in which we eat a lot of brie

we have some exciting news here at chez twin: rita will be studying abroad in paris next semester! we've already planned her new tres chic wardrobe (quirky librarian meets audrey hepburn. it will involve lots of striped shirts, of course), and this weekend, we decided to have a french-inspired dinner.

arugula with pomegranate seeds, pecans, and vinaigrette

roast tomatoes (sprinkle with salt and pepper, roast at 350 for about half an hour, then broil for 5 minutes. let cool slightly before eating) and baguette with brie.

we should have had wine too, but neither of us like wine, so we had a mix of lime sparkly water and cranberry apple juice.

and of course, we had music to set the mood.


we're already planning an irish themed dinner for me (i'm hopefully studying abroad in dublin this summer) next week. it probably won't be nearly as classy as the french meal, but that's ok with me.

question time! you get to leave tomorrow for a vacation in any country in the world. where are you going?

-lola

stuffed cuttlefish + herbed biscuits

our first week of classes is done and all is well so far. i'm particularly excited about my irish (as in gaelic language) class. because who wouldn't love to learn a language where "bhfuil" is pronounced "well"? (another favorite-"mhargadh" is said like "wada". also, i hope my approximations of how to say these are correct. if you speak irish, fell free to correct me). anyway, on to some food!

another meal from way back in the day. these are from the book Savoring Provence and for my dad's birthday meal. dessert was poached pears, but the picture wasn't particularly interesting (imagine a peeled pear in a bowl. that's what it was pretty much. not to say that it wasn't delicious).
so we have some biscuits, which are basically frozen pastry shells brushed with butter and some herbs before being baked, and a cuttlefish stuffed with ground meat and some veggies. everything was great. if only we could cook like this in our dorm!

father's day extravaganza! mussels+fries+parsley aioli+french bread+strawberry granita

many years ago, we made a father's day card for our dad, promising him a "leon de bruxelles style meal". leon de bruxelles is a chain of belgian restaurants specializing in mussels, which we visited while in paris.
anyway, yesterday, we finally provided him with the promised meal. only 10 years too late. but worth the wait!
we started with this recipe:mussels and fries with mustard mayonnaise

very tasty! we doubled the recipe to serve four, but ended up with many leftover mussels. probably 3 pounds would be enough to serve four if its part of a many course meal like ours.
the recipe called for frozen french fries, but we decided to make our own.

we used this recipe: garlic fries, but halfed it.
instead of using the mustard sauce the mussel recipe called for, we made our own parsley aioli.
since this was a special occasion and we were making everything from scratch, we also had to make our own bread to go with. again, the recipe is halfed.

the first stage of baking took about 20 minutes, instead of the stated 35. also, we used about 2/3 white flour and 1/3 wheat, just because we ran out of white. french bread
all this was served with a lettuce salad.
and the grand finale...

strawberry granita
served in margarita glasses. we're hella swanky.
everything was very tasty.
and finally...

...the end!
or is it? stay tuned for our next post to see what we made with the leftover mussels.