Basilgirl

The thought of barely cooked pancetta makes me hungry. It needn't make you queasy. One of the very best ways to enjoy pancetta is utterly, gloriously, unctuously raw. Hm...almost lunchtime. ← Sorry, I just dig on cooked swine

French onion soup (Baby, It's Cold outside thread has my sorry-ass explanation) Leafy green salad with prosciutto, gorgonzola, scallions & homemade balsamic vinaigrette Boyfriend polished off most of a pecan pie. Oh, and some Reese's cups. It must be the holidays...

So cold in D.C. yesterday. I went home from work early, laid around in bed watching Oprah, then got my lazy ass up and dumped a can of Progresso French onion soup in a pot - not bad, really. Added some beef stock to stretch it and some thyme and lots of pepper. Let it burble while I cut up some old and crusty but surprisingly still moist in the middle country bread. Topped with Fontina and parmesan, baked until goopy. Yum. Just the thing on a cold winter's night.

my dad does that. I think its weird. But I used to like drinking pickle brine as a kid, so what the hell do I know? ← I still drink pickle brine, and I'm 42...

Friday night: Sierra Nevadas Saturday night: A 2.25 lb. sirloin roast rubbed all over with some fancy herb salt somebody brought me from Paris, stuck in the Set It and Forget It. Came out beautifully brown and extremely tender. As I was alone, I just sliced some very thin and stuck in on half a pita with some really good creamy "Sauce for Salade", gorgonzola and red onion. Heated it up in the microwave and had it with some extremely bad Pinot Noir. The rest will be used up this week for French dips. Sunday night: Combined Marcella's (from Marcella Says) and Lidia's chicken saltimobocca recipes - Marcella calls for layering pancetta between thinly sliced chicken with the sage leaves, but the thought of barely cooked pancetta made me queasy, so I put a sage leaf on the chicken and then a layer of pancetta and cooked it pancetta side down first. Lots of sage leaves in the butter/olive oil I sauteed them in, white wine, chicken stock. Served with garlic mashed potatoes with scallions sauteed in olive oil and lots of salt and pepper. Oh! The first course was my attempt at something I had in a restaurant - fresh mozzarella bites wrapped in prosciutto, baked in the oven and topped with balsamic vinaigrette. What a disaster. The cheese melted all over the place. I guess at the restaurant they put them under a really hot broiler or a salamander or something. Anyway, I kind of pushed the cheese back into the prosciutto wrappers and waited for it to cool off and come back together. The boyfriend declared them delicious. Tonight: It is FREEZING here in D.C. so it will be onion soup with lots of goopy cheese and a green salad with the leftover balsamic vinaigrette from last night. No wonder I have high cholesterol.

Friday night: couldn't get it up for cooking, so cooked up some Smithfield bacon (good stuff) and made an onion and ham frittata with bits of leftover cheeses. Saturday night: Rigatoni with sweet Italian sausage, onions & fennel from Lidia's new cookbook. Really really good. Sunday night: Chili made in the Crockpot on Saturday with Wick Fowler's 2 Alarm Chili Kit - best damn chili I ever made, and the easiest to boot. Served with guacamole, pickled red jalapenos, cheddar, sour cream and chopped onions. With cornbread. Tonight: Roast pork sandwiches on some kind of "rustic" Italian bread with provolone and red onions. Cooked the pork yesterday in my Set It and Forget It, stabbed all over and stuffed with garlic/fresh rosemary/fresh sage/kosher salt mix. Yum.

Moosh: Please share recipes?!

1 of the 2 cotechinos (cotechini?) I ordered are for a bollito misto party, in fact. I've been tempted on the zampone but I think I'd have a hard time convincing people to try it on the basis of the appearance alone. Hell, dinner guests get squirmy just hearing what's in cotechino. I'm also getting the itch to try making my own. I have two books with recipes. ← Kevin, um...what's in cotechino that makes guests squirm? Pig skin?

Awesome! Just ordered it, thanks! Now who has a baccala source? ← Did you get your cotechino(i?) yet? I got my order, and instead of the cotechino they substituted pancetta. I called and they said they were out of stock. I said the site said it was in stock when I placed my order, or else I wouldn't have ordered it.

Chicken Aglio Olio, from Lidia's new cookbook, Lidia's Family Table - the sauce is thickened with a tablespoon of breadcrumbs - a new one on me Green Beans Toscano from The Babbo Cookbook Garlic mashed potates with olive oil and lots of pepper Garlic, garlic, garlic and more garlic in everything Yellow Tail Chardonnay - I suck that stuff down like Coca-Cola

I've been making Butter Pecan Turtle Cookies that were on a Land O' Lakes butter box since I was about 12 - that makes 30 years. Yikes. I checked their Web site and it's not posted, but a ton of goodlooking cookies are. There's a similar recipe called Butter Toffee Bars that looks good. Anyway, the turtle cookies are basically a very simple shortbread crust that is pressed into a 13 x 9 pan and baked, topped with whole pecans (Trader Joe's has great pecans at really cheap prices) and a caramel layer, baked again, then topped with chocolate chips. You let the chips get a little melty and then swirl them around. This year I'm going to try to make my mom's chocolate pretzel cookies (I think they had cinnamon in the dough) and her poinsettia cookies, which are basically a sugar cookie with butterscotch bits and cut up maraschino cherries on top.

Blessed are the cheesemakers

I know that most of the alcohol cooks out, but you don't know this kid's mother...if she even THOUGHT that I'd put wine in it she would freak out, much less if she knew. Maybe I'll just not tell him what's in it...

I want to make cheese fondue for an 11-year-old on New Year's Eve - he's never had it. What can I use as a substitute for the white wine? Apple cider? Sparkling apple cider? I'm flummoxed.

Go to igourmet.com I just placed my order for a cotechino after trying for two years - they're usually out of stock.

I've been thinking about a classic minestrone to use the savoy cabbage I have (I love pesto on it, too), but then I saw Marcella Hazan's recipe for Savoy Cabbage Soup, Aosta Style. I'm still not sure what I'll do. Has anybody ever made an "Aosta Style" cabbage soup? ← I almost made that instead! Anything with Fontina in it has to be good.

Someone gave us a huge cabbage, which I kept on the front steps for awhile because there was no room in the fridge with all that Thanksgiving stuff in there. I made minestrone from Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen on Sunday. I substituted pancetta for the smoked pork shoulder (I think) which I could not find. My boyfriend went nuts! Especially after we added some pesto to it. I'd never made a classic minestrone before. Next I want to try Lynne Rosetto Kasper's version, which calls for frying up some of the veggies with pancetta and salami and throwing that in the soup close to when you serve it. I like to make lentil soup with lots of herbs and garlic, and melt some cheese in it. I make a killer white cheddar-ale soup from Bon Appetit; I add crispy country ham chunklets on top. French onion soup will appear soon - the Cook's Illustrated version - the one my boyfriend said made me "finally get it right". I'm also really digging on Paula Deen's chicken chili I saw her son make on the Food Network. Easy and delicious.

Our first Thanksgiving after losing my father in September, so Mom wants to start a new tradition and she will eat with her friends at the retirement home. That said, I plan on a very simple T'giving for my boyfriend and me, and maybe his 11-year-old son - just roasted turkey (too big to fit in my Set It and Forget It ), corn pudding, stuffing made with Martin's potato bread cubes, with tons of butter and sage sausage, roasted green beans, chocolate pecan pie. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Friday night: Sierra Nevadas Saturday night: Dinner for my boyfriend and his 11-year-old son: Shrimp steamed with lots of crab spice and lemon, celery, bay leaf, etc.; really good frozen chicken tenders (Weaver? blue box - honey battered) for the kid (he didn't even eat ONE!); Extra Crispy Tater Tots ; La Brea baguette with Boursin. Sunday night: Ragu Bolognese from the Babbo cookbook, tossed with spaghetti and lots of Pecorino

Two Alka Seltzer Morning Relief tablets followed by two cups of Yuban 100% Columbian with 1/2 & 1/2 followed by one egg fried up in a little olive oil and butter with last night's few leftover french fries - I saw Lidia do something similar but with freshly cut potatoes. It was GOOD.

The Best American Recipes 2004-2005 (how do they know about 2005 already?) - Fran McCullough and Molly Stevens - recipes from the Internet, cookbooks, newspapers. I have all of the other volumes, so why stop now? Lidia's Family Table - to go with her new cooking show which starts airing in February (I think) Les Halles by Bourdain

China Star now has their weekly specials translated into English on their Web site -chinastarfood.com Last night my sister ordered the special Coriander Fish Roll - very fresh fish paste (she thought it was flounder) with tons of cilantro, rolled up in spring roll wrappers and fried - they looked like little wrapped candies. Absolutely delicious and I don't even like fish! If you go before the 18th of November, order these! Here are the specials listed for 11/5 - 11/18: "*Discrepancy from actual food may exist for some dishes due to the translation limit Weekly Specials Deeply-fried Flounder with Sauce ……………….....$12.95 Chinese Angelica with Mutton in Hot Pot………..…$12.95 Shredded Beef with Silver Radish….………..............$9.95 Coriander Fish Roll (6)……………………………....$3.95 Sliced Chicken with Celery…………. ….$4.95 /half order $8.95 /one order Seasonal Soup Sparerib with Jew's-ear Soup ………..……….…..... $11.95 Spareribs Bean Curd Soup with Kelp……………….$11.95 Spareribs with Red Jujubes Soup………………..…..$11.95 Double Winter Chicken Soup…….…...…….............$12.95 Chinese Radish with Oxtail Soup….………………..$12.95"

Braised pot roast my new favorite way, from Marcella Hazan's new book. That one recipe alone is worth the price of the cookbook. You just throw olive oil, Dijon, red wine vinegar, anchovies, pancetta, garlic, chuck roast in the pan and braise it for two hours. You don't even brown the meat! It makes the most incredibly full of flavor pot roast I have ever had.

"Monte Cristos" made with leftover roasted chicken breast, rosemary ham, smoked fontina on buttered English muffins, 400 degree oven for 10 minutes on one side, 5 minutes on the other. Salt & vinegar potato chips Sierra Nevada and some white wine called Little Penguin or something

Turkey chili made with white beans and lots of green chiles