Pasta With Meat Sauce

Braising is such an amazing technique - not only you get most delicious and tender meat, but leftovers - that liquid with vegetables and herbs and drippings of fat and flavor from the meat - are amazing too! After braising chicken for tacos (read here), it is now turn to deal with that wonderful sauce. What I had left in the pan was white wine, chicken drippings and onions.

Simple Dinner - Chicken Tacos

Nothing fancy tonight - just tacos. Can't say that it is fast though. I am braising chicken and that takes time. But it certainly is simple. I have half a whole chicken breast (bones in). I slice half an onion and line a bottom of a small braising pan with it. Place seasoned (salt and pepper) chicken on top, and add white wine - just enough to cover the onions, but not the chicken.

Tuna Tartare and Lobster Tail

And to finish the weekend off, two seafood plates - one is from a cookbook from Melisse restaurant, In Pursuit Of Excellence - ahi tuna tartare (although I'm not sure the tuna I have is ahi tuna), and then a very simple lobster tail, just because we happened to pick it up in the grocery store today.

First up, an "official" recipe from the book.

Peppers Stuffed With Cod On Roasted Tomatoes

My best friend went back to school to get her MBA and then went off for a semester abroad to Barcelona, Spain. I am quite jealous of all the wonderful food she gets to experience there, and her common photo postings on facebook only feed my jealousy more. But is is also quite inspirational. And although some ingredients, such as jamon (prohibited in US) and caught-this-morning-fresh seafood, are out of my reach, others I can get my hands on and can recreate a similar dish. Today I will use her photo as an inspiration and cook something similar - I have only a photo and a brief description (peppers stuffed with cod) to work of - no exact list of ingredients or a recipe here.

TAG U - Roasting

Today was a cooking class at TAG, subject - roasting. 3 delicious dishes to watch chefs make, 3 recipes provided to take home, mixology lesson at the bar with cocktails to sip, and a delicious lunch - that's TAG University.