Eating at Home

After a whirlwind eating week that began with Costa Brava and ended with Bouchon, D. and I needed to recover both our bellies and our wallets. Plus, I'm coming to the end of two weeks of absolute insanity at work. Deadlines are crazy and, like a line cook, I've had compound after compound come off the pipeline. With long workdays come quick meals. Many, many thanks to D. for having hot meals waiting for me when I arrive home.

One of our favorite quick meals is an utter bastardization of both French flavors and Mexican snacks. It's a quesadilla filled with Gruyeres, onions, and ham. Alsatian-inspired flavors on a tortilla. I know, somewhere, someone is laughing their ass off. However, it tastes very good.

D. also picked up a loaf of rustic country bread from Bread on Market, which was excellent dipped in Pasolivo's Meyer lemon olive oil mixed with a dollop of the black button sage honey. This works really well with any sort of citrus olive oil.

Favorite at-home dessert these past two weeks? Stout floats. Inspired by both the Stone Porter Shake at Ritual Tavern and Karl Strauss' Oatmeal Stout Float (no dessert menu on the website, but it's mentioned on the Oatmeal Stout's blurb), I decided that we should have beer with our ice cream. We picked up a few cans of Young's Double Chocolate Stout and poured it over scoops of good vanilla bean ice cream. I suggest buying good ice cream, because you'll want a strong vanilla flavor with a rich creamy background to contrast the beer. Otherwise, you're drinking bread out of a cup with bland ice cream on top.

I'm not working this weekend and I hope there will be a baking project. Also, I'll be meeting some of my fellow San Diego Chowhounds at my first Chowdown! Next week's posts look promising, so stay tuned.