Food Fest!

When I changed my eating habits and lost a ton of weight several years ago I made a deal with myself. On Friday night I can eat anything I want. And I can eat as much of it as I want.

That was always chips. Sometimes dip. Bags of Oreos. Ice cream sundaes.

Then about a year ago I started to feel like crap on Saturday morning. Well...anything I want is...anything I want. So I started fixing healthier things to eat that I wouldn't normally have. Big bowls of pasta with cheese. Baked breaded fish with lemon butter sauce.

And that evolved into my weekly 5 course extravaganza I call "Friday Night Food Fest". I do this every week.

Is this a course?

Havana Martini
Maybe not if you look it up on Wikipedia but it is to me! A Havana Martini is a Bacardi Cocktail served in a martini glass. I like some lime zest in mine. I don't drink rum very much. It's hard for me to take rum drinks seriously. Probably because we drank rum when we were teenagers. But every once in a while when I'm in a tropical, island kind of mood I like a rum drink.

Strictly speaking antipasto means "before the meal". I often have a plate of roasted vegetables before the main course but sometimes it's a cheese plate. Yes cheese plates usually come after the main course but it's a light cheese plate. On the left is a bowl of sliced tomatoes with chopped red onions and in the middle is a bowl of marinated mushrooms. Favorite things to nibble.

Cheese Course
That's a bowl of olives off there on the upper right.

I love olives!
Third course! In the wintertime I usually have hot soup here or, at the height of summertime, a cold soup. A fish course is good any time and this is a classic.

Shrimp Cocktail
Never buy cocktail sauce. Just mix a little ketchup, horseradish, lemon juice and worcestershire sauce in a bowl. It's especially nice because you can tweak it to your liking.

By the way. You want to have a sauvignon blanc with a shrimp cocktail. I didn't want to open a bottle just for shrimp cocktail. As far as I'm concerned chianti goes with everything. Except artichokes and asparagus.

Grilled Chicken Salad
Grilled chicken salad with tarragon mayonnaise dressing.

• 2 cups grilled chicken, chopped
• 1/4 cup each chopped celery, chopped yellow onion, chopped walnuts, white raisins
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise. I like Hellman's Light. I still don't have the trick making my own. Every time I try to make mayonnaise it's a disaster.
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon honey
• Tarragon, dry or fresh, to taste

Mix the last 4 ingredients into a dressing and mix thoroughly with the other ingredients.

Serve on a bed of chopped lettuce and have a couple of whole wheat pita breads with it. Just scoop some of the salad into a half a pita. It's light, it's refreshing, it's satisfying.

Remember. Dessert is important!

Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream with hot fudge and walnuts
The very best hot fudge sauce is from Brigham's.

I really look forward to Friday night.

Typical Friday night

Starts with antipasto:

It varies a lot. Always has olives. I love olives. Always has salami. Almost always has marinated mushrooms. I'm working on the marinated mushrooms. Those were pretty good but not the best I ever made. As soon as I perfect those I'll post a recipe!

Sometimes I have some pickles. Sometimes I have some roasted peppers. I usually have some bread.

I'll sip wine and munch on all that while I cook.

I lost a ton of weight. I didn't diet. I completely changed the way I ate. But when I did that I made a deal with myself. On Friday night I can eat as much of anything I want. Period. For a long time it was chips and Oreos. And ice cream.

But often times I felt like crap when I got up on Saturday morning. So last Spring I compromised. Rather than chips and Oreos I'll just be more sensible. I'll fix things I wouldn't normally have. But the deal stays the same. So. Radishes and butter? Yes of course!

While I was munching and cooking I noticed this!

Ok I didn't quite get what I wanted there. It was getting dark. Those ripples - I have otters outside! Really. That pond outside my window is the Charles River. The headwaters are just a few miles away. The Charles River is filthy. The water is like tea. But that's from all the rotting organic matter in it - mostly leaves. The fact is the Charles River is chemically clean and most people don't know that. But this is proof. Otters require extremely clean water to survive. They've been here for years now and I usually see them 3 or 4 times a year.

It's all about the clams!

I don't see any reason at all why I can't make my own stuffed quahogs. Those of you that aren't New Englanders - that's a big stuffed clam. Pronounced "co-hawg". But the last time I tried was a complete and total disaster. Oh I had the bright idea I'd chop up some preserved lemon and add it to the mix and I'd add some thyme and I'd do this and I'd do that and well, I couldn't even eat them they were so bad. The lemon really clashed with the clam. Who would have thought. And I didn't use enough broth and they dried out too much in the oven.

I remembered a lesson I learned making clam chowder. It's all about the clams! Duh!

I finally got it right.

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This will serve 2.

Take maybe a half cup of bread crumbs, use homemade bread crumbs, add a pinch of salt and mix with 1/4 cup of finely chopped celery, a tablespoon onion powder and 8 oz. of chopped (cooked) clams. Add a little parsley. Mix in a tablespoon of melted butter and 1/4 cup or so of clam broth. Mix it good and pack it into some clam shells.

Add a little bit of dry bread crumbs on top of the mix - the dry bread crumbs will get toasty and brown.

Put them in a pre-heated 425 degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes. The clams are cooked, you just want to heat them up and get the flavors working together.

When they come out put some paprika and fresh parsley on top.

Voila!

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Now, what does really good ravioli look like?


No no. It looks like this! Ravioli in brown butter. With crushed red pepper and sage. Yummy! Have some fresh grated parmesan over it.

Edited Oct. 30: Of course there's garlic in that brown butter!


Grappa is the perfect dessert!



I really look forward to Friday night.