Tapas Gear!

Last night I asked Jen if she'd like duck pasta or "weird tapas." She opted for the duck pasta so tonight she became nervous when she knew that the weird tapas were on their way. I tried to put her at ease by letting her know that they wouldn't be that weird, however they would consist only out of items we had lying around so they wouldn't be very inspired.

After eight-and-a-half years of largely edible meals she was still starts from a basis of zero trust each evening before dinner. I have to work to regain that trust every day.



For the first dish I removed the pits from some dates, stuffed them with Stilton cheese, wrapped them in bacon, and roasted them in the oven until crispy.



For the second dish I served up this salad with kale, pomegranate, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.



The third dish was sunchokes which I boiled then tossed in the remaining horseradish cream from our ribeye dinner on Sunday night.



The fourth dish was potato cakes made with the leftover mashed potatoes from Sunday along with some chopped green onion, breaded with leftover New Year's Eve bread crumbs that Jen had made and pan fried. I served them up with some sour cream on the side.



The fifth dish was leftover broccoli (quite old leftover broccoli) tossed with some oven roasted tomatoes, olive oil, toasted pine nuts, and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano.



We did not seem to have any Spanish wine in our wine rack. In fact we're running a little low on wine in general. So I grabbed this bottle of Opala Vinho Verde from Portugal because, I figured, at least it was from the Iberian Peninsula. I would have preferred a red wine this evening but when I get a stupid idea in my head there is really no limit to how foolishly I will follow it.

You see tapas are, theoretically, Spanish. However, there was nothing particularly Spanish about any of the individual tapas that I created. Yet I still felt the need to force this Spanish Portuguese wine on us.

That being said, it was quite delicious.



The sixth dish were these little tarts I made. I found this dough in the freezer and I remembered making it and putting the leftovers in the freezer but I couldn't remember what it was. I knew it was either biscuit dough, pie crust, or tart dough. So I took a gamble, thawed it out, and topped it with blood orange slices and mandarin marmalade from the fridge.

All this while watching Top Gear which, if you haven't been able to tell, is our latest nightly television obsession. We're a bit late to the game in discovering the show. About thirty-four years late. But here we are. There is something truly mystifying about a car show that can endear itself to people who know and care so little about cars. In fact, I don't know anyone who likes Top Gear that knows or cares about cars at all.

Come to think of it, I don't know anyone who knows or cares about cars at all.