We've been tired

So it's been a while since I wrote. Sorry, readers, I was feeling rather unenthusiastic last week and blogging was just too much effort. Hope all of you are doing well.

We started last week strong with the winter squash & apple bisque and the braised short ribs, but then it all went downhill. Not sure why. Even though I shop with a list, I missed ingredients, had to go to about five different stores, and things just didn't gel at all. I don't even remember what we ended up eating the rest of the week. I know we ordered in two nights this weekend, which has never happened before.

On Sunday night, we were dangerously close to ordering in again, but we have a deli drawer full of cheese and left over pancetta so I said I would whip up a souffle. I would say 99% of the time I always have the ingredients for a cheese souffle on hand. Of course, this past Sunday, we were out of eggs and milk. After a quick jaunt down to the grocery store, I was able to put together another delicious souffle. This time I used 2/3 cup of cheddar and 1/3 cup jack. The jack made the whole thing creamier, although it didn't really add any flavor. We had salad and roll with it and Steve took the leftovers to work today for lunch.

I hope I'm back on track this week. I'm off to a good start with the souffle and the beef pasties last night. They were outstanding. These were supposed to be on the menu last week. Wow, I'm glad I made them. Steve was delighted with them, too. However, I know next time that this is really a two-day recipe or I at least need to start earlier in the day. I knew it was going to be an involved and time consuming recipe when I started, and that would be fine for a weekend dinner, but for a weekday it was just too much. But the results! Oh my.

The crust was full of fat - shortening AND butter - but that made it extremely easy to work with and baked up nice and flaky. We did get a little nutrition from the crust as it's made with two cups of whole wheat flour. Ahem.

The filling - thinly sliced skirt steak, caramelized onions with white wine & thyme, and blue cheese - was easy enough to do and tasted great. I went to Stinky Bklyn to get the cheese because I needed a real cheese person to recommend a blue cheese for a non-blue cheese eater (Steve). They did me no wrong and suggested a Spanish cow milk blue called La Peral. It is rather salty (I didn't add any salt that the recipe called for) and oh so creamy, but it's flavor is more mild than other blues.

So after putting all the parts together in what turned out to be large empenada-looking half-moons,they baked and we had one fantastic dinner. Served with mashed spuds and salad. Again, I neglected to take pictures. We are having them for dinner again tonight.

The rest of the week is going to be easy food, but I am going to make the potato pizza that was also supposed to be done last week. I think that sounds really good.

A few weeks ago, Donna sent me a link for all the "best" wine bars in Manhattan. This is useful information for all of the NYC winos, but I need one for Brooklyn. I like my neighborhood wine store, Smith & Vine - Stinky's sister store - but have yet to find a nearby wine bar. In all honesty, I haven't been looking for a wine bar, but I wouldn't mind having one to visit regularly as I did with Wine Steals in San Diego. Ahh, Wine Steals happy hours with Roseleigh. Pardon the reminisce.