City House Last Year

smoked trout and trout cavier over bellinis
exceptional, delicious, beautiful

For 2008/9 New Year's Eve over a year ago, we got a late seating, and shared a City House New Year's Eve meal with some great friends and toasted with champagne at midnight, the first moment of 2009. That was a really nice evening over a year ago, and who knew that heart warming moment with dear friends was going to be one of the only few exceptionally good times of a really hard year for a lot of people including us. To recapture that feeling of good cheer and warmth of 2008/9 New Year's Eve, and say good by to the hard and exhausting year of 2009, I wanted to go back to City House, and then celebrate with some wonderful, upbeat and fun music of Old Crow Medicine Show at the Historic Ryman Theater. I really enjoy Old Crow so much, and going to their New Year's Eve show was perfect to say goodbye to 2009 and a hard decade, and hello to a new start of 2010.

air dried beef

This past 2009/10 New Year's Eve we got a seating at 6:30 pm. We waited way too long to make a reservation, and the only times open were 5:30, 6, and 6:30. I would normally liked to have started dinner later, and go directly to the Ryman to hear Old Crow Medicine Show, but erring on the side of early was still fine with me. How City House offers New Year's Eve dinner is that there Tandy delivers EVERYTHING for the 4 course meal. There were 4 app course, 2 pasta course, 2 meat course and 2 dessert course, as served family style. All of that for only $49, is a deal if you ask me. To end 2009 slightly more "green" than I started, and because I knew the gig about the volume of food, I brought 4 reusable tupperwares with me, one for each course, for left overs. Bringing my own tupperware allowed me to start the year off right with less solid waste/trash, and less non-reusable and non-recyclable takeout containers restaurants offer. When I can remember, I will bring my own reusable tupperware.

my tastes of 4 apps

To start, we had air dried beef, smoked trout with trout caviar on an corn meal bellini, butternut squash with collards, and a citrus fennel salad with almonds. Matt liked the butternut squash and collards the best, and I liked the smoked trout over corn meal bellinis with the citrus salad as a close second. In 2009, we had way too many stressful events happen to get our wood smoker rig out, that we did not smoke food, bbq food, or grill food in 2009. Tasting Tandy's smoked trout, we are again inspired to smoke fish, make our own bacon, make our own pastrami again. We are looking at 2010 as being a better and more balanced year for us, and we can create some delicious Tennessee home smoked foods. We need a good local hickory wood or fruit tree wood source to start smoking up the smoker again. We don't need a lot, we don't need a cord, we just need a cut up fallen limb or two. Any suggestions?

2 pastas, duck sugo with shells and shellfish gnocchi

We both enjoyed the pasta. The duck sugo tasted like it was slow cooked all day long with a hearty and meaty demi-glace. I love the small pasta shells that came with the sugo. Pasta shells and pasta bowties make me really happy at a base level. It takes me back to when I was really little, like around 3 or 4 years old, before I was school age (my sisters are much older than I, so they were off in school), when my mom would make little pasta shells or bowties in homemade soup for lunch. Those are just great feelings and memories of sharing a pasta lunch with my mom during those S. CA days of my childhood. Thinking about it now, I think those lunches, just me and my mom, may have started my love of good food. We would have such a great time finding tasty treats for lunch like her soups, artichokes, sushi, falafels with tahini, avocados, Chinese noodles, duck, snapper soup, boiled peanuts, and a lot of other tasty treats.

meatballs and roasted cauliflower

The meat course came with two dishes as well. The meatballs came with roasted cauliflower and a City House's version of a salsa verde. The fish was a Carolina fish with hoppin' john. The hoppin' john was a black eyed pea salad made with celery and onions. The meatballs, those are 1 of 2 reasons why we go to City House (the other is the wood fired oven belly ham pizza). In General, both of us don't love the various meatballs of our past. For me, meatballs of my childhood were little gray rocks with virtually no seasoning, no salt and all the fat rendered out of them. The frozen packaged meatballs are much worse with a strange spongy texture and fillers in them. Believe it or not, for the majority of my life, I thought I did not like meat and meatballs be I thought meat was a dry, acrid, string, leathery mess. It is not so, and City House meatballs are a meat product I really want to eat. We have had City House meatballs in many preparations. Over a year ago during the 2008/9 New Year's Eve dinner, we had milk braised meatballs. The low and slow milk braise transforms the milk into a deep rich brown gravy for the meatballs, and the milk keeps the meatballs tender during the braising. During the year, we have had meatballs with house made tomato sauce made with local organic heirloom tomatoes. We had these meatballs for 2009/1o New Year's Eve. For many Sunday Suppers at City House, Tandy offers meatballs as one of the family style dishes.

Carolina fish, crispy bread and hoppin' john

I so enjoy Sunday Supper at City House. It seems that Tandy, sous chef, and line chefs let their creativity run, and they make a lot of fun dishes. Sunday Supper dishes are appropriate for a family style dinner, where each dish should be shared with the table, rather than Russian service. Most of the dishes are less than $9, so it is fun to mix and match. There is usually a meatball dish on the Sunday Supper menu, so I know where I can get my City House meatball "fix". I like many things about City House's Sunday Supper, and one aspect I respect is the Pork section of the menu. Tandy treats the whole pigs with incredible old world respect. He breaks it down himself, and uses every part of the pig for various dishes on his menu and Sunday Supper. He offers meatballs, head cheese, cracklin' skin, sausage, and salami among other pork products he makes. Some of the pork dishes on Sunday Supper seem experimental, and are fun to try.

dessert cake, pecans and panna cotta

After eight dishes, there was the dessert course. There was cake and panna cotta served house candied pecans. I like the panna cotta, and wish there were more. I am not a fan of pecans, nor cake, so I cannot judge whether they were tasty or not. I actually did not eat the pecans. I know, I know, I live in the south, and I must be the only person in the south who doesn't care for the pecan, taste, texture, nor look. I am also not a cake fan, never been. Even when I was a kid, it was torture to me to have to eat birthday cake, if it was not angel food cake. If you are a cake fan, and there is cake for dessert, come eat with me; you can have my cake share. I know, another strange thing, most people look at me and think it is weird that I don't like cake. I say, who cares! More cake for them that I am not eating!

Back on blog post task, Happy New Year everyone! I hope it was a pleasure to say goodbye to 2009 and hello to 2010. It was for me. May 2010 be a happy, healthy and prosperous year!

Hamburger Buns

2 cups whole milk 1/4 cup warm water (105-115 degrees F)
2 (1/4-oz) packages active dry yeast
1/4 cup plus 1/2 tsp sugar, divided
1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon salt
6 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 large egg mixed with 1 tablespoon water for egg wash

You'll need a stand mixer with paddle and dough-hook attachments, and a 3-inch round cookie/biscuit cutter.

1. Bring milk to a bare simmer in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat and cool to 105 to 115 degrees F.

2. Meanwhile, stir together warm water, yeast, and 1/2 teaspoon sugar in mixer bowl until yeast has dissolved. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn't foam, start over with new yeast.)

3. Add butter, warm milk, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar to yeast mixture and mix with paddle attachment at low speed until butter has melted, then mix in eggs until combined well. Add salt and 4 cups flour and mix, scraping down side of bowl as necessary, until flour is incorporated. Beat at medium speed 1 minute.

4. Switch to dough hook and beat in remaining 2 cups flour at medium speed until dough pulls away from side of bowl, about 2 minutes; if necessary, add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time. Beat 5 minutes more. (Dough will be sticky.)

5. Transfer dough to a lightly oiled large bowl and turn to coat. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm draft-free place until doubled, about 2 1/2 hours.

6. Butter 2 large baking sheets. Punch down dough, then roll out on a lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin into a 12-inch round (about 3/4 of an inch thick; take care not to roll the dough out too thin or your buns will be too flat...I suggest erring on the side of caution here). Cut out as many rounds as possible with floured cutter and arrange 3 inches apart on baking sheets. Gather and reroll scraps, then cut out more rounds.

7. Loosely cover buns with oiled plastic wrap and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until they hold a finger mark when gently poked, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

8. Preheat oven to 375°F with racks in upper and lower thirds.

9. Brush buns with egg wash and bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until tops are golden and undersides are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped, 14 to 20 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool completely.

Dim Sum Tea Time Special

My brother took me to a late lunch in Shatin last week. We arrived at the restaurant just after 2pm, so were entitled to special dim sum prices. You cannot imagine how low the prices were. Below are two examples. My favourite dessert Steamed Egg Custard costed even less than that from convenience stores.

Steamed Egg Custard

HK$3.8 (US$0.49)

Stir Fried Flat Noodle with Eggs and Prawns

HK$28.8 (US$3.7)

less than half price comparing to peak hour

Some readers asked me about the tea time in Hong Kong. Broadly speaking from 2pm to 6pm. However there are variations among restaurants. Dim sum restaurants usually start at 2pm. Food at this period is generally the cheapest in a day. Master your time and you can enjoy great food at greatly reduced price.

Hong Kong Chinese Food - Tea Time Dim Sum Special

The Everyday Conundrum

On a day to day basis, I think it's safe to say that I do most of our grocery shopping and cooking. It's not that M doesn't like cooking (the shopping is another matter), it's just that me making dinner is what makes sense. I get off earlier from school and work, so I don't have to suffer the post-traumatic stress it is to go to the store after 5 o'clock and generally, I say I like cooking us dinner. Only problem: what to make?

I usually ask M in the morning what he may feel like having for dinner, but being the man that he is, knowing what he'd like to eat anywhere further away than 20 minutes from the present is a question along the lines of "What is the meaning of life?" He hardly EVER has a clue. So much for inspiration, I'm telling you.

We've tried a lot of things: picking out recipes from randomly selected cookbooks that looks or sounds good; I've had M go over my delicious bookmarks, so he could find things he'd like eating; I've taken "what we had for dinner" notes for an entire month, to have that as inspiration for forthcoming months; we've scoured both Danish and American magazines to find drool-worthy (and everyday-cooking managable) recipes. I've tried to do week-to-week food plans, but something always pops up and wrecks my best attentions and the chicken ends up spoiling in the fridge. Just buying what looks good at the market on Saturday invariably leaves me with something that doesn't look nearly as good on the following Thursday. Which is also a terrible, terrible waste.

All I want is recipes that are easy, managable, not using crazy expensive ingredients, or things I have to go to specialist stores to get, or that requires hours and hours of prep work or marinating or. That lives up to my - self-prescribed - requirement of protein and two veg. This last one is probably what gives me the most problems. If I was to make dinner for myself alone, I'd live happily ever after on brown rice and avocado, but when I'm cooking for the man, I feel like there should be both protein, starch and carbs on the plate. Don't ask why, it makes no sense, and I'm trying to shed myself of it.

Making nice, nutritious food on an everyday basis is just not as easy as I would like it to be, and fast becomes a chore. A dud. An energy- and life-draining one at that. And I want my time in the kitchen to be pleasurable.

But then, then, it happens that I stumble upon keepers. Like the chicken meatballs up there. I was, once again, at the end of a day of work and trying to figure out what to eat that night, and ended upon the Gourmet website. Ta-dah! Dinner solved!

I've always passed on the minced chicken in the cooler at the market. Why, I have no idea, minced chicken just seemed a little odd to me - considering the amount of other types of minced meat we eat, it really makes no sense, but I guess I just never really knew what to do with it. Now, I make this. I've served them with a chopped salad (with this dressing) and the peperonata suggested, but I think they'd be the bomb in a sandwich, too. They even freeze well, so make a double portion and you won't have to think about what to make next Wednesday for dinner. What do you do to make sure you don't live of pasta and jarred tomato sauce every day?

Aloo Tamatar Subzi - Curried Potatoes In Tomato Sauce

Simple,comforting and flavorful – is how I would describe today’s vegetarian dish with overtones of North Indian style of cooking.I learnt this recipe during my college days from one of my numerous North Indian friends who would bring it in her tiffin dabba with rotis.I reminse the days when we would swap our tiffin dabbas and how I'd lap up delicious North Indian fare like stuffed paranthas and chole while my friends would relish our South Indian tiffins like masala dosas,idlis and garellu.

I always tried out different combinations of a particular dish(which is new to me) using different spices with recipes like curried baby potatoes and aloo palak and finally settle for one which is suited to my palate in terms of spice and flavor.North Indian cuisine calls for the use of less spice than our Andhra cuisine.If I feel that the flavor of a dish needs to be peped up a bit in terms of spice then I do make a subtle change without playing too much with the ingredients and cooking style of the authentic original recipe.The end result has never been disappointing so far and I always had my family and friends relish the food served to them..:)

Aloo Tamatar Sabzi or Curried Potatoes in Tomato Sauce is very simple,everyday dish regularly cooked in many North Indian kitchens.Boiled potatoes are cooked in a spiced gravy of onions and tomatoes and it makes a great curry with rotis and chapatis.I also make this sometimes as an accompaniment to a subtle flavored rice or steamed white rice.
Aloo Tamatar Subzi (Potato-Tomato Curry)

Ingredients:

4 medium potatoes (boiled and slightly mash with hand roughly to form small chunks)
1 large onion chopped finely
3 cloves garlic finely minced
1" ginger finely minced
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
2 dry red chillis
10-12 curry leaves
2 green chilli slit length wise
1 tsp red chilli pwd (adjust according to your choice)
1 tbsp coriander pwd
1/2 tsp cumin pwd
1/4 tsp turmeric pwd
salt to taste
3 medium sized tomatoes finely chopped
1 1/2 tbsp oil
chopped coriander leaves for garnish
1 tsp jaggery or sugar (optional)

Heat oil in a cooking vessel and add the mustard seeds and let them pop.Now add the red chillis and curry leaves and stir fry for a few seconds till the flavors are released in the oil.Now add onions,ginger and garlic and saute till the onions turn light brown.Add the green chillis and all the pwds.Combine.
Add the tomatoes and stir fry till the oil seperates and it gets mushy.
Add the potatoes and combine and keep covered with a lid on low heat for 3-4 minutes.
Remove lid and cook further for another 3-4 mts stirring once in a while.
Add salt and enough water to cover the potatoes.
Bring to a boil and let it simmer on low heat till you get the desired curry consistency.Finally add the jaggery/sugar and combine.Turn off heat.Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
Serve hot with rotis/chapatis/steamed white rice.

Thanksgiving Feast 2009

Once again, our Thanksgiving feast was not asinvolved as years past but unlike last year we cooked more from scratch and didn't rely on a Tofurkey. We tried a number of recipes this year from the current edition of Vegetarian Times and they all came out great. For the first time in memory - maybe for the first time ever - their Thanksgiving menu was entirely vegan. We started with the Butternut Squash-Bartlett Pear soup. It was sublime.


The main course was Smothered Seitan in Mixed Mushroom Gravy, which we had over simple mashed Yukon gold potatoes. On the side were Citrus Collards with Raisins and Cranberry Conserve (slightly modified from Emeril's recipe). It wasn't quite as crowded of a plate as we've had in the past but it was all delicious - particularly the seitan.


Finally, dessert was a tried and true recipe from a back issue of Vegetarian Times - one of the first issues we ever bought from 1996. It's a pretty basic veganized pumpkin pie recipe that primarily uses silken tofu as the binder. Basic but yummy!

First Try: Asia Market

After starting a curry series, I knew I had to write about Thai curries. They are my favorite curry. But they also don't quite fit our concept of curry. Surely there would be much to write.

I sought inspiration in Asia Market's wonderful red curry, Kang Dang.

I planned to argue that Thai curry is not what we think of as curry. It is not a mix of dry spices. (Massamun is the exception). Instead, Thai curries are a mix of hot peppers, coconut milk, onion, kafir leaf, galangal or ginger, and other garden (or jungle) ingredients.

Thai curries are usually about the balance of the sweet creaminess of coconut milk and the heat of the peppers. They are not curries as in an earthy blend of spices, like an Indian or Pakistani curry.

Beyond that, I could not think of anything interesting to say. What to do? Maybe eat more curry?

Basic Beef Stew Recipe: Meat and Potatoes Can Be Good Food, Mom

One day when I was a little girl watching my mom make dinner, I asked her why we weren't a "meat and potatoes" family. She said, "That's because we're Italian, and we eat good food."

I remember thinking, was meat and potatoes bad food? Would it make you sick? I suddenly felt sorry for all those kids at school whose moms cooked meat and potatoes. I secretly wished I could bring them home for dinner so they could have good food like my mom's eggplant parmigiana, escarole and beans, and macaroni with gravy and meatballs.

Other than the once-a-year New England boiled pot roast with potatoes and carrots, my mom never made meat and potatoes meals, and I don't either. The closest I get to making meat and potatoes is a burger and fries, which suits Jeff just fine since his mother also never made meat and potatoes.



Since I'm a food blogga and since this week is about as wintery as it's going to get in San Diego -- 50's and rain -- I have decided to post some belly-warming one-pot meals. Everyone should have a basic beef stew recipe because it's easy, inexpensive, and satisfying. It also tastes great with beer and sports, so the men in your life will love you for making it. Rich red wine and beef broth along with earthy thyme add depth of flavor to this simple beef stew that is chock-full of firm carrots and potatoes.

Thai Red Curry With Tofu & Vegetables

Thai curries are famous for their distinct flavors and the coconut base. And I love the fact that you can create beautiful variations by using different types of curry pastes or spice blends to make a red, green or yellow curry. This Friday night, we experimented with the Thai Red Curry made with Tofu and vegetables. What better way to get some protein, vitamins and loads of nutritious juices into our system than make a fulfilling curry! The best part, it was so easy to make, did not need much preparation, as we used a ready-made paste, and it tasted great with hot Jasmine Rice. Perfect for Vegans too! Flavored with lemongrass, basil, kafir leaves and laden with veggies, tofu and bamboo shoots, this Thai Red Curry is surely something that will please your palates!

Encore Restaurant in Denver Makes A Burger That Deserves a Standing Ovation

[Photographs of exterior/interior: encoreoncolfax.com; other photographs: Daniel Zemans]

Encore Restaurant

2550 E. Colfax Avenue, Denver CO 80206 (map); 303-355-1112‎; encoreoncolfax.com
Cooking Method: Grilled
Short Order: Restaurant that specializes in local food and pretty people puts out an outstanding burger.
Want Fries With That? Yes, please. The hand cut fries are served with a nice tangy mustard sauce.
Price: $11

I've become sufficiently confident in my ability to research restaurants and gauge the value of various online reviews that I tend to insist on picking restaurants when traveling, even if I'm staying with locals. I am more than happy to make exceptions when I have faith in the people I'm visiting, but neither my older sister nor her husband fall into that category. So I was a bit reluctant to check out Encore Restaurant for brunch upon their recommendation during a recent trip to Denver.

Encore opened in 2007 in the rehabbed and reconfigured Lowenstein Theater, a beautiful example of modern architecture that sadly stood unused for 20 years until 2005. When we got to Encore, I had every intention of getting something on the breakfast side of lunch under the assumption that pretty much every restaurant can make decent eggs and pancakes. But when I walked into the place and saw a little sign indicating that 5280 Magazine had declared Encore to have the best burger in Denver in 2009, my AHT instincts kicked in and my order was decided.

Now, having eaten the burger and tried some of most of the other entrées at the table, I am happy to report that I've been knocked off my high horse regarding my sister and brother-in-law's culinary tastes. Actually, that's a lie—I will file this under, "Even a blind squirrel finds a nut," but this was one delicious burger.

Seafood Pasta alla Buzara

The other day I was shopping at my neighborhood supermarket, looking for a little dinner inspiration. I meandered past the seafood department without a thought. Usually, I don’t even bother to look in that direction. I live in Florida, less than a mile from the Gulf of Mexico. The last thing I am interested in is defrosted frozen shrimp from Indonesia, artificially colored, farm-raised salmon, or some ubiquitous white fish filets from South America. Sadly, those are nearly always the only kinds of seafood my local supermarkets carry. So, I pass on them and buy my fish at one of the few and far flung fish markets in the area, which are not great, but at least do offer some local selections. But, this time something in the display case caught my eye. It was fresh rock shrimp. Rock shrimp? Wow! I hadn’t seen fresh rock shrimp anywhere around here in a very long time.

Rock shrimp (Sicyonia brevirostris) are deep-water cousins of the more commonly known pink, brown and white shrimps. They have a hard, spiny shell more like a lobster rather than a traditional shrimp. Their shells are “hard as a rocks”, hence the name rock shrimp. They have a fresh, clean, sweet taste, very much like lobster. Rock shrimp live and spawn in warm deep waters between 120 to 240 feet and are mostly harvested off of the east coast of Florida.

When I was growing up, rock shrimp were plentiful all over Central and South Florida. You could regularly find them in area fish markets and on the menus of many local restaurants. Sadly, that has changed. Many of the local shrimpers have been crowded out of the ports, at least in part, because they can no longer afford to pay the exorbitant prices for berthing space that have been driven up by the cruise ship industry and waterfront condo developers. Now, there are only a handful of shrimp boats left in what was once a thriving shrimp fleet on the east coast of Florida. As landings for rock shrimp from Florida shrimpers have decreased, the harvest has decreased as well. This has forced the shrimpers to focus on selling their product in larger markets outside of Florida where they can get higher prices. Sigh….. Unfortunately, this is not only the case with rock shrimp. It also applies to a large degree to other kinds of native Florida fish, beef and produce. (You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find a decent orange here in the “Sunshine State”! All the best “Florida” citrus is shipped out to the rest of the country. Most of our oranges come from California!)

So, now you can understand why I got a little excited to see rock shrimp at the market.

I bought a few pounds and took them home to keep company with some plump bay scallops that I had picked up somewhere else. After playing around with some different ideas, I decided to turn my seafood bounty into a pasta dish based on one of Lidia Bastianich’s recipes from Lidia’s Italy. The original dish is called Shrimp Buzara. The sauce is a variation on a traditional scampi sauce which is made with butter, wine and garlic. This one has olive oil in it instead of butter, and also a little tomato paste. I adapted the recipe, using my rock shrimp and scallops, to make a tasty sauce to serve over pasta.

Take a look at that beautiful, fresh seafood!

Now, let’s start cooking…..

Once your Buzara sauce is finished, all you need to do is toss it in with some nice, hot pasta and drizzle a little more olive oil over the top. I’d never made this particular dish before, and I have to say, it was absolutely delicious. Both the shallots and the tomato paste added a nice touch of sweetness to the sauce that really complimented the brininess of the seafood. The tomato paste also gave a little extra body to the sauce, making it seem kind of creamy – except there was no cream in it. All in all, I would definitely make this one again, with or without the rock shrimp, because let’s face it. Who knows when, or if, I’ll ever luck upon rock shrimp around here again!

Seafood Pasta alla Buzara
adapted from Lidia’s Italy by Lidia Bastianich

1 pound spaghetti, linguine or other long pasta
1 pound shelled and cleaned rock shrimp*
1 pound bay scallops
8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, or more to taste
3 plump garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt or kosher salt
1 cup white wine
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cups of seafood stock or clam broth
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon bread crumbs, or more if needed
2 tablespoons chopped fresh Italian parsley

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, prepare the seafood and sauce.

2. Lay rock shrimp and scallops on a baking sheet or tray lined with paper towels. Blot until dry. Season with a little salt and pepper.

3. Heat 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large sauté pan, and set over medium high heat. Sear the rock shrimp and scallops in batches until lightly golden, about 1-2 minutes per side. Don’t cook them too long, because they will added back to the pan later. Remove and set aside

4. Heat 2 more tablespoons of olive oil in a large sauté pan, and set over medium high heat. Scatter in the shallots and garlic and cook until sizzling. Take care not to burn the garlic. Stir in 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 cup of the wine. Simmer, stirring frequently, until the wine is nearly completely evaporated and the shallots have softened. Add the tomato paste and stir it around the pan for a minute, coating the shallots.

5. Pour in the rest of the wine, stock and another 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let the sauce gently simmer and reduce for about 5 minutes. With the sauce still bubbling, add the seared seafood back to the pan and mix to coat them all with sauce. Stir in the pepper and the tablespoon of bread crumbs. If the sauce seems too thin add a little more bread crumbs. Cook for another 2 minutes, then turn off the heat.

6. Pour the seafood and sauce over the cooked pasta. Drizzle in the remaining olive oil and mix well. Sprinkle parsley on top and serve immediately.

Recognizing Home Cooks- the Fun of Food52

There are always new food sites popping up - new food blogs, product sites and food communities- just waiting to be discovered, and it is often hard to stay on top of your old favorites while exploring new and exciting sites. But sometimes the old opens up the new and that happened for me today and so I want to share my new find with you as well.. Today, I saw a post update by one of my favorite bloggers, Susan of Food Blogga, asking for votes for her oatmeal topping in the Quaker Oatmeal Challenge for charity as well as her chocolate cookie recipe on food52. As a blogger who is loyally devoted to my fellow blogger, I voted for Susan's topping (Cinnamon Comfort in Round Three for those of you who want to support Susan's charity as well!), and then travelled around until I found food52. The brainchild of Amanda and Merrill, both prolific food writers with the New York Times, the site has as its mission celebrating the best cooks in the world- home cooks, definitely a sentiment I share. Food52 offers a place for cooks to share recipes and tips, and a blog, as well as contests, pulling recipes that will eventually be included in a book. What a great idea!!

With the lofty goal of being the one site on food that you will need, food52 is a fun new site that is worth checking out (and make sure you take a look at my mother-in-law's stuffing recipe which is the cornerstone of the Dowd family Thanksgiving-you won't be sorry). Before you know it, food52 is bound to be an old favorite!