mangia mangia (vol. 4 - international edition)
everybody talks about how delicious the food is in Italy. and it is! the creamy egg-washed carbonara with crispy guanciale. the Neapolitan pizza diavolo with its perfectly crispy crust immediately giving way to a chewy interior, topped with spicy sausage. the gelato. the wine!
but after a while, the flavor profile of carbohydrate + tomato + mozzarella + basil gets a little stale. and honestly, for the eight years we've been married, we've never gone out to an Italian restaurant on date night. we love German and Thai and Polish and Chinese and Mexican and classic American food. so while i cook some traditional Italian dishes at home, i'm often looking for a little variety to round things out. (you may recall the gloriousness of the first enchiladas i made in Rome.) here are some of our recent favourites!
i made these beef and cheese crunch wraps for the first time a few weeks ago, and they were so delicious! of course Greta only wanted to eat the tortilla, but Nick and i gobbled them up. super easy, cheap and filling! they would have been even better with avocados (as directed in the recipe), but my avocados stubbornly refused to ripen for over a week, despite putting them in a brown bag with an apple. then they suddenly ripened and went bad during our weekend away in Siena and i had to eat my tortilla chips without guacamole. RUDE.
it was really hard to take an appetizing picture of these crockpot chicken gyros - there was way more chicken in there than it looks from the photo! i made my own tzatziki sauce with the recipe from the same website and it was pretty good. i mean, no chicken cooked in a crockpot is ever going to taste exactly like traditional gyro meat, but it was delicious in its own right!
this bacon-wrapped meatloaf has been a Will kitchen staple since our newlywed years, and it never fails to bring a smile to our faces. or our bellies. the brown sugar-ketchup glaze on top seals in the flavor and every bite has a crispy crunch from the bacon. it's comfort food at its finest!
okay, so this isn't the most photogenic dish, but it is so good! with the exception of the chicken, cheesy chipotle chicken and rice is essentially a pantry meal, full of stick-to-your-ribs fiber and protein. the zing of fresh cilantro is a perfect complement to the sweetness of the corn. i always stir the sour cream and cheese into the pot, and then top with extra sour cream and cilantro to serve. (well, currently i substitute plain Greek yogurt, because the closest substitute here for real sour cream is a strange shelf-stable version sold at the specialty food store for an exorbitant price, but hey! we can always use more protein!)
annnnd to wrap things up, we have an Italian dish after all. i discovered the food blog Damn Delicious last year, and that's pretty much what i have to say about all of her recipes. they've always turned out even better than i imagined! this shrimp scampi gnocchi is a heavy-hitter on our meatless Friday dinner rotation. the girls love it. i'd love it even more if i could find bigger shrimp at the grocery store (i'm sure i could find it at the fresh market)!
but after a while, the flavor profile of carbohydrate + tomato + mozzarella + basil gets a little stale. and honestly, for the eight years we've been married, we've never gone out to an Italian restaurant on date night. we love German and Thai and Polish and Chinese and Mexican and classic American food. so while i cook some traditional Italian dishes at home, i'm often looking for a little variety to round things out. (you may recall the gloriousness of the first enchiladas i made in Rome.) here are some of our recent favourites!
i made these beef and cheese crunch wraps for the first time a few weeks ago, and they were so delicious! of course Greta only wanted to eat the tortilla, but Nick and i gobbled them up. super easy, cheap and filling! they would have been even better with avocados (as directed in the recipe), but my avocados stubbornly refused to ripen for over a week, despite putting them in a brown bag with an apple. then they suddenly ripened and went bad during our weekend away in Siena and i had to eat my tortilla chips without guacamole. RUDE.
it was really hard to take an appetizing picture of these crockpot chicken gyros - there was way more chicken in there than it looks from the photo! i made my own tzatziki sauce with the recipe from the same website and it was pretty good. i mean, no chicken cooked in a crockpot is ever going to taste exactly like traditional gyro meat, but it was delicious in its own right!
this bacon-wrapped meatloaf has been a Will kitchen staple since our newlywed years, and it never fails to bring a smile to our faces. or our bellies. the brown sugar-ketchup glaze on top seals in the flavor and every bite has a crispy crunch from the bacon. it's comfort food at its finest!
okay, so this isn't the most photogenic dish, but it is so good! with the exception of the chicken, cheesy chipotle chicken and rice is essentially a pantry meal, full of stick-to-your-ribs fiber and protein. the zing of fresh cilantro is a perfect complement to the sweetness of the corn. i always stir the sour cream and cheese into the pot, and then top with extra sour cream and cilantro to serve. (well, currently i substitute plain Greek yogurt, because the closest substitute here for real sour cream is a strange shelf-stable version sold at the specialty food store for an exorbitant price, but hey! we can always use more protein!)
annnnd to wrap things up, we have an Italian dish after all. i discovered the food blog Damn Delicious last year, and that's pretty much what i have to say about all of her recipes. they've always turned out even better than i imagined! this shrimp scampi gnocchi is a heavy-hitter on our meatless Friday dinner rotation. the girls love it. i'd love it even more if i could find bigger shrimp at the grocery store (i'm sure i could find it at the fresh market)!
Comments
Post a Comment