Each month, Shefali and I stumble upon some fantastic meals. Some of them are out around town, and others we make at home by following someone else's recipe. Here are September's highlights:
- Spaghetti and meatballs, family-style. A group of our friends takes turns hosting dinners each month. Our turn came up in September, so I simmered a pot of Christopher Sauce overnight, rolled meatballs the following morning and threw them in the pot to cook all day. The meatball recipe, to my knowledge, has never been written down. Someday I'll take the time to measure the ingredients and post it.
- Fresh shrimp from Walking Fish. It's going to be hard to cook with frozen bags of shrimp now that I've eaten the real thing. We received three pounds of them, and grilled them all, tossing the first batch in salmorilgio sauce, topping the second in buffalo sauce and eating them in a sandwich with pea shoots and ranch dressing, and throwing the batch in a seafood risotto.
- Crab Cakes and Fava Bean Salad at Vita: I don't often order crab cakes, but Vita was offering it as a special. They were the best I've had since moving to NC. Vita's one of our favorite restaurants right now. The menu isn't extensive, but what they do (fresh pasta, bread, brunch), they do well. Plus, they do it for a student-friendly price, as entrees start at just $9.
- The "Sicilian Cash Cow" - Francois Xavier's blog hasn't been updated in a couple years, but the multilingual Swiss has a passion for Sicilian food. The "cash cow" is his version of a popular Sicilian dish from a favorite Italian restaurant in Geneva. As the weather cools off, baked pasta becomes relevant again. This one makes great use of fall veggies like eggplant and sweet bell peppers.
- The Durham Farmer's Market Chef Challenge. This celebration of okra was phenomenal. read about it here.
- Spaghetti and meatballs, family-style. A group of our friends takes turns hosting dinners each month. Our turn came up in September, so I simmered a pot of Christopher Sauce overnight, rolled meatballs the following morning and threw them in the pot to cook all day. The meatball recipe, to my knowledge, has never been written down. Someday I'll take the time to measure the ingredients and post it.
- Fresh shrimp from Walking Fish. It's going to be hard to cook with frozen bags of shrimp now that I've eaten the real thing. We received three pounds of them, and grilled them all, tossing the first batch in salmorilgio sauce, topping the second in buffalo sauce and eating them in a sandwich with pea shoots and ranch dressing, and throwing the batch in a seafood risotto.
- Crab Cakes and Fava Bean Salad at Vita: I don't often order crab cakes, but Vita was offering it as a special. They were the best I've had since moving to NC. Vita's one of our favorite restaurants right now. The menu isn't extensive, but what they do (fresh pasta, bread, brunch), they do well. Plus, they do it for a student-friendly price, as entrees start at just $9.
- The "Sicilian Cash Cow" - Francois Xavier's blog hasn't been updated in a couple years, but the multilingual Swiss has a passion for Sicilian food. The "cash cow" is his version of a popular Sicilian dish from a favorite Italian restaurant in Geneva. As the weather cools off, baked pasta becomes relevant again. This one makes great use of fall veggies like eggplant and sweet bell peppers.
- The Durham Farmer's Market Chef Challenge. This celebration of okra was phenomenal. read about it here.
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