brooklyn blackout cake

this is from Two Little Red Hens by way of the Dean and Deluca on Broadway and Prince



SO GOOD. nuff said.

m-m-m-maialino

So we did end up scoring some delicious eats at maialino on Friday and boy am I happy I chose this place for my (belated) birthday dinner.

The bread basket was tasty and refilled quickly for us. I especially liked the little cheese sticks and the focaccia with rosemary

And now to the porky goodness

appetizers:
We started out with prosciutto di parma and fresh mozzarella

We also had the fried artichoke. My boyfriend didn't like the dipping sauce thinking it overpowered the artichoke so he used the plate of olive oil to swirl the deliciously tart morsels in. I loved the sauce.


the main event: We got the maialina al forno for two. Delicious bits of roast suckling pig cooked over tender potatoes infused with porky goodness.

This was fricken awesome.

We got sugar snap peas with prosciutto to go with , but we didn't like them as it seemed like there was extra sweet peas added in and something felt off.

The pork, though, was so excellent.

I told my boyfriend I could eat pork skin every day and be happy and he told me he'd like to grow old with me so I should probably reconsider that..

but the skin! *drools thinking about it* It wasn't hard and toothsome, but crisp and melt in your mouth tender at the same time. Dear lord please let me be able to recreate this some day.


Big ups to our server who slipped in a roll of ciabatta with our leftovers so we could make our own porchetta sammich. I wish she'd slipped in some more skin. >_>

keen for kee's chocolates

Delicious chocolates and macaroons.

They didn't have all the flavors I had a taste for, but I got creme brulee (the hexagon), black sesame, black rose, honey saffron and almond (white chocolate).
I also got lavender, blueberry and pineapple & papaya macaroons

I loved the black rose and honey & saffron truffles. I adored the lavender macaroon. Everything else was good except the pineapple and papay macaroon was dry & crumbly on the inside of the cookie part.

I will definitely be back! It looked like they moved two doors down and were still renovating the shop. I want to have a little shop like this one day.

birthday & leftovers

So this post should have been about Maialino, but we had to wait and see if we got Blizzcon tickets (we did). So I'll do that post on Friday.

I was at Dean and Deluca and picked up some shrimp. The rest I had in the house.


sooo shrimp
leftover basmati rice from the indian food I had yesterday
A bacon wrapped filet from Omaha steaks that I sliced thin and reserved the bacon
low sodium bacon
sugar snap peas
soy sauce
a lil sesame oil
some olive oil for the rice
the creamy top of a can of thai kitchen coconut milk
It came out pretty good and was super fast to make if I do say so myself, and I do.

bonus fuzzy pic of birthday flowers =)

buttermilk calvados crepes with fresh strawberries in syrup

I had leftover buttermilk from the chicken and a de Buyer crepe pan I hadn't even taken out of the cardboard sleeve yet so I decided to kill two birds with one stone.

For the crepes I used:

1 1/2 c buttermilk (and a lil extra I dribbled out of the container)
2 c flour
4 eggs
5T melted butter
some cream, enough to get it to the consistency I wanted (you can use milk)
two generous swigs of Calvados
vanilla
1/3-1/2 c of sugar
1/2 tsp salt


strawberries in syrup

Simple really, cut up strawberries, sprinkled with sugar, mixed up, devoured