What are you doing New Year's?

We're staying in.

First course: Cauliflower soup with truffle oil

Second course: Beet salad with goat cheese, pecans, olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Main course: Filet mignon with baked potato, sauteed mushrooms, and braised carrots

There's still champagne and a chocolate raspberry cake from Whole Foods to come, but I don't think I'll be sufficiently coherent to post them.

So, Happy New Year to all, and to all a good night!

Just Saying

I believe there is a special place in Hell for restaurateurs who write "hash browns" on their menu when what they serve is home fries.

Ring Out, Solstice Bells

A happy winter solstice to everyone. It's all uphill from here!

Lentil Soup

So what do you have for dinner when you were too lazy to go to the grocery store during the day, but by dinnertime it's 40 degrees and raining so you don't want to go out, and you have to eat something but there isn't even bread left for sandwiches, so you have to make something out of whatever you can scrounge from the fridge and the pantry?

Lentil soup.

1/2 cup each chopped carrots, celery and onions
6 cups water
2 chicken boullion cubes
1/2 pound dried lentils

6 servings, 150 calories per serving

Chicken Pot Pie

I'm still in comfort food mode here, hoping that my cold goes away before I have to get on a plane on Sunday. Tonight's meal was chicken pot pie.

I poached the other half of the chicken breast that I'd used on Monday. Made a cream sauce with a butter and flour roux, chicken broth, and cream. Added the poached chicken, plus some sauteed onions, celery, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, and frozen peas. Covered with a (thawed) frozen Trader Joe's pie crust and baked for 30 minutes at 400.

Not low-fat, so I ate a small portion. But it was creamy and rich and comforting. The cold doesn't stand a chance.

Chicken soup, Asian style

We all have a cold that we picked up this weekend - the only thing for it was some spicy chicken noodle soup.

I simmered store-bought chicken broth with star anise, cinnamon, onions, ginger, and red pepper flakes for about 45 minutes, then strained it. I cooked udon noodles separately. I sliced half a chicken breast thinly and simmered it in the strained broth for a few minutes until it was cooked through. Then I put some cooked noodles into a bowl and added broth with chicken on top.

Added to the bowl from this plate of garnishes:

I can't say it cured the cold, but it made it much easier to live with.

1/2 cup udon noodles, 2 oz. chicken breast, broth and herbs: 175 calories

Out to Dinner: AZN

Saturday night we tried a new restaurant for dinner - AZN, recently opened in Piedmont Town Center. AZN describes itself as "upscale pan-Asian", and the prices reflect that - appetizers in the $10 range, cocktails $9 to $11, and entrees from $12 to $30. We got there at 7:15 and the restaurant was about half full. It filled in some as we ate and was nearly full by the time we left. Service was uneven at the beginning of the meal, with people who appeared to be managers circling the dining room every couple of minutes but inexplicably not noticing that we needed drink refills. For some reason, once the room started to fill up, the managers and servers became more attentive and we had no further issues.

I started with a vegetarian sushi roll.

This was excellent. It had cucumber, avocado, carrot, pickled turnip, and pickled burdock root (along with one or two things I don't remember - I should have taken notes). The pickled vegetables gave it brightness, and the flavors blended very well. I enjoyed this much more than my vegetarian roll at Cowfish last week. The roll was more compact and easier to eat, with a better ratio of rice to filling. Also, this roll had a seaweed wrap, unlike the Cowfish roll which was wrapped in flavorless soy paper. I didn't realize it until I ate this roll, but I really need that seaweed flavor in a sushi roll - it just doesn't seem quite right without it.

My main course was Cantonese roasted duck.

I enjoyed this, and brought about half of it home - duck is rich and heavy! The meat was moist and flavorful. It was served with flour tortillas, cucumbers and scallions, and a sweet dipping sauce. My only quibble would be that I like duck better when the fat is completely rendered out of the skin - this had about a 1/4 inch layer of fat under the skin, which is a texture I'm not fond of. However, I think I'm an outlier in this respect - most people who like duck like it the way they served it. On the whole, we enjoyed our experience at AZN and would definitely go back.