Allora…

And it wasn’t good.

I always have leftover coffee from the morning so I used it to make a martini. Woo!

1 cup leftover coffee, chilled
Flavored coffeemate, however light you like your coffee
2 shots whiskey

Combine in a martini shaker filled w ice. Shake and pour into a chilled martini glass. It should make 2 martinis.

I made these yesterday for two reasons. Mom gave me a zucchini from her garden (thanks, mom!), and Uncle Dom would have gobbled these up. The recipe is from Donatella Cooks: Simple Food Made Glamorous.

I love Donatella Arpaia’s restaurants in NYC…especially Kefi (despite its abominable and egregious logo and menu). Despite the subtitle of her book, I don’t really think that this recipe is very glamorous. In fact, I can think of a great many things way more glamorous than frying these bad boys in a kitchen w/ no ac. I can agree with her in that these are simple, requiring very few ingredients, but big on taste.

My fritters differ from hers in that I used dried parsley, and fried them in half olive oil and half canola oil. Didn’t want to waste too much of the expensive stuff!

I was home Sunday–Monday this weekend after going to my friend’s annual Fourth of July party in Scranton. Dad grilled london broil on sunday and so mom made me take some home. Tonight I made a steak sandwich with the leftover sliced steak….

1 crusty roll
7 slices of steak
4 slices of tomato
lots of lettuce/greens
sauteed onions
pepper jack cheese

tasted even better with a cold beer out on the deck.

I brought this to a kentucky derby party – so I wouldn’t eat it myself!

Recipe TK…

Zucchini Pizza
Serves 1

Grate 1 small zucchini, 1 small onion, 1 clove of garlic with a grater. Saute in olive oil. Salt, pepper, stir. The zucchini will get very soft, that is ok. Saute for 10 mins, at the end, stir in 1 tbsp chopped basil. Remove from heat, reserve in a bowl. Meanwhile, heat a grill pan, or your grill, and oil the grates. Roll out whole wheat dough as thin and evenly as you can get it. Transfer dough to the grill and grill over medium heat for about 5 mins on the first side. Once you flip it, then top with sauteed zucchini/onion mixture, and also with parmigiano, and a few dollops of ricotta cheese. Dust with crushed red pepper. Keep on the medium hot grill for 5 more mins or until cheese melts. (I covered my grill pan with a big pan lid to help the cheese melt quickly)

Saute a bunch of veggies. Here i did mushrooms, peppers, onions, garlic. add some grated ginger, black pepper, hot sauce. don’t salt this at all bc you’ll add beef broth, fish sauce, and soy sauce. try to find low sodium of all of these. Add 3/4 box of beef broth. 1 cup water, a few dashes of fish sauce and soy sauce, bring to a boil and simmer for 10 mins. Reduce heat to simmer, stir in 1 can of low fat coconut milk. Also add a few handfuls of frozen snow peas. Simmer for 2 minutes. Add chopped cilantro, and a few squeezes of fresh lime juice. To serve, place a big spoonful of Jasmine or Basmati rice in the bottom of your bowl and ladle soup on top.

this was for dinner Monday – and it was good. fun to build your pita how you like it. must have the accoutrements – feta, pepperoncini (banana peppers), red onion, tomato, cucumber, red peppers, tzatsiki sauce (which I made myself with sour cream and finely chopped cucumber and garlic, lemon juice). and hot sauce! Grill some chicken, or beef etc and throw the pita on the grill before you stuff it to give it some texture, taste…

When u buy a pack of wanton wrappers to make dumplings you end up with about 75 wrappers too many. So I tried to come up with ways to use them. What resulted was good in most ways, but could possibly be the most un-photogenic food out there. especilly the raviolis!

I’m going to the list these in order of tastiness.
1) Chicken Dumplings
2) Butternut Squash Ravioli
3) Don’t make this-”Wanton wrappers are not the same as puff pastry or filo dough, Alisa”-Chocolate Cream Cheese Filled Things.

Chicken dumplings:
FIlling: ground chicken, garlic, ginger, scallions, soy sauce, sriracha. Dipping sauce is literally all the same ingredients minus the chicken and plus sesame seeds. Served it w/ sauteed broccoli, mushrooms, and peppers. Good stuff.

Butternut Squash Ravioli:
Filling: Defrosted butternut squash puree, mozzarella, parmigiano, salt and pepper. Needed LESS butternut squash and more cheese. Simmered these after filling them and pressing them shut. These look pretty bad, but they’re not. they just aren’t photogenic.

Weird things:
These look good – and the filling is – its cream cheese, sour cream and cocoa powder, sugar and vanilla. but the shell ain’t right, y’all. Don’t make them.