March is Dine Around Seattle month and I have been doing a fair share of dining around Seattle this week.
Monday: Actual Dine Around Seattle lunch with a friend at the downtown Italian restaurant Barolo. I selected the three courses of: Organic kale puree’ soup topped with ricotta salata, Calamari with cauliflower, Neah bay blackmouth king salmon on top of Parmesan risotto. The soup was delicious as was the perfectly seared salmon on risotto, I’m not even normally a big risotto person but this was deliciously creamy.
Tuesday: FareStart Volunteer Appreciation Party where I was treated to all of FareStarts expertly excecuted fantastic eats (crab cakes, Thai chicken meatballs, sirloin skewers, polenta cakes, smoked salmon, a blini bar with cavier just to name a few), plus as much wine and beer as I wanted. I had a blast hanging out with my FareStart friends for the three hours and nabbing as many crab cakes as I could.
Wednesday: My one night of cooking during the week included remaking the chicken paprikash that I learned in my last cooking class for Bryan and I, served with homemade spaetzle(!!!) which was my first time making this in the maker that Philipp gave me. Bryan loved it and also loved the creamy cucumber salad from the class recipes. This is a great recipe, super tender chicken, luscious and creamy sauce, and those spaetzle were so easy and so delicious.
Thursday: Oh boy oh boy, really great menu at FareStart for Bryan and I. It started with prawns on a zucchini puree, then moved onto 5 spice short ribs on daikon, mushrooms and cabbage, and then concluded with a chocolate custard with blood orange and brown butter ice cream. The menu was created by Collections Cafe from the Chihuly Glass Museum.
Friday: We had our friend’s, Ed’s, jazz concert to attend in Columbia City. This was our second concert to attend of his and it was another fantastic performance by him. He heads back to Australia at the end of the month so it was sort of his farewell party in a way.We grabbed dinner at Island Soul Caribbean Cuisine in Columbia City afterwards, Bryan, Billy, Polly and I. Our table shared plantains, jerk chicken, Caribbean BBQ pork spareribs, curry chicken, collard greens, island slaw, black beans, and mashed yams. Every single thing we had was delicious and licked clean. A also tried their Capirinha and Bryan’s rum version of a Manhattan and both were so good.
Saturday: Made myself and Bryan egg bagel sandwiches before we set out on our IKEA shopping trip. I then picked up some good looking sockeye salmon and tried replicating the beet, carrot and hazlenut salad from our Blue Apron meals. Came out pretty good.
Sunday: Post church brunch at the French restaurant Luc, in Madison Valley. I got the mushroom omelet that came with a good vegetable hash. Was too greasy for my preference but I still ate it all. One of the FareStart chefs, Hugo, and his girlfriend Katie who often volunteers are moving to Philadelphia by way of a three month vacation in Hawaii. In order to say our goodbyes to them all of us gathered at Andrew and Angela’s house for a Philly Luau of sorts complete with Loco Moco, Mai Tais, pineapple upside down pina colada cupcakes, spam musubi, spam and pineapple sliders and other specialties. We had a great time but it sure is sad to see those two go.
Monday: Another lunch date with a friend, this time to try out the Thai restaurant actually really close to our house in Madison Valley (and only a quick ride from work). I had a Groupon to try Araya’s Thai for lunch and they serve up one mighty delicious lunch buffet, its even vegetarian and delicious. I certainly got my fill plus some before heading back to work and wanting to fall asleep.
Tuesday: St. Patrick’s Day at our house. Bryan and I have been wanting to have an actual sit down dinner at our house with our friends for a while now and finally used the opportunity of St. Patty’s Day to do so (3rd year hosting this holiday). I slow cooked corned beef, carrots and cabbage then broiled the beef with a brown sugar mustard glaze and served it all with a homemade honey mustard sauce. Oh my freaking god was this good! I also made Irish soda bread to go along with it and many had that with Grandma’s raspberry jam and I now have several requests for Grandma’s jam. We had energetic Irish music on, I made an easy but tasty cheddar beer dip to serve with pretzels, apples, and rye crackers, and managed to fit all 11 people around the dining table somehow. Polly then made us whiskey raisin bread pudding while Jeff held our own concert with six of us very own songs that was so awesome. We both absolutely love hosting and this dinner was definitely dynamite!
Chelsea
Evolving in the Emerald City 