Fettuccine Land and Sea

Well, I suck so much at posting, that the posts I've written to get ahead went woefully unpublished.  That being said, here's another food post!

My cousin turned 21, so to celebrate we had dinner at Pisano's in Rutherford, NJ, the name of which I can't remember right now.  We like Italian food in my family and the food here is always delicious.

We started with a few appetizers; fried calamari, fried calamari in a ginger sauce, and Spiedini Ala Romana (fried mozzarella).  I doubt that these are the actual names of what we had, but it's descriptive enough for me!

The regular calamari was delicious, nice and salty and not too tough.  The calamari in the ginger sauce was also pretty good.  I'm a huge fan of regular, salty calamari, and this added a bit of sweet to it with the ginger sauce that it was tossed in.  Almost like a duck sauce actually, but way more tasty.  It was really good and a nice difference to the regular dish.

The Spiedini Ala Romana (fried mozzarella) is basically little triangles of mozzarella lightly battered and fried.  I would compare it to mozzarella sticks, but it's much tastier.  The batter isn't heavy or crunchy at all, and the cheese is melty, but is still able to maintain some of its shape after you cut it.  I could honestly just eat a few plates of that and be done with it, lol

I ended up ordering the "Fettuccine Mountain and Sea" for dinner.  It was fettuccine, with Wild and porcini mushrooms sautéed, with baby shrimps and spinach in a light cream sauce.  It was so good!  I'm not a huge fan of red sauces, so I do what I can to find good cream sauces when I'm out at Italian places, and this one was no exception!  Everything was delicious!  The mushrooms added a really awesome earthy flavor that was much more interesting than my usual order of fettuccine alfredo.

I ended up taking most of my dinner home with me because it was incredibly filling, especially after all the appetizers we ate.  Yummy lunch for me the next day!!

~Mich

Chasing Mummies

I watched about a half hour of the show "Chasing Mummies" on the History channel.  First of all.  I will generally watch pretty much any documentary about Egypt/mummies/pyramids/etc.  It's a topic that I genuinely enjoy and will willingly watch.  There was even a period of time in my life where I thought that I could be an archaeologist.  Second of all, even though it's a reality show I figured I would give it some kind of a chance.

That being said.  I just watched some brunette bimbo (who in real-life-reality is probably a wonderful person) act like an ass to/in front of Dr. Zahi Hawass.  Most people have no idea who that is, and that's totally ok.  This man has been in pretty much every documentary about Egypt/mummies/pyramids/etc. that I have EVER SEEN.  EVER.  So to watch this potentially young and budding archaeologist try to talk to Dr. Hawass about her husband "not understanding what she does" and ignoring him when he says "we can talk of this later, right now focus on what we are doing, and the history that we are seeing" infuriates me.  Ever so slightly.

Seriously!  I have no idea if I would be able to handle actually being an archaeologist in the field, nor do I have any idea of what I would say were I working for the man who I watched in all Egypt specials ever, but I have this feeling that I would at least know enough to be more respectful of who he is, and what we would have been doing (entering a tomb not entered by anyone since it was closed).  While I'm also sure I would love my potential husband, I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't whine to Dr. Hawass about it, even after he explicitly asks me not to at least three times.

Holy God why are people the way they are?  Oh, I know... because it's REALITY TV.  Blarg.  It can't ruin my Egypt shows.  I won't let it!  Even if that means not watching this one...

~Mich

Pinball Madness!

After the delicious meal I just wrote about the other day, my family and I decided to go to Silver Ball Museum a pinball museum a few blocks away on the boardwalk.  This place was really cool!  You pay a flat fee to get into the place for either a half hour or a whole hour and you get to play pinball until your time is up.  Outside the place they had one of those high striker things, where you use a mallet to hit a bell at the top of the tower.  If you hit the bell they gave you free admission to the pinball museum.

This place had pinball tables from every era and you can play pretty much all of them!  Some of them weren't fully working, or were still being restored, which did stink a little, but there were so many others there it didn't matter too much.  There were some original tables without electronics from the 30's which were really cool to see.  Hell, it’s the origins of pinball right there!

It was also really interesting to play some of the older tables from say the 40s and then play a newer table from the 80s and see how different it is.  The game play on the older tables was much slower than the newer ones.  You don't actually realize it until you play one then the other.

My favorite table, next to the KISS one of course, was the "Beat Time" table.  I really wish it was working, but it was still really cool to see!

~Mich

Bistro Olé - Sea Bass

We went out to Bistro Olé, a restaurant in Asbury Park, NJ to celebrate a relative’s birthday.  (August is a big birthday month for my family.)  It’s "Latin infused Spanish Portuguese cuisine," and was a really nice restaurant with a lot of tasty food!  When we first walked in, they were going to seat the 8 of us at a booth table near the door.  It was kind of tiny and felt a bit cramped.  We nicely asked to be seated somewhere else and they happily obliged.  The way the place is set up is a little weird, so we ended up walking around the outside of the place to be lead to another room that was a slightly more spacious than the front of the restaurant.

We had a few pretty tasty appetizers; "Ole’s Spicy Meatballs," "Cala, Cala, Calamari," "Just Crab" (crabcakes) and something else, but I can’t remember what else right now.  (Yes, I referenced the menu on the site because well, it’s there and I can’t remember everything we ate!!)

When it was time to order our food, I decided on the Sea Bass, which according to the menu is the Chef’s "best seller".  It was seared sea bass topped with Spanish pesto sauce, bread crumbs and guacamole on top of garlic mashed potatoes.

Holy God it was delicious.  The fish was cooked perfectly, it wasn't ridiculously flaky, the guacamole was delicious with the fish, and the garlic mashed potatoes were to die for.  Honestly, I'm finding that guacamole on most things is delicious, hehe.  The whole meal was awesome!

Obviously I didn’'t like it.  ;-)  Honestly, I probably should have stopped eating 3/4 of the way through the meal, but it was so good I just couldn't bring myself to leave anything on the plate!

~Mich

Nachos!!

Finally, the nachos post!!  A few months ago (maybe two or three) a friend and I had dinner at McSwiggans Pub in Hoboken, NJ.  We ordered their "Irish Nachos" appetizer and it was AWESOME!  Basically, it was nachos, but instead of tortilla chips, they used waffle fries.  I can't even tell you how great of an idea this was.  I'm getting hungry just thinking about it now actually.

So, me and my obsession with fries, I had to try and make it at home.

Ingredients:

• Frozen waffle fries (this time I used two bags, one bag feeds 2 to 4 people, two bags feeds 4 to 6)
• Black olives
• Grated cheddar and mozzarella cheese
• Sour Cream
• Guacamole
• Chili

Some of the ingredients - chili on the left and grated cheese on the right:

Now, in order for me to make a tasty version of it at home, I need my brothers delicious chili.  I’ll get the recipe for that later, but I’m sure you can use any kind of chili that you like or can make on this.  Don’t use just beans.  Well, you can use just beans and it will turn out alright, it’s just MUCH better with some kind of chili on it.  The first time I tried to make this dish I used the Hormel Vegetarian Chili.  It was ok, but is seriously so much better with my brother’s chili on top.  The chili was made the night before, so all I had to do was warm it up once the fries were done.

I cheated a little when I made the guacamole.  I used three avocados and this packaged “Guacamole Mix” made by... I can't remember the company name right now.   The package actually calls for two guacamoles but I used three and it tasted much better.  Next time I’m going to try making Guacamole totally from scratch because it seems easy enough, but for now, this was a really quick and simple way to make it with basically two ingredients.  When I bought the avocados they weren’t quite ripe yet, so I put them in a brown paper bag with an apple and left them in the closet for maybe a day and a half and they ripened up really nicely!  I was actually surprised that method worked.  I don’t know why, I just figured it would take longer.

I put the waffle fries (this took around 25 minutes) and while I waited for them to finish I grated the cheddar and mozzarella cheese.  Once the fries were finished I put them all on an oven safe glass plate, with the warmed up chili on top, cheese on top of that and olives around it.

Then I popped the dish into the oven for a few minutes to let everything get all deliciously melty.  Once the melty ness was to my satisfaction I put the guacamole and sour cream around it.

Close up:

Then we ate!  Oh man, it was SO GOOD!  Seriously, I wish we had fries in the house because I'd make them right now.

If there are any recipes that I post here that you try to make, I highly recommend this one.  It's incredibly easy, and will work as a great appetizer if you're having a few friends over.  I hope you all try and enjoy it!!

~Mich

Peter Frampton ROCKS in Asbury Park!

I saw Peter Frampton in a free concert last night (August 9th, 2010) at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park. My brother, his girlfriend and I got to the venue at about 6:30PM and it’s a good thing we did! We got great spots very close (about 20 feet) to the stage!

Peter and his band put on a fantastic show! They appeared on stage at 7:30, a half hour before they were supposed to go on, and started playing. Peter Frampton is a great performer and definitely has a sense of humor. He was cracking jokes between songs and made sure to acknowledge all of the fans, whether they were standing right in front of him or were sitting way out on the boardwalk; he even said hi to the people watching from their apartment complex rooftops!

He was so incredibly happy through the entire concert. He told us how he promised us “facebookers” and other fans that interact with him and the band on his site that this would be their longest concert of the tour. Then made a joke about how the record label/managers/someone like that wouldn’t be very happy with a long concert and declared that they’d just play forever. He smiled and sang for nearly 3 hours!

Peter very excitedly declared that they have a new album out called "Thank You Mr Churchill" and that not only is it available on CD, but it’s also out on Vinyl. He said that they were thinking about releasing it on 8-track but didn’t think they had the market for it, lol. He pulled out the record and showed it to the crowd and made another joke about how you should make sure you don’t try and play this in your car stereo player because that might not work out so well for you. So you know, buy the cd for the ride home, and then stop at Best Buy on your way home, buy a record player, and then buy the vinyl. Hehe.

After a few more songs and the sun finally setting, he took a few minutes to tell us the origins of the song "Vaudeville Nanna And The Banjolele" on the new album. It was about how he started playing the guitar. He said he was in the attic with his father when he was a child, I believe he said he was 6, gathering suitcases so they could pack for a holiday and he came across this other little case. He asked his father what it was and his Dad said, “Oh, your Nanna gave that to me to give to you so I can maybe show you how to play a few chords if you want.” It was a Banjolele and he learned his first two songs (I can’t remember what they were) on it. He then took out a little Ukulele and said that it was similar to his Banjolele and made a joke about playing with two guitars. Peter started the song with the Ukulele and his other guitarist picked it up after he was done with the intro. A great song.

Before they played another of the new songs, Peter clarified a lyric in it.  Apparently, some people thought that they were singing “breeding pigs”.  What they are actually singing is "greedy pigs". He assured us, they are definitely saying GREEDY and he wanted to squash any rumors about them having written a song about “breeding pigs” lol. This also was a great song. I think I’m going to have to go out and get this new album.

The concert continued with little stories or funny quips after every few songs until they finally played Do You Feel Like We Do. As usual, the crowd went wild! It was an awesome closing song!

The band took their bows and exited the stage.

We cheered for a few minutes and out they come again! They played a few more songs, and closed with While My Guitar Gently Weeps. AWESOME cover of that song! I managed to record the whole thing and the sound quality on my little camera is actually pretty good. Check it out on YouTube. Honestly, the video is a little shaky so I won’t be offended if you just open it up to listen to it. I’m short and people kept moving, lol.

Then we all went home.  :-D  Overall Peter Frampton and his band put on a really awesome and entertaining concert!!

~Mich

Saturday night eating!

When you're hungry, everything looks like it will taste good.  You know how some people say not to food shop on an empty stomach?  Well, you also shouldn't look up "grill recipes" while hungry either.  You'll end up with a word document with 7 different recipes in it like I did.

That being said, on our menu for the night was:
Grilled Tilapia and Mango Salsa
Grilled Salmon with a soy sauce marinade
Lemon Rice
Salad w/ Strawberries, Mandarin Oranges, Walnuts and a Raspberry Merlot Olive Oil Vinaigrette dressing (I made this one up, it was the best salad ever, heh)

Let's get started with the prep work!

All of these recipes were pretty easy to put together.  I began with the marinade for the salmon, since it had to sit for at least two hours.  Mom seasoned the salmon fillet first with salt, pepper and garlic powder then we put everything in a plastic bag and popped it into the fridge.

The marinating salmon:

Then I made the marinade for the tilapia fillets.  Again, this was pretty easy to do.  Just mix the ingredients, put everything into a ziploc bag and stick it in the fridge!  For the mango salsa I used one mango, 1/4 of a green bell pepper, a red bell pepper and a red onion each.  Actually, I ended up with extra minced veggies, so really, you don't need much when you're making it

The mango salsa:

We put each fillet into a tin foil pouches for grilling (about 15 minutes), which worked out pretty well.  Honestly, we didn't want to try and deal with cookiing the fish right on the grill.  I'm a little too lazy for that, and I didn't want to have to clean it up.  ;-D

Just before the pouches:

Salmon:

Tilapia:

Easy cleanup grillable fish pouches!

On the grill!

We got the rice cooking a few minutes before I put the fish on the grill.  I zested and juiced the lemon, which was actually kind of fun to do, and the only part of the recipe that we changed was the type of rice used.  I used the regular rice that we had in the house and it seems like it worked out just fine.

Rice ingredients:

Finally, the salad! It was super duper easy to make!  One can of mandarin oranges, a few strawberries that I cut into quarters and I topped it off with walnuts and Crasins.  The dressing I used was Bolthouse Farms Raspberry Merlot Olive Oil Vinagarette.  It definitely helped bring together this fruity sweet salad.

Ingredients:

Finished:

Food!!!

Boy, my feet were killing me after a few hours in the kitchen, but the end result was worth it!  The fish turned out great, the tilapia was our favorite.  That's definitely a recipe we'll be making again.  The rice turned out pretty good, it had a bit of a tart (probably from the ton of lemon and ginger I put in it) flavor to it.  I had trouble eating it alone, but with the tilapia it tasted awesome!  I really really liked the salad, and for me, that's saying something.  I don't usually eat salad, but putting the fruit and the raspberry dressing on it made it nice and sweet!  Huzzah for tasty food!!

~Mich