Day 357: Last Entry From The Lovely Isa

I have mixed emotions as I approach the end of my blog project.  On one hand, it's been stressful to keep it up, knowing that I had to write an entry each and every night, regardless of how boring my dinner was or how tired I was.  On the other hand, 365daysofdinner.com has challenged me to cook and eat more interesting food and has served as a fun and interesting reflection on a year of my life.  

As I wind things up, I am trying to fit in one last visit to all my favorite restaurants.  Beginning Sunday, Isa closes for its annual summer vacation so tonight is my final entry from my very favorite neighborhood restaurant.

If you've been following along for the past year, you know that Isa is a shared plate place.  There are two dishes that we always get:  baked goat cheese with tomato, basil, & pine nuts and the scallops with pureed potatoes and fresh asparagus.  Our other orders vary, as does the menu, to reflect what's in season.

Our other dishes tonight were lamb chops with diced eggplant and red bell pepper (yummy), gulf shrimp sauteed with lemon and garlic (yummier), and grilled yellowtail with zucchini, red bell peppers, and olives (yummiest!!).  Honestly - that yellowtail is so good that I could eat it at least 3x per week and never tire of it.  

Of course, we will continue to regularly dine at Isa because WE LOVE IT!  But as far as this blog is concerned, we big Isa farewell and offer many thanks for the delicious dinners they served us over the course of the past year!

Day 351: The Steak-Free Streak is Finally Broken!

The last three times I went to Izzy's Steaks & Chops, I ordered fish.  Fish!  At a steak restaurant!  For some unknown reason, I hadn't craved my beloved prime rib dish on any of these occasions.  I hoped this trend would end, because that prime rib is SO good - finally tonight, my old craving returned, so off to Izzy's we went.

As always, I started with the prawn cocktail which is served with Izzy's amazing house made cocktail sauce.   After that, I had the prime rib with steamed broccoli and ate every savory, meaty bite.  Yum!  

Day 328: Perfect Night For Takeout

Takeout was invented for nights like tonight.  I didn't get home until after 8pm and my thumb is still healing from Monday's kitchen accident so cooking was just simply not going to happen.  We hadn't supported our favorite neighborhood Chinese restaurant in a long time, so Country Sky takout it was!

Primarily, I focused on my favorite CS dish, Spicy Prawns with Mango.  In addition to the obvious ingredients, this dish includes mushrooms, broccoli, and zucchini.  Over brown rice it makes for a very yummy, quite spicy dinner.

I also allowed myself a treat in the form of the Singapore Style Noodles that my husband ordered.  These super thin noodles are tossed with curry seasoning, pork, chicken, shrimp, fried egg, and veggies.  It is really amazing.

Of course, there is always a dessert when you have Chinese food - the fortune cookie.  Despite the fact that most of the time these days you don't get a fortune (you get a proverb or a friendly suggestion to do something), these are still tasty treats that I always look forward to.  Hopefully my real fortune  is "your thumb will heal quickly"!

Day 327: Tastes Like Play Doh!

You know how you don't fully appreciate something until it's gone? Well, that's kind of how this week has been for me since lopping off a good chunk of my thumb on Monday. I just never realized how critical that digit is, especially when it comes to doing things in the kitchen and around the house! Certainly, it affected our dinner tonight.

I decided to make something easy and that didn't require any chopping. I sauteed up some shrimp in olive oil and then removed them from the pan and set them aside while I cooked the veggies. Normally, I would have chopped the garlic, but instead I pushed it through a press. I added some white wine, a bag of snowpeas from Trader Joe's, and S&P and sauteed everything for about 8 minutes on medium-high heat. Then I returned the shrimp to the pan and mixed everything together .

Because it was late and I was looking for the easiest possible solution, I made Casbah couscous rather than brown rice or quinoa. Unfortunately, it tasted like Play Doh and really ruined my already uninspired dish. Even all the Sriracha in the world couldn't help this dinner. I won't be buying that product again!!

This thumb is going to need some time to heal so I'm going to have to figure out how to feed my husband tasty meals despite my handicap. Any ideas for a thumb-free dinner are much appreciated!

Day 299: Kitchen Sweet Kitchen

I love eating and I dislike doing dishes, but tonight, after a week on vacation, I was excited to be home where I'd have to cook and clean.

I decided to make up for my insanely unhealthy diet of the past week with a meal packed with lean protein, whole grains, and lots and lots of veggies.  That manifested itself in brown rice with shrimp and sauteed vegetables.

Ingredients (serves 2):

1/2 cup brown rice, prepared as suggested on the package

2 T olive oil

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

24 large shrimp, peeled and deveined and cut into three pieces each

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1.5 inch piece of ginger, peeled and minced

1 shallot bulb, minced

White wine or chicken broth

1 medium zucchini, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 cup sugar snap peas, halved crosswise

2 stalks of celery, chopped

Zest from 1 large lemon

Pre-heat olive oil & red pepper flakes in a saute pan over medium heat.  Add shrimp, season with S&P, and saute for a minute or two until pink.  Remove, set aside, and cover.

Reduce heat to medium-low and cook garlic, ginger, and shallot until soft.  Turn up the heat to medium-high, add a few splashes of white wine or chicken broth, add all veggies, and saute for 8-10 minutes until all veggies are crunchy tender.  If the pan dries out during cooking, add another splash of liquid.

When veggies are cooked to desired consistency, add shrimp and cooked rice to the pan and mix all ingredients together until it's all heated through.  Turn off the heat, mix in the lemon zest, and serve!

I adore vacation, but I also like getting back to "normal life", especially when it includes homemade, nutritious, tasty dinners like this one!

Day 260: Eating with Tuizers

Who needs chopsticks or silverware when you can eat with Tuizers?  Of course, I do not mean tweezers - I mean Tuizers, as in my friend Julie and her mom Mary (Tuizer).

Julie's mom is visiting for the weekend and my husband and I joined them for a Vietnamese feast at Three Seasons.  We ordered a variety of dishes and shared them all:  duck springrolls (pictured), chicken satay, crunchy fried egg rolls filled with shrimp and pork, shrimp potstickers, shrimp in tamarind sauce, and beef sauteed with chopped mango.  We also shared the fried banana and coconut ice cream dessert.

Places like Three Seasons are best when enjoyed with a group so that you can order up and taste a bunch of different things.  I find that a couple of bites of lots of different flavors is better than a big plate of only one thing.  Less is not more if you ask me!

Day 254: Carnivore's Delight

After an afternoon in wine country, I needed a dinner with substance.

Vegetarians out there may be disgusted, as well you should be.  I dedicate this and all entries from Izzy's Steak & Chops to my carnivorous readers.  

My favorite item on the Izzy's menu is their slow roasted prime rib, cooked medium rare.  It savory and juicy and so delicious.  At Izzy's you get to choose two sides with your entree.  Normally, I request a double order of steamed broccoli but tonight the waitress let me know that they had some fresh asparagus, so I had an order or each.  All those fresh steamed veggies make me feel a lot less guilty about the giant slab of meat I gobble up!

Day 245: Urban Adventure

Despite having lived in SF for over two years, we still live our lives like New Yorkers.  This means that we walk everywhere and rarely leave our neighborhood.  We actually chose to live where we did because it was conducive to that type of lifestyle - tons of restaurants and everything you need within just a few blocks from home.

Once in awhile we decide to venture out of our comfort zone and try someplace new.  It's our idea of an urban adventure.

Tonight was one of those nights.  We hailed a cab and went over to Hayes Valley to try out Indigo.  We had a good meal, the stars being the appetizers, but as usual I was left with the feeling that we could have eaten just as well if not better at one of the stellar restaurants in the 'hood.

We started with two appetizers, which we shared.  The tuna tartar with mango was delicious, especially when scooped up into a homemade waffled potato chip.  The grilled shrimp over risotto was amazing as well.

I continued with the fish theme as I moved into the next course, with salmon over soba noodles.  The soba salad with scallions and julienned carrots was the best part of this dish.  I adore the flavor and mild sweetness of soba and because they are made with buckwheat, I think they're more wholesome than a lot of other types of noodles.

I'm always glad when we leave the borders of our neighborhood but usually, it just makes me even gladder that I live in an area with such great and diverse food options.  Three cheers for Cow Hollow!

Day 244: A Fishy Love/Hate Relationship

I have a strange relationship with sushi.  Sometimes, the thought of it makes me queasy.  Other times, I crave it like a drug.  Even stranger, I do not even realize that I am in the love phase until someone mentions sushi.  I hear the word and all I can think about is gettin' me some.

Yesterday, a colleague mentioned that he had eaten sushi for dinner the night before.  The lights and sirens went off.  Mmmmmmmm....sushi.  Unfortunately, I had already purchased some steaks for last night's dinner.  I could have put them off until tonight, but we seemed to be having a short break from countless days of rain and it was a good night to grill.  So, sushi night was put on hold until tonight.

We went to Asa, our favorite neighborhood joint for raw fish.  After a bowl of edamame, we shared 4 rolls, including 2 Red Dragon rolls, our most beloved thing on the menu.  Shrimp tempura and crab down the center with spicy tuna, eel, avocado, and tobiko on top.  No roll on the planet can compare, but yet we always order other, lesser rolls as well.  Tonight those were a Honey roll (eel and avocado inside, salmon on top) and a Super Poke roll (spicy tuna inside, eel on top).

Of course, all of this was washed down with some ice cold sake and we received a couple of balls of mochi ice cream with our check.  The love affair is on!!

Day 240: Don't Always Do As You Are Told

If you follow the cooking instructions on the quinoa box, you are going to be disappointed.  At least the Trader Joe's quinoa.  Follow this steaming method, from Epicurious.com, and you'll have light, fluffy quinoa that's similar in consistency to couscous and you will be happy!

Place 1 cup of quinoa in a metal strainer in very small holes and rinse thoroughly under cold water.  Boil a medium sized pot of water, add quinoa, and cook uncovered for 10 minutes.  Strain the quinoa.  Place some water back in the pot, bring to a simmer, and lay the metal strainer with the quinoa over the top.  Cover with a clean, dry kitchen towel and then cover that with the pot lid.  Steam the quinoa like that for another 10 minutes.  Remove the pot from the heat, remove the lid, and leave the quinoa covered with the towel for 5 minutes.  Comb with a fork and you'll have light and fluffy quinoa!

Meanwhile...place the zest and juice of one lemon, 1 tsp of sugar, and 2 T of olive oil in a bowl.  Whisk together and when quinoa is done, mix it in.  Season to taste with S&P.

We had sauteed shrimp and sugar snap peas over our quinoa.  This is also very easy:

Coat a large pan with olive oil and heat over medium-high heat.  Lay down 24 large shelled shrimp in a single layer (do this in shifts if they don't all fit).  The first ones you put down will be ready to turn by the time you lay down the last one, so flip them all over.  Remove shrimp from the pan and set aside, covered with foil.

If you're lucky, you'll have some shrimp fat stuck to the bottom off the pan.  Deglaze that with white wine, reduce the heat to medium low, and add 3 cloves of minced garlic.  Cook the garlic for 2-3 minutes until soft - stir frequently to ensure it doesn't burn.  Add 1/2 pound of sugar snap peas and crank the heat up to medium high.  Cook the peas and garlic for about 10 minutes until they start to blister.  Watch the pan carefully.  If it seems to be too dry, putting the garlic at risk for burning, add another splash or two of white wine.  I added a splash about three times tonight, which tells you how important it is to watch it.

Once the peas are cooked to the desired doneness, add the shrimp and any juiced that collected and mix.  Cook for just another minute or two until the shrimp is heated through.  Spoon shrimp and peas over quinoa.

This was a light, fresh, healthy, easy dinner.  And, my husband asked me right away to make it again soon!  Let me know what you think when you try it!

Day 239: I Don't Care What You Think

This steak, served at Izzy's Steaks and Chops, is not attractive.  It may even be downright gross looking.  But you know what?  I don't care.  And that's because it was freaking delicious and made my tummy very happy!!

Beef is notorious difficult to photograph.  Even the Beef Council's ads make beef look more creepy than mouth-watering.  

Like your mother instructed, I beg you not to judge a book by its cover.  This steak should be judged based on how good it is on the inside - not on its outward appearance.  And I'm here to tell you that on the inside, this steak is wonderful.

As always at Izzy's, I ordered this prime rib medium rare with au jus and steamed broccoli.  And I'm proud to say that I ate every bite, less the fatty bits, plus a shrimp cocktail appetizer.  As the Hillshire Farm people say, "Go Meat!!"

Day 223: Big Night Out in Panama

We've been laying low most nights this week while visiting my parents in Panama.  Long days filled with lying on the beach, swimming in the pool, and zip-lining have made us tired and happy to have dinner in.

Tonight being our last night here, my parents took us out to one of their favorite restaurants, La Carreta Steakhouse in Coronado.  Interestingly, none of us got steak!

I started with citrusy, refreshing shrimp ceviche and then had ribs.  The ribs were meaty and had the perfect amount of sauce.  I gobbled them all!

During dinner, there was a little show with horses.  The restaurant is part of an equestrian club, so 6 different breeds of horses were brought out and an announcer talked about their origin and special skills.  Good food and an educational show.  Now that's a big night out!!  Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Day 213: Welcome to Tiskita Jungle Lodge

Day 1 of vacation and we are in paradise!! We are staying at the Tiskita Jungle Lodge in the southern part of Costa Rica, almost to the Panamanian border. It's a rather remote area, so all meals during this leg of our trip will take place at the lodge.

All meals are served family style, which means that everyone eats at the same pre-set time (6:30 pm). Yes, it seems early - but the day starts early here (breakfast at 7:30) and after a day of hiking, horseback riding, and photographing monkeys, one is really quite hungry at 6:30.

Tonight was our first dinner at Tiskita and it was delicious. It started with a bowl of leek soup and then, as you should expect in CR, our main course included rice (but no beans!). The rice was mixed with tiny shrimp, diced veggies, and of course - cilantro. I have always had a distaste for this herb. I used to find it rendered any food it touched totally inedible, I now I can at least get it down. I'm hoping that this taste evolution will continue to the point where I learn to actually like cilantro.

Our side dishes were a fresh salad (chock full of cilantro - yay!) and some fried yucca or bread fruit chips. We're looking forward to seeing what Tiskita cooks up next! No doubt, it'll contain more cilantro!!

Day 211: Birthday Week Marches On

I'm a big believer in stretching out a birthday for a good solid week.  My week-long celebration began last night and carried on tonight at Cafe Maritime.  Basically, my celebration is defined by eating out rather than cooking and  indulging in dessert every day.  I love birthdays.

My dinner tonight started with shrimp cocktail.  At Cafe Maritime, that means five huge shrimp, dangling from the edge of a huge glass which holds sweet cocktail sauce with huge chucks of avocado floating in it.  Yum.

Next, I had the lobster thermidor which is, hands down, my favorite dish at CM.  As you can see, chunks of lobster and veggies are stuffed back into half the lobster shell and a little bit of cheese is melted over the top.  Most of the time, restaurants make this dish way too rich - with loads of cream and cheese.  This one, though, is pretty light and really allows the flavor of the lobster to shine through.  

And, because it is birthday week, of course I needed to have dessert.  "Mark's Mom's Coconut Cream Pie" is THE thing to get at CM.  The crust is so light and flaky and the coconut and meringue are light as air.  The only thing wrong with it is that it's not bigger.

Tomorrow is my actual birthday, but I'll spend the majority of it on an airplane or in an airport, so I'm not expecting the usual high caliber birthday dinner.  But it's okay - that's why I celebrate for a whole week!

Day 201: Celebrating the Return of LOST!!

Oh, how I have been awaiting this day.  Finally!!  Lost has returned!!

In celebration, I made a Lost inspired dinner:  grilled shrimp skewers with pineapple salsa, sauteed bok choy, and a side of seaweed salad.  I thought this reflected Lost quite nicely - people stranded on a tropical island and the show is filmed in Hawaii.

I marinated peeled and deveined shrimp for 10 minutes in the following mixture:

Juice of 1 large lemon

2 large garlic cloves, smashed

1 T olive oil

1/8 tsp salt

Cracked black pepper to taste

Once marinated, I threaded the shrimp on skewers and my husband grilled them up.

To accompany the shrimp, I made a pineapple salsa:

1 cup chopped fresh pineapple

1/2 jalepeno, seeded, pulp removed, and finely minced

1 shallot, minced

Juice of 1 lime

I also sauteed some bok choy.  First, I heated up some olive oil on low heat.  Once hot, I added 2 minced cloves of garlic and sauteed that for a few minutes.  Then I trimmed the bottom off of 3 heads of baby bok choy, sliced them in half lengthwise, and tossed them in the pan with 2 T of white wine and a generous dose of salt.  I jacked up the heat to medium-high, stirred everything together, and threw a lid on the pan.  Make sure you check it frequently and give it a stir.  If it seems to need more liquid, throw in another splash of wine.  After 5-7 minutes, the leaves should be wilted and the stems should be softened and the bok choy is ready!

The final touch was just a bit of store-bought seaweed salad.  We're still picking it out of our teeth, but it was damn tasty.

Oh yea - and I crushed up some roasted cashews in the food processor and sprinkled them over the whole plate.  They added some more protein and a nice crunch to a plate of otherwise soft food.

This was a very good meal and of course, Lost was awesome.  Maybe I need to be inspired by TV more often!

Day 195: What the...?

I had grand plans for cooking up some fish tonight, but when I got to the store, the butcher area had closed early.  I was so surprised and with no back-up plan, I left empty handed wondering, "What the...?"

By the time I got home I had gathered my thoughts and decided to cook one dish and order in the rest.  Over the weekend, I had purchased a bag of snowpeas at Trader Joe's.  I sauteed them with some other simple ingredients I had in the fridge and the outcome was yummy:

Ingredients:

1 lb snowpeas

1 T olive oil

1 heaping T of minced ginger

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 T white wine

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 scallion, thinly sliced

Add oil to a large non-stick skillet and heat up on medium-low heat.  Once hot, add ginger and garlic and saute, stirring frequently for a couple of minutes.

Add snowpeas and wine and mix everything up.  Turn heat to medium-high and cook for about 10 minutes, mixing from time to time to ensure all peas get cooked and none of them burn.  

Once the liquid has evaporated and the peas are cooked to your liking, add lemon juice and stir.  Turn the heat off, add the scallion, toss, and serve.

I supplemented my snowpeas with a take-out order of prawns and mango from the awesome and amazing Country Sky around the corner.  

Turns out, it wasn't such a bad thing that the butcher called it a day early today.  Why cook when someone can cook for you?

Day 193: So So

Tonight's dinner reminded me that I don't have a great appreciation for shrimp with cheese.  Of course there's an exception to every rule - but more often than not, tonight included - I really just do not care for that combination.

The dish was essentially shrimp saganaki, on Greek restaurant menus everywhere.  Here's the recipe:

Ingredients (serves 2):

2 dozen large shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

1 T olive oil

1/2 a jalapeno, seeded and minced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 T freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees.

Coat a large baking dish with non-stick spray and place tomatoes, olive oil, jalapeno, and garlic inside.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Add shrimp and lemon juice and mix with tomato mixture.  Sprinkle feta across the top and bake for another 10 minutes.  Mix and if all shrimp are not fully cooked, bake for another 5 minutes.

I used a slotted spoon to move this mixture onto our plates.  I actually served it on top of a bed of fresh arugula to add extra nutrition and a different texture to the dish.

Like I said, this dish was average.  But, if shrimp and cheese is a favorite flavor combination of yours, then give it a try.  And let me know what you think!

Day 182: Third & Fourth Wheels

Friends of ours from the East Coast have been in the Bay Area this week and today was their 10th wedding anniversary.  Since I had attended that wedding so many years ago, I thought it appropriate to suggest that we all celebrate their anniversary together.

As always, our dinner at Capannina was delightful.  You may recall that my husband and I spent Christmas Eve at this restaurant.  That night, my husband and I shared two appetizers - a beet salad with goat cheese and spicy prawns stacked high with polenta cakes.  Those prawns were so good that I had to have them again tonight.

For my entree, I chose linguini with clams and zucchini.  This dish was so simple and yet so delicious.

And of course, because we were celebrating an anniversary, we just had to take advantage of Capannina's amazing dessert menu.  The four of us shared three desserts:  a warm chocolate cake with hazelnut gelato, profiteroles with chocolate and caramel dipping sauces (my personal fave), and tiramisu.  

What a meal!  We'll have to invite ourselves to help celebrate friends' events more often!

Day 179: This Photograph is a Big, Fat Lie

Our friends Amy and Len and their 2 year old Jack came over for dinner tonight.  They flew in last night from the east coast and were all adjusting to the time difference - especially little Jack.

I attempted to prepare a dinner that would be finished nice and early so that we could eat before complete exhaustion set in.  But somehow, I misjudged the timing of nearly everything and so these three items were eaten separately - first the shrimp, then the butternut squash, and then cauliflower course was served.

The shrimp was salt roasted and served with a lemony dipping sauce - easy and always a crowd pleaser.  I first shared this recipe with you on day #50 ("Party!").

Next, we had roasted butternut squash & cranberries, made tasty with thyme, brown sugar, freshly grated nutmeg, and brown butter.  This was something I "invented" about a week ago on day #170 ("You Must Try This!").

The cauliflower course was simple:  I cut a head of cauliflower into large pieces, tossed them with olive oil and S&P and roasted them at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes.

For dessert, we had a cheese course that included a triple cream brie with chopped dried apricots and Craisins and a mustard seed cheddar called Red Dragon (delicious and available at Cheese Plus here in San Francisco).

So the dinner was super staggered, but everything was tasty and it was fun to catch up with our friends over multiple courses.  Even if one of them was just cauliflower.

Day 173: I Am Lucky

I am a Jewish girl that married a non-Jewish guy.  That means that I get to celebrate Hanukkah AND Christmas and that is a beautiful thing.  Monday night we had our awesome Hanukkah dinner and tonight we went out for a fantastic Christmas Eve meal at Capannina, a wonderful Italian restaurant in our neighborhood.

My husband and I actually choose to forego gift giving this time of year and instead, opt to have an opulent night out with good food and fine wine.  Tonight that meal included four courses:

We went "half-sies" on two appetizers:  a beet salad with arugula, goat cheese, and candied walnuts and spicy prawns with crispy polenta (pictured).  After that, we shared an order of wild boar ragu - rich, savory, satisfying, and one of my favorite dishes at Capannina.

My entree was cioppino, which seemed to be flying off the shelf tonight.  I spotted it on several tables throughout the restaurant when we sat down and I couldn't resist the lobster lying across the top of the bowl.   The dish also contained salmon, a giant scallop, shrimp, clams, mussels, and some kind of white fish.  All of this arrived in a delicious tomato broth - so yum.

And because that dish is at least as healthy and low fat as it is tasty, I felt compelled to share dessert with my hubby.  Capannina's profiteroles have rocked my world many times in the past and are always my go-to treat when I decide to indulge in sweets there.  Five soft, cream filled globes of dough are served with two dipping sauces:  melted chocolate and caramel.  Seriously?  I dare you to name something more divine.

All of this delicious plus prosecco to start, a lovely chianti with our meal, and dessert wine when we got home equalled a perfect evening as far as I'm concerned.  Who needs presents??