JG, there is a hoagie joint down here which originated in Philly - Primo Hoagies. They have a Tuna Hoagie made with Italian Tuna, Olive Oil and Provolone. The tuna does taste a bit different....or maybe that's the oil, or provolone.

Had a GREAT dish tonight at a newish Italian place here I hadn't been to before.

Tuscan House

Very interesting menu! Certainly not your typical fare, but more Italian it seems.

Started with the complimentary bread dish: Hot, thin pizza bread slices to dip into olive oil mixed with balsamic. Amazing.

The Calamari was okay -- I've had better, but also have had much much worse. Not bad, but not "great".

Family-style salad was very basic (lettuce, tomatoes, onions) but just fine, and also free.

I wasn't blown away yet, but also not unhappy.

Then the entrée came out.

Fish of the day was bass, and was recommended by the Italian-accented waitress. It's also designated a "Signature Dish" on the menu, so I had to try it: Prepared plank roasted with fresh roasted fennel, green onions, olive oil, lemon, garlic. I chose Risotto as the side because after watching anything Gordon Ramsay on TV, I've been dying for a real one, and was hoping it was real.

OMG, real or not, it was delicious! Creamy, cheesy, with a hint of mushroom flavor, it was mouth-watering yet thick. The fish was perfect and brilliant. Never had fennel (another "chef" ingredient I wanted to try - that's why I ordered this lol). For once in a long time, I felt like I was eating a "gourmet" entrée. Sooooo good.

Went with my folks. My dad got the same entrée as I did, but with roasted potatoes that were amazing as well. My mom got the Pappardelle Bolognese (Ribbon pasta tossed with reggiano in a rich meat sauce. Served with a scoop of mascarpone). It had mounds of meat and hardly any sauce. Mounds of meat WITH sauce would've been better lol. It was okay. These days, I'm so bored and tired of red-sauce dishes that I almost get a bit turned off by them. Give me a sautéed sauce made on the spot that can soak into the pasta in a pan, and I'll be your slave.

Looking at some of the other items, like the burgers and wood-fired (!) authentic pizzas, and I can't wait to go back!

BTW - This place is co-owned by the same people that own Tiffany's Restaurant here in town (and elsewhere in NJ) that has some of the best BBQ ribs I've every had! Ex-NFL tackle and NJ native and Sopranos-character Tony Siragusa is part of Tiff's, too.

Really? That's it?? Man, you are easy!

That sounds like a nice place with a good menu. I love making new discoveries like that.

It's restaurant week in NYC, and my husband and I had reservations for Aquavit. I've been dying to try it for years, and you can't beat the prices during restaurant week. Unfortunately, we made the reservation for this past Sunday, and they only do those prices during the week.

Yeah, and....?


Does that mean you paid full price, or, skipped it?


I've been meaning to "discover" Bistro 44, here in TR. The executive chef Erik was on (and won!) Food Network's Chopped! ("Against the Tide", reairing 7/24 @ 8pm ET, 7/25 @ 3am, 8/3 @ 10pm)
I think I'm becoming a food snob, after watching Food Network competitions and Gordon Ramsay so much! lol

No, we skipped, not having taken out that home equity loan for dinner. Have you seen Aquavit's menu??? Their chef's tasting prix-fixed menu is $105 per person for three courses, plus "wine pairing" at another $65 pp. You can also get their regular prix-fixe menu for $78 pp, which really isn't that bad for three courses in Manhattan, but still pricey.

On the other hand, restaurant week is $35 per person for three courses. Bit of a difference.

http://www.aquavit.org/restaurant/newyork/menus.asp

My husband picked some tomatoes and green peppers last night from the garden. I sliced up the peppers and fried them up with some sliced onions. We picked up some freshly baked semolina bread from the local bakery. I made a tomato salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and my husband grilled some luganiga sausage. It was all so good.

Oh my God I'm so hungry after reading that! I can smell the salsicce frying!!!

I mixed a dry rub and massaged it into a slab of ribs. Then I took some cherry wood chips and soaked them in water. I left all of that to "soak" for about four hours. I whipped up some corn bread and cleaned and boiled fresh corn on the cob. I put fired up the grill and loaded the smoker with the wet cherry wood chips and got some great smoke going. I put the flame as low as it could go and then put on the ribs. Just before they were done, I put on a brown sugar mop sauce. They were out of this world. I wasn't thrilled with the corn bread (I thought it was a little dry), but everything else was mighty tasty.

My inivitation get lost in the mail?

You don't grill your corn?? I tell ya... you gotta try it!

Peel back the husks, but don't pull off. Clean out the silks. You can experiment here -- I still am -- but right now it's a quick rinse to add water, then spray margarine, some salt and sugar, then close it back up. I then wrap in foil to be placed on the grill for the first 15 minutes or so to steam, then remove the foil and back on the grill (still with husks) for the last 10-15 minutes. A little carmelization isn't bad. It's been hit-or-miss, but I think the problem has been with the quality of the corn itself in early summer rather than my technique.



Had ribs tonight at Tiffany's: You really cannot beat the buy-one-get-one full racks of baby-back ribs (and done well!) with choice of potato (gotta go with the sweet potato with cinnamon-butter!), corn bread, and cole slaw. $19.99 normally, but 2-for-1 makes it $10/pp. Can't beat that, available every Wednesday!

As for invites, you don't need one: Just let me know when you're coming down to the Shore! *Fist pump!* (lol)

Had a pasta chicken bake last night,smothered in parmesan and mozarella,served with fresh,chunky bread and followed with a cheese cake.

Delicious

Watching your cholesterol, Yogi?

Julia Child never worried about it, and she lived to 91.

Must have gotten stuck to the mop sauce.

Not especially

The zucchini are literally overrunning my garden right now. Last night we had zucchini flowers stuffed with ricotta, then breaded and fried, with a little marinara sauce on the side for dipping.

Italian peasant food, baby. Nothing like it!

We had a terrible crop in our garden this year. The only thing that has survived the incredibly fat groundhog that has been feeding on it were the tomatoes and the peppers. We got one half-chewed zucchini and only enough flowers for one dinner. He ate the cukes, the broccoli and almost all the eggplant. We did get enough eggplants for one parmigiana dinner, but that was it. He's gobbled everything else.

Ouch.

Sorry to hear that, Babe, but it's your own fault. You gotta stop them groundhogs at the beginning, like they shoulda stopped Hitler at Munich .

LOL My husband has yet to see him, which makes him crazy. My daughter and I saw the groundhog on the back patio the other day. My husband potted some parsley and basil there so my mom didn't have to walk around to the garden to get it. The groundhog was even eating the parsley out of the planter! We chased him, and watching him waddle away was like watching Jabba with fur!

I'd shoot the bastard .

Recreated my rib dinner (see above post) last night. Ribs were really good. I used a Jiffy corn muffin mix to make my cornbread again, but this time I added 1/3 of a can of creamed corn and 1 tbsp. of meringue powder to the mix before I baked it. I also lowered the recommended baking temp from 400 to 375 degrees. That made all the difference.

Wife at work till 9pm and i couldn't face cooking so me and the kids just treated ourselves to takeout pizza! Nice!

Went to the local minor league baseball game (BlueClaws (Single-A Phillies affiliate) in a championship series). Get this: a 1/4-lb hot dog w/ chili, cheese whiz (they called it "cheddar"), bacon and a few shots of Habanero* Tabasco sauce = Yummy!

This, following a brunch I made for/with a friend: Cheese/bacon omelets with dashes of truffle salt and habanero* sauce and smoked Red Savina habanero powder (SUPER hot!). With a toasted bialy w/ smoked salmon cream cheese.

*My butt's gonna burn tomorrow lol. (And yes, I took my Lipitor today! lol)

Bring on the Ring of Fire

Mmmmmm, Tonight I am having King Crab legs!

Expensive but delicious.

Despite the 40 mg. of Lipitor he takes every day, my husband's cholesterol came back the highest it's been in years. I've been doing a lot of reading about what to cook, and trout was highly recommended. I've never made it before, but I'm going to try grilling it.

I'm mixing up some olive oil, lemon juice, white wine, parsley, salt and pepper. I had the woman at the fish store remove the head and tail, scale and butterfly it. I'll baste it in the above, plus mix up some bread crumbs with it and put that inside the cavity. Then I'll wrap it all up in foil and put on a low flame on the grill. Wish me luck!

Sounds good.

Holy Crap! 40mg?? Egads!

I was taking 10mg every/other day and it was under control for a while (I accidentally skipped some days), and the last test came back at 235 so he put me on it daily (and, of course, I forget sometimes, and haven't changed my diet at all ). I'll have to get it checked soon to see where it's at.

That trout sounds good, though! I haven't yet experimented with grilled fish, though I want to....

The HDL ratio is all that matters anyway. If your cholesterol is 300 but your HDL is 150, you're better off than someone who has a total cholesterol of 180 but an HDL reading of, say, 30.

If your HDL to total cholesterol ratio is higher than 24%, you're in better shape than most people. And you're doing even better if your trigyceride to HDL ratio is below 2.

Total cholesterol is a bogeyman invented by the drug companies.

The total was up, his ratio was up and the triglycerides were up. He's been a very bad boy, because he thought that he could eat anything he wanted and still have low cholesterol. Doesn't quite work that way.

The trout was delicious by the way. Edit: I skipped the bread crumbs, though. I sort of ran out of time and patience. Give it a try. The foil kept it very moist.