What are you cooking today?

We're about halfway to our expected 12 inches of snow. So I made French toast. The official breakfast food of the snow storm.

More Jambalaya for dinner. Shrimp and smoked sausage only seem to come in amounts for at least two batches. Still, spicy comfort food while it snows ain't nothing...

Cool read. I want to join a pig club.

sounds good-general recipe or description?

For lunch today, lamb & eggplant sliders with tzatziki and a Greek salad with edamame. Oh yeah, and a piece of bourbon apple cake I made yesterday.

Puttanesca.

When my wife goes out of town and leaves me to my devices, instead of going to the titty bars I cook puttanesca.

The pasts: thin spaghetti.

The gravy:
heat olive oil in cast iron pan
sprinkle in the dried oregano to set it off (trick I learned from spices I bought in the Rome market near Jeff's and my hotel)
add 3 cloves garlic: slice one thin (sweet flavor); slice another with the back of the knife (pungent) and chop one.
add about 1/2 cup coarse chopped calamata olives (never the rubber canned ones).
about 2 tablespoons of capers--the larger the better, but they are not the same as caper berries
about 4 flat anchovy fillets, chopped, maybe a little oil
stir on medium heat, then add:
1 drained can of diced tomatoes, juice reserved.
Add juice if needed
add asiago or similar hard cheese to thicken, if needed (I used some I had smoked)

For "fra diablo" ad dyour red pepper while cooking. Mo hotta mo betta.

Just before serving, a splash, or a dash, of balsamic

Notes:
the way you slice garlic affects the flavor. the back of the knife slice gives a good blend of sliced and crushed. Plus it amuses your troll friends who are hanging around the kitchen drinking your wine while you do all the work.
The anchovy kicks off a lot of flavors in Italian. Use it sparingly in other dishes and don't tell anyone. Here, just 4 tiny fillets is a mere flavoring so reasonable vegetarians will like this dish.
Balsamic disappears so always add it late. Next time you cook black beans and cumin, say to accompany jerk pork, add a splash before serving.
The wine doesn't have to be Italian; I did an old vine Grenache (Spanish) the first night and a Spanish protocol, which is like a Sangiovese, tonight. Wife comes home tomorrow so it's all over.

From last week:

Old Charleston Shrimp & Grits

Ingredients
1 cup coarsely ground grits
4 cups chicken stock
1 teaspoons salt
1 cups half-and-half
1 stick butter
2 pounds uncooked shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 pinch cayenne pepper, or to taste
1 lemon, juiced
5 strips bacon
1 pound andouille sausage, ¼” dice
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 cup shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 or 2 green onions sliced for garnish

Directions
1. Bring 3 cups stock, half-and-half and ½ stick butter to a boil in a heavy saucepan with a lid. Stir in grits and simmer until grits are slightly thickened, 15 to 20 minutes. Stir in salt and continue to simmer until done, 30-40
minutes. Set aside and keep warm.
2. Sprinkle shrimp with salt and cayenne pepper; drizzle with lemon juice. Set aside in a bowl.
3. Place andouille sausage in a large skillet over medium heat; fry sausage until browned, 5 to 8 minutes. Remove skillet from heat.
4. Cook bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until evenly browned, about 10 minutes. Retain bacon drippings in skillet. Transfer bacon slices to paper towels, let cool, and crumble.
5. Cook and stir green, red, and yellow bell peppers, onion, and garlic in the bacon drippings until the onion is translucent, about 8 minutes.
6. Stir shrimp and cooked vegetables into the andouille sausage and mix to combine.
7. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat; stir in flour to make a smooth paste. Turn heat to low and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is medium brown in color, 8 to 10 minutes. Watch carefully, mixture burns easily.
8. Pour the butter-flour mixture into the skillet with andouille sausage, shrimp and vegetables. Place the skillet over medium heat and pour in chicken broth, bacon and Worcestershire sauce, cooking and stirring until the sauce
thickens and the shrimp become opaque and bright pink, about 8 minutes.
9. Just before serving, mix sharp Cheddar cheese and Parmesan into grits until melted and grits are creamy and light yellow. Serve shrimp mixture over cheese grits. Garnish with green onion.

should be featured at the Texas/Wisconsin Border Café.

I'm preparing some tomato sauce using cherry tomatoes this afternoon. Probably going to freeze or can it all. Don't usually use cherry tomatoes for tomato sauce, but I have so many of them...

This was good but sweet. No added sugar, all the sweetness from the cherry tomatoes themselves.

Might have to make another batch. The cherry tomatoes are piling up.

Not sure I have an exact count but I probably have about 15=17 plants.  Two of them are volunteers from last year.  I meant to plant 12 of three different varieties of tomatoes, but I lost a few to transplanting and so I ended up putting in more cherries than anything else.  

Picked my acorn squash because the vines weren't healthy any more.  Still got lots of tomatoes and peppers to come.