Dinner At My House

Dinner wiith Aylaa

Tonight we had a lazy day. This morning with Ayla. Books and Wiggles and treats and pancakes and potty and doggies and Lion King (which includes for me a snuggle, since she's cold, and hiding under the covers, how I crave that!) and naptime. I slept two hours. When woke (after several small wakenings) she was off with her parents to see "Curious George",  We went out to buy her paints and paper and the Curious George soundtrack, which was sold out.  I began dinner, and she came back.

At some point during cooking she ran into the kitchen, before it was all ready and said "poppy I need PASTA". It's coming sweetheart.

Butterflies! she said when she sat down to a bowl of Farfalle, with a brown veal sauce, reggiano parmeseano, peas with butter and salt and pepper.  D. and I had big old veal chops, yum.

She's running around now, making us gladder by the moment. She just gave me a secret: blahadad dhda dhad a baba a dhaba.

It's the secret to the everything.

Spaghetti with Organic Lemon Marinated Shrimp

Last night's dinner was simple and delicious.  Since my granddaughter, Ayla, the pasta fiend was sleeping over, we had to have something from Barilla.  So, I started the pasta water, thawed a package of raw, frozen, unsplit organic shrimp in water, then shucked, deveined and split them.  Then I set them into a marinade with the juice from a lemon, kosher salt and pepper. I nuked some frozen baby peas, in a bit of water and butter, chopped some curly leaf parsely and grated some reggiano.  Once the pasta was in the water (spaghetti in this case) I drained the shrimp and quick sautéed the shrimp.  I tossed all these ingredients together with the pasta and, lo, it was good.

Very good.

Dinner with the Boss

I didn't take pictures of dinner last night, but here is what we had:

-An appetizer of pan roasted mushrooms finished with garlic and butter, then spread on bousin laden baguette slices and briefly broiled.

-Organic, lime marinated shrimp with curry over basmati

-Grape tomato, red onion spears, and gorgonzola salad with olive oil and balasamic

-Steamed and buttered spring asparagus

-Roasted red and yellow bells peppers, baked in cream with shallots and basil

We had Jason, Amy, Ben and Ayla, Melissa, Caitlin and D., and my boss Jen (Chair of the English department where I work).  I was a bit dissapointed in the shrimp -- it got a bit firmer than I prefer, while it was sitting under the foil waiting for the sauce to thicken up. The basil was a bit mild (given the season).  Otherwise, everything was delicious.  I was too tired from cooking (2 hours cleaning and deveining the shrimp) to take pictures, but snapped a few afterwards when the kids played cards with D. and Jason. Today we're having a thanksgiving style turkey dinner.

Pork Chops with Habenero

A bit of an odd pic, using the 105, too tired to change it and too worried about dust.  The pork chops were yummy, made better by the onion, garlic and roux gravy with beer anc chicken stock with a very generous dollop of Habenero sauce.  Very picante.

Melissa and Nicole were here.  D. and I ate and Dean nibbled.  Tomorrow: Shrimp Curry?  Something to suit Ayla?  My boss Jen Wahlquist is coming and so is my dear friend Jason.  Melissa will be here too.