would fit the bill. No, didn't get the lobster and foie gras burger, but I did have swiss cheese and bacon burger on a ciabatta roll and it was wonderful. But the best part of the meal was the fried zucchini on the side - if it wasn't the best fried zucchini I'd ever had, it was close. The onion rings didn't suck, either. Chocolate Swan: next door to the Burger Bar more or less, I had a wonderful chocolate layer cake and my husband had the Black Forest Cake. Both were declared wonderful. And they weren't huge wedges, which was nice. I'd like to try some of their chocolates sometime. Il Fornaio: I've always wanted to try the breakfasts at Il Fornaio but I'm never up early enough to make it to the local one, so since we were staying right above it we decided to go. The cheese omelet was nothing special, but the fried potatoes and onions that came along with it were outstanding. My husband had the corned beef hash - large pieces of corned beef and very good. And their coffee...I could be happy waking up to their coffee every morning. Some place in the mall, Great Wraps or something: I needed something for lunch but I wasn't very hungry (I do not know how you folks who go to Las Vegas and eat big meals at every meal make it.) I had a salad with chicken on it that was actually pretty good. I mean, yes, it's a fast food salad, but it was tasty and fresh and the caesar dressing actually tasted like cheese. Buffet at the Wynn: I posted my full review over at the Buffets in Las Vegas subject, but the short version: it's up there, but I think I agree with rjwong, I like Bellagio's better. Dragon Noodle Co.: I don't know why, I just like this Chinese restaurant in the Monte Carlo. It serves the usual standards, but the dishes have that flavor that Chinese restaurants had in California that they just don't have here. Kung Pao Chicken and Mongolian beef and it was good. Stage Deli (MGM): pastrami on rye. And it was FINALLY fatty enough pastrami. Pastrami is not supposed to be lean. Nice pickle with it, too. My husband had the Reuben and pronounced it good. Dessert was a chocolate covered strawberry from Starbucks. It was nice. Circo: in short: one of the best meals I've ever had. Period. The food drew me in, but what made me fall in love with the place is the fact that they did not look down their noses at us because I prefer to drink tap water (I can't tell the difference between it and bottled) and didn't order any alcohol (see "running out of room" above - wine fills me up fast and I wanted dessert). Service was exemplary. The truffle risotto cake with fontina was heavenly. Breakfast Buffet at the MGM Grand: you've seen one breakfast buffet, you've seen 'em all. (Ok, maybe not Bally's Champagne Brunch, but we were not up to that.) Eggs, bacon, coffee. We weren't all that hungry but we figured that part of the cost of the buffet is renting somewhere to sit for as long as we wanted so we could read the paper and drink coffee in peace. So we did. Il Fornaio Bakery: honestly, by this point I wasn't all that hungry, but I knew I needed something to eat. The bakery next to Il Fornaio had a lovely little salami and cheese sandwich on filone that was just about right - not too large, very tasty. My husband had a toasted three cheese panini. Really, this was just all very nice, just something small to get us through to what we thought was going to be dinner. We ended up not eating dinner simply because we were Just Too Full. We snacked on some beef jerky and nuts on our flight home, but that and a soda and we were fine. I keep thinking of all the places I wanted to try as we walked past, but even though we walked for miles each day (and my feet are really beat up), I just wasn't hungry anymore. They're just going to have to wait for the next trip. Marcia.

I'd posted asking about which was the better buffet, the Bellagio or the Wynn, over in the dining in Las Vegas thread, but I'll put my own personal review here, although they'll get mentioned in my wrap up over there. (Confused yet? ) We'd done the Bellagio buffet awhile ago, so we decided to go with the Wynn just to try it out. My verdict: it's up there, but frankly, I liked the Bellagio better for both depth and consistency. Some of the items at the Wynn were very, very good, like the cucumber salad over by the sushi (I could have made a meal of that alone), the shrimp cocktail was outstanding, the housemade pretzels and ice cream and believe it or not the no sugar added pecan pie was incredible. The gorgonzola cheese on the salad bar was also outstanding, and the pork in lotus leaf was heavenly, just like I remember it being at a place in CA. But then there were things like the roasted rabbit salad which was flavorless, and the tandoori chicken and ginger lamb which were flavorless and rubbery. The prime rib was even kind of eh at best. The pepperoni pizza, which smelled great, wasn't. And the crab legs, which people were lining up for like they were giving away money, were oversalted. (Although dunking them in drawn butter seemed to help with that.) In fact, most of the fish dishes were pretty good, which is definitely to their credit. (To be fair, I did not sample the pastas or rice dishes because they fill you up too fast (that's rule 2 of my Rules Of Working The Buffet). They might have been great, but I had to make choices.) I know that no buffet is without clunkers, but I remember my experience at Bellagio being more along the lines of "wow, I'm glad that's a lousy dish because there are already too many I'd like to have seconds of". That's part of the fun of a buffet - to sample a lot of different things and try things I might not otherwise - so I don't expect everything to be done perfectly. The Wynn is definitely a worthy contender, but I'll have to try Bellagio's again next trip to confirm. Sometimes it's a rough job, but someone has to do it.

The Roasted Ratatouille from Cuisine at Home, April 2008. Very easy, very fast, and way more delicious than expected. Marcia.

A textbook example of how to create grill marks the right way.... ...and the wrong way. (Samples were sliced and served over a salad. Testing found the grill marks made no difference in taste .) Marcia.

I know I'm asking at the last minute since our flight to Las Vegas leaves on Thursday, but what's currently considered the best buffet for dinner on the strip? (I know about Bally's Brunch Buffet, but it's a little early for dinner ) We've been to the Bellagio - is it still at the top of the heap or is there a new contender for the crown? Marcia.

Herb crusted roast pork with brandy orange mustard sauce, roasted broccoli: It was snowing out, and the oven warmed up the kitchen nicely. Marcia.

The only good thing about early daylight savings time is that I don't have to grill in the dark anymore. And grilling is one of the things inspiring me to cook these days. Pork roasts were on sale at the grocery store, so I did a little one on the grill: Plated with mustard sauce and grilled zucchini spears: Marcia.

Now THAT was a good episode.

Probably go after it with a spoon Or a spoonful over a simply cooked chicken breast with maybe some finely chopped chives or other fresh herb to garnish. I also like truffle oil over cooked green beans, so maybe the cream would also work. Marcia.

Straight out of the latest Cuisine at Home: Honey Lemon Grilled Chicken (well, pan-browned since I don't have a grill pan and the pounded cutlets would not work so well on my real grill) and Roasted Ratatouille. The chicken was good, but the star was the ratatouille - it was easy, fast, and delicious. Definitely a keeper. Marcia.

We ate at Restaurant Kevin Taylor in the Hotel Teatro tonight. I had a moment to chat with the folks at the door, and they said they were pretty much sold out about the time they started the table layouts (I think that's the word he used....). So I guess I was really lucky to get a reservation! We started with an amuse of some pumpkin creme, a slice of halibut mousse, a salsa of pineapple, poppy seeds, and tomato (I think it was tomato), and some microherbs. Very tasty. We were served bread: a salted rosemary roll and a poppyseed something roll. They were tasty but surprisingly they were somewhat dried out/stale. My first course was the bacon, lettuce, and tomato bisque. They bring out a soup plate with a pile of butter braised argula in the center, topped with a slice of smoked pork belly, and a crouton on top. The soup is in a silver pitcher and they pour it all around. A lovely presentation and an incredible taste - the soup tastes like pure essence of roasted tomatoes. If Campbell's tomato soup tasted like this I wouldn't hate it so much. For the main, I had the salmon with ricotta potato puree, creamed asparagus, and tarragon foam. The salmon was cooked perfectly - and I do mean cooked, it wasn't left half raw in the center as a safety measure like many other restaurants. The ricotta potatoes were like eating heavy cream, so good. But I thought the tarragon foam was too strongly flavored for the salmon - when I had a bite of both, all I could taste was essence of licorice, the salmon was pretty much lost. So I avoided the tarragon foam and enjoyed the salmon. Dessert was a deconstructed German chocolate cake: an almost flourless brownie with a caramel/coconut/pecan sauce on the side and a scoop of coconut sherbet on top. The sherbet didn't taste too much like coconut to me, but the brownie was delicious. Two housemade chocolates ended the meal: my husband had the hazelnut one and said it was good, I had the solid chocolate pyramid with pecans in it because more chocolate is always better. Service was generally attentive and smooth, with a few puzzling glitches. We didn't order any alcohol because my husband was getting over a cold and I'd had some stomach upset earlier in the day, and I wonder if that painted us as Cheapskates because we were not offered any other drinks throughout the meal, not even coffee with dessert. I decided not to press the issue because we'd had an unexpectedly long day and were pretty tired by then (which is why coffee would have tasted good). At the end of the meal we were given certificates for dining at two other Kevin Taylor restaurants - Kevin Taylor at the Opera House and Prime - where, with presentation of the certificate after March 1, we'll have the opportunity to order from a special menu priced at $52.80 for two. I dare say we'll be taking them up on it because even with the bobbles, I consider this meal one of the greatest bargains I've had to date. (And we had free passes for light rail, making the night even a bigger bargain!) I don't have any other reservations for Restaurant Week, but depending on how things go, we may try to dine at another participating restaurant. I'd love to hear about others' experiences if you're going to any of them! Marcia.

DH still has the remnants of the stomach bug, so another simple dinner: Chicken soup And grilled cheese on whole wheat. Marcia

Marcia, that looks really good. Did you by chance make it low carb? ← Fortunately, savory souffles are naturally quite low in carbs. Two tbsp of flour in the whole thing to make the roux. I suppose if a low carb baking mix makes a decent roux, you could substitute, but that amount of flour is well below our carb threshhold . (edited to add: there's also a cup of milk in it which adds a few more - I always forget about that!) Marcia.

Dinner plans were changed due to the spousal unit's stomach bug. So dinner ended up being spam and broccoli souffle: It was very good and very rich. Marcia.

Unfortunately, the spousal unit came down with a stomach bug last night so curry was definitely off the menu. In an effort to make something easily digestible and nutritious, I made a spam and broccoli souffle. It was good, but he just wasn't hungry. Oh, well, good thing we don't do much for Valentine's Day. Marcia.

Wait, what is this? Recipe, please! I am intrigued...is it just a curry with some peanut butter thrown in? ← It's in RecipeGullet . It's pretty much a basic curry with peanut butter, probably nowhere near even approximating authentic anything, but it's delicious and leftovers freeze beautifully. Marcia.

Chicken Peanut Butter Curry. It's one of his favorites and he's asked for it. We don't do much for a Valentine's Day celebration because my birthday is a little over two weeks afterwards and I get my big fuss then . Marcia.

It may be in the single digits and windy, but that does not stop me from grilling.... ...or getting the best grill marks I've gotten in a long time. Tonight it was something a little different: Pollo con salsa d'uovo, or chicken in egg and lemon sauce. Served over a sliced avocado with roasted cauliflower on the side. First time I made this one and it was very good and surprisingly easy. Marcia.

Many times when I have a casual dinner party it's for the express purpose of trying some new recipes, especially the ones that don't scale down well for only two people. The guests know well in advance, and I always have a pizza delivery phone number on speed dial should things get out of hand. Marcia.

Most of the menus are up, and most of the typos that gave errors are fixed Marcia.

I'm with everyone else - it's the blues. Every so often I still make something where I taste it, then say to my husband: "Honey, we're eating out tonight." One thing I wanted to ask is if you're making the dishes that sound really good to you right now. I've found that if I force myself to cook stuff that doesn't already appeal, the chances of it turning out not so go rises dramatically. (This is why we had meatloaf tonight instead of another Asian soup - I've been on an Asian soup kick, but tonight I wanted MEATLOAF. And it was good.) And on days when I just don't feel like cooking I pull out one of my old, uninspired, but tried and true dishes - it may not be spectacular, but it'll be filling and good and sometimes that's all you need. Keep on keepin' on! Marcia.