Dinner (June 30th, 2009)

I found these salmon burgers that they sell at my store, and I am absolutely in love with them. They are $5.99 for four, plus I get a 20% discount...so that's less than $1.25 a burger. It's a real deal...especially considering how delicious they are. I decided to have these burgers for dinner tonight, and I chose to pair them with some pasta, a little coleslaw that I picked up at work from the prepared foods department, and my requisite green salad.

I started out by making the pasta...


I sauteed some shallots in olive oil and butter while I boiled the water for the pasta and got the rest of the ingredients together.


In addition to the garlic and parsley you see pictured, I also added a little white wine, capers, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and some of the oil left over from the giardiniera I used on my panini. I tossed the boiled pasta with the garlic, shallot, caper, olive oil and butter mixture, then added the freshly chopped parsley, giardiniera and cheese.


I served this meal with my new favorite beer, Bombshell Blonde from Southern Star Brewing. It's rich and malty, but also refreshing, so it's a perfect food beer for summertime in Texas.

The meal was good. The raw red onion in the coleslaw was sliced a little too thick, but I loved that it wasn't overdressed or soggy. The pasta wasn't as flavorful as I would have hoped or as I would have expected, for that matter, considering all the highly flavorful ingredients that went into it (capers, parm, giardiniera oil, etc)...we still ate it all, though, so it wasn't THAT bad. All in all it was a quick, tasty, inexpensive meal.

Hope you enjoyed!

Dinner (June 29th, 2009)

The wine and cheese department where I work at my store is right next to the prepared foods department, where they make panini all day long. I love panini, but don't eat them that often for some reason, so I decided that I was going to make them for dinner tonight.

I picked up all the ingredients I needed after work...

• Tomato Soup
  
• Provolone Cheese
• Ciabatta Rolls
• Hot Pickled Giardiniera (spicy pickled Italian vegetables in oil)
• Pesto
• Prosciutto

So, even though it's about a billion degrees in Houston, TX right now, I still had to get the soup...a sandwich can't be dinner without a soup. I wish I had the time to make fresh pesto (it's a food that I grew up with and one of my very favorite things), but I wanted things to be quick.


I spread some pesto on the bottom piece of bread, then added a slice of provolone and topped that with several slices of prosciutto. I mounded on some chopped up giardiniera (gawd that sounds like some kind of STD), then put another slice of cheese on top before capping it off with the top piece of bread.


I made a simple green salad to go along with the soup and sandwich, and served it all with one of my favorite wines - Neil Ellis "Sincerely" Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa. This is a consistently delicious wine that is relatively widely available for between 10 and 15 dollars a bottle. This evening, I was struck by how green the flavors were...grass, green bell pepper, watermelon rind, herbs. It was a refreshing and interesting complement to the rest of the meal.

All in all this was a nice meal, but nothing special. The tomato soup was very disappointing and I would not recommend it to anyone, nor will I ever buy it again. It was thin and lacked flavor, character and seasoning. The panini were good, but I wished they had more of a homemade flavor...oh well, I guess that's what you get for quick and dirty. It sure does look pretty on that plate, though, with that glass of wine sitting next to it...doesn't it?

Well, I hope you enjoyed...leave your comments!

Dinner (June 28th, 2009) - Pappa's Barbeque

So, I had kind of been craving barbeque for a while, and I really didn't feel like cooking dinner tonight, so we decided to go to the closest most highly-rated barbeque place for takeout - Pappa's Barbeque on 1960 near IH45.

Here's a picture of what I got...



And the text of my review from Yelp...

"I give this place a solid four stars for the money. We got takeout and had 3/4 pounds each of beef ribs and turkey, a pint of cucumber salad and some fixin's from the bar, including pico de gallo and pickled carrots. The bill came to less than $25, although the prices were higher than what I saw on their website.

The turkey was moist and flavorful, as were the beef ribs. The cucumber salad was a little sweet at first, but once you started eating the meat, it served as a perfect foil to the rich sweetness of the ribs and turkey. The real show-stopper for me, though, in terms of the sides, were the pickled carrots. They had a surprisingly complex sweet/sour flavor that lingered in your mouth. The pico was good, but nothing special...it was underseasoned and needed more acidity. The sauce was pretty good, relatively thin, and with a tangy sweet flavor that was accented by a definite meatiness. At first, the meat flavor in the sauce gave it a bit of a Chef Boyardee thing, but it grew on me after a while.

This wasn't a special meal, but for the price and convenience factor, I'd definitely go back. Looking forward to trying their pulled pork..."

So yeah...will more than likely be going back to this place. Follow me on Yelp for more reviews!