It's been a while since I posted about my weekend in food, no? :)
Saturday, I went to have lunch with HB, and afterwards, we wandered through Grand Central Market. It's been just over a year since I went for the first time, and this was my first time back. I had some items in mind to pick up, and only missed one: the Valrhona chocolate pudding at Dishes. (I went by before lunch, and it was busy, plus who wants to cart around pudding while you eat? but when I went back later, the dish was down to the dregs, and at $4.25/.5 lb, I didn't want the dregs! and they didn't refill it while I was there!)
So I picked up ciabatta from Zaro's Bread Basket, prosciutto di parma, guanciale (pork cheek!!!) for carbonara, and pancetta from Murray's Salami (and received a free package of Niman Ranch applewood smoked bacon for my purchase over $25), and butternut squash and baby Shanghai bok choy from Greenmarket Produce. The butternut squash is because I really want to try cooking squash but am weirded out by/afraid of cutting/prepping the veggie myself, so I bought it already cut. Probably paid through the nose for it, but it was around $2 for a 1/2 lb. package, which I figured is perfect for a person to eat by herself, right?
(By the way, I don't think I like my new camera. I was looking at the photograph I posted on Friday and it looks very - the word in my mind is 'ploppy' but I think it's actually 'noisy' - fuzzy, not out of focus but blurry and too much... plops? around the edges. I think it's because of the ISO - it's automatic, and because I shoot without flash, it tends to choose higher ISO - these are all at 800ish ISO and that's already twice what the highest ISO on my old camera is. Grrr. And it won't let me shoot with no ISO at all. Sad face... but it's such a pretty pink color. My photos are supposed to improve with time, not get worse!!! Cry.)
I don't really know what I was taking a picture of here. Am I losing my own focus?!
Again... but whatever. This is a delicious sandwich with pesto, roasted red peppers, ciabatta that I bought from Zaro's and the prosciutto from Murray's. Ohmigosh so good. BF had the same except minus pesto. Mmmm. I also chunked off some cheese for him - some Piave. Delicious...
And dinner last night? Dinner was a wonderful lasagna, made by yours truly. I purchased this new glass baking dish (it's probably meant to be a loaf pan) but I immediately envisioned it to be a single-person's-lasagna pan. And it worked beautifully. It fits one no-boil lasagna sheet in its bottom perfectly, and then I added everything else (with a quick tomato sauce- I may post a recipe for this eventually?) and it was just freakin' amazingly delicious. BF was duly impressed (even though this isn't the first time I've made lasagna, and I would even go so far as to say, not the best, either). There's a total of 5 cheeses in there - count 'em, FIVE: mozzarella, ricotta, Piave + Pecorino Romano + Parmagiano Reggiano grated into the ricotta. Holy crap that was delicious; I was practically licking my plate to get all the cheesy sauce. *tears of joy* So... good...
(The above photo is the leftover piece I have for dinner tonight. I'm sure I could wrangle and eat only half of that for dinner, but... would you? I'm also sure I could have cut it up and put it in a jar for bento, but I wanted to maintain its shape and integrity... I didn't get any good photos of a slice on a plate, so I may wind up taking a photo of this one for the recipe post that may or may not come. Haha.)
And bento!
Top tier: chicken fingers; waffle fries; both from Tower Diner
Bottom tier: sauteed celery; roasted butternut squash; Shanghai bok choi with garlic chips
Oh, I didn't take pictures, but on Saturday, after lunch with HB, BF picked me up and we went to a movie, then to Tower Diner for dinner/a snack. I wasn't that hungry, so I ordered chicken fingers, he got tuna salad with waffle fries (which I've totally posted about before), and I wound up taking home the leftover fries and chicken fingers. YUMMY. So that's what became the protein part of lunch today.
Remember a while back, I posted about eating something there... but it didn't look like what I thought it would?
This, to be exact. I forgot to post the answer! Well, it looks like Italian sausage in the picture, or perhaps meatloaf, but it was actually super moist and tasty... Salisbury steak?! I ordered it, expecting to receive something akin to what I used to eat in TV dinners - brown meatloaf looking things with mushroom gravy. Nope. This was eons better... and the mashed potatoes were quite yum too ;) I should probably do another post about Tower Diner soon, I've eaten there a whole lot more since then, yumm.
Alright, I'm starving and it's almost time for bento!
HAPPY BENTO~!!!
