Foodie Wednesday: Frittata with Asparagus, Tomato & Fontina Cheese

Giada De Laurentiis' Frittata with Asparagus, Tomato & Fontina Cheese

Have you ever cooked everything in any of the cookbooks that you own? For a couple of years I've thought about it...and now I've decided I'm going to do it. Yes, I'm going to cook every recipe in one of the many cookbooks that I own.

I chose my Everday Italian cookbook by Giada De Laurentiis for a couple of reasons. 1) As I've said again & again, you cannot go wrong with Giada, everything I've cooked from one of her recipes has been delicious! 2) Her cookbooks are smaller than some of the other cookbooks I own.

So the other night when I was looking for a new recipe to try I immediately took out Everyday Italian and flipped through it deciding which recipe to pick. I chose a Frittata! I haven't made many Frittat's in my life but the few I have made I've enjoyed. It looked nice and light and like it would re-heat well as leftovers so I decided to give it a go.

The Frittata was delicious and so easy to cook. I would use a smaller pan next time because it came out thin but the flavors blended together perfectly! I love asparagus and the crunchy pieces that were all throughout the Frittata gave the meal a good texture. And it re-heated well the next day for dinner and the day after that for lunch at work. I would definitely recommend this dish it was easy to cook, flavorful and delicous! (Also, as a side note, you could really put anything in this frittata: canadian bacon, onions, mushrooms, etc.)

Frittata with Asparagus, Tomato & Fontina Cheese

Serves 6

6 large eggs
2 tablespoons of whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
12 ounces asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1/2 pieces
1 tomato, seeded and diced
3 ounces fontina cheese, cubed

Preheat the broiler. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, cream, salt and pepper to blend. Set aside. In a 9 1/2-inch-diameter nonstick ovenproof skillet, heat the oil and butter over a medium flame. Add the asparagus and saute until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Add the tomato and saute 2 minutes longer. Pour the egg mixture over the asparagus mixture and sprinkle the cheese over. Cover and cook over medium-low heat until the frittata is almost set but the top is still runny, about 2 mintues. Place the skillet under the broiler and broil until the top is set and golden brown, about 4 mintues. Let the frittata stand for 2 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, loosen the frittata from the skillet and slide the frittata onto a plate. Cut the frittata into wedges and serve.

Post in Comments:

What are you favorite frittata ingredients?

Tuesday Travels: The Botanical Gardens

(Jon in the Haupt Conservatory in the Palm Room).

On Memorial Day Jon and I were looking at our NYC list trying to find something we hadn't done yet that we wanted to do. After some discussion we agreed to visit the Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. You can take the Metro-North train to the Botanical Garden stop. It's only a 20 minute ride and $10 round trip per person, not too bad!

We checked the schedule before we left and agreed that we would spend about 2 1/2 hours walking around the Botanical Gardens so that we could get back and still have some of the day/night to enjoy (cooking dinner, watching a movie, etc).

(A picture of the fountain in the Haupt Conservatory that features aquatic plants).

The Haupt Conservatory is the nation's largest Victorian glasshouse. It features a sampling of different climates & environments. There is the Palm Room, the Desert Room, the Rainforest Room, the Aquatic Plant Room and the Seasonal Flower Room.

(A cactus that looks like a "seat" in the Desert Room - don't sit on it!)

If I had to pick a favorite section of the Haupt Conservatory I would say either the desert or the Season Flower section. Either way the Haupt Conservatory is a neat place to explore and walk through.

(Some of my favorite flowers from the Season Flowers section!)

After we fully explored the Haupt Conservatory we wandered around through the "marshlands", through the "forest" and enjoyed the peace and quiet that is the Botanical Gardens. Next time I would pack up a back pack with sandwiches and drinks and have a picnic while we were there.

(Me with yellow roses in the Rockefeller Rose Garden).

The last place that we visited before we left was the Rockefeller Rose Garden. The Garden was designed in 1916, but it was not until 1987 that the Garden was totally rebuilt to the original design thanks to a generous donation made by David Rockefeller in honor of his wife Peggy Rockefeller. The rose garden was beautiful. There were all different colors and kinds of roses and it was just a really pretty place to wander and walk.

All in all, Jon & I really enjoyed our visit to the Botanical Gardens. It was nice to get out of NYC for a while and be in a quiet peaceful place. It was a beautiful day, perfect for strolling through such a picturesque place. I would definitely recommend a visit to the Botanical Gardens to everyone & anyone.

Post in Comments:

Have you ever been to the Botanical Gardens?

What was your favorite section?

Monday Bookworms: The last 2 books in the Twilight Series!

Eclipse, Stephanie Meyer
629 pages, @2007

Elipse is the 3rd book in the Twilight series:) In Eclipse, Edward is back in town and him and Bella are as inseparable as ever, much to Jacob Black's chagrin. It becomes apparent that a vampire is creating "newborn vampires" in Seattle without monitoring them and they are on the loose killing people. The Cullens realize that the only way the are going to win the upcoming battle is to pair up with Jacob and "his friends". This forces Edward and Jacob to work together to (once again) save Bella. Will they be able to?



Breaking Dawn, Stephanie Meyer
754 pages, @ 2008

In the 4th and final book, Bella has finally made her choice between Edward and Jacob (thank goodness!) Looking forward to her future and joining her new family. On her honeymoon something shocking happens no one ever though possible. Soon the wrath of the Volturri is upon them and Bella and her new family once again have to fight to protect themselves.

Meyer's once again weaves a great story in both books. I will say the whole Edward or Jacob decision in the 3rd book was a little wearing...you can't love them both and have them both you have to choose! I was glad that the decision was made at the end so that in the 4th book the characters could move forward. In addition, I will say that I felt that the 4th book was too long. It was 100+ pages longer than any other book in the series and it felt longer. There were just some "waiting" parts and I wish Meyer had shortened some of those scenes up. However, I thoroughly enjoyed and devoured both books (finished them in 3 days I think!)

I would definitely recommend this series for someone looking for a brain break and to escape to another world via a book! I definitely escaped reality for a couple of days.

The only other comment I have about the whole series was that I thought that Meyer's writing was pretty atrocious. She's lucky she weaves a good story because if these books were at all judged for her writing effort it would not be nearly as positive. I say that only because as a serious reader, you will need to adjust your literary perception and just get over it from the beginning and remember that you're reading the book for the story not for her literary prowess, otherwise you might not get through them!

Storytelling: 4 stars Writing: 2 stars

Post in Comments:

Did you read the Twilight series?

Did you enjoy all 4 books? Which was your favorite?

Catch-All-Fridays: Bar Review of Bourbon Street Bar & Grill

Our B Bar for ABC Club NYC was Bourbon Street Bar & Grill on West 46th Street between 8th and 9th. I picked it because our first bar was in Midtown East and so I wanted our 2nd bar to be in Midtown West. I figured that Midtown was the easiest place for people to get to so that we could begin to build a following. (A following of what - ABC Club NYC of course!)

Bourbon Street Bar & Grill has a great raised back section that we reserved for the night. It's part of the bar but separate enough as well. Every night Bourbon Street has $5 hurricanes - can we say danger, danger, danger.

It was a great space, a great atmosphere, really fun music (REALLY FUN MUSIC!!!) It is definitely a place I would go back to!

Post in Comments:

Have you been to Bourbon Street Bar & Grill?

Do you love hurricanes (the drinks, not the storms)?

Entertainment Thursdays: AFI's 10 Top 10 Challenge

Jon and I have decided to begin a movie challenge! A couple of months ago we watched the AFI's 10 Top 10. We were shocked by how many movies we have not seen that were on the AFI's 10 Top 10. So we decided not too long ago that we are going to try to watch all 100 movies. We're going to watch them one genre at a time and where we can we're going to go from 10 down to 1. I'm going to review them as they are watched and then once all 10 in a genre have been seen I'm going to put what are thoughts were on the list overall. Were they in the right order? In our opinion was there a movie not on the list that we felt should have been? Vice versa was their a movie on the list we really didn't feel deserved to be there? You get the picture.

The 10 genres are: Animation, Romantic Comedy, Western, Sports, Mystery, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Gangster, Courtroom Drama and Epic. I think it is realistic for us to finish this up in 2-3 years (that would be about one movie a week...OK maybe 3-4 years...we'll see how it goes!) We are going to re-watch any movie that we have already seen unless we've seen it within the month that we started the genre. We are starting off with the Gangster genre (that wouldn't have been my 1st choice but we recently just watched The Godfather and The Godfather II so we figured 2 movies down let's just start there...unfortunately we watched the out of order but I'm going to review them in order.)

So here we go....

#10 in the Gangster Genre is:

Scarface

Release Date: December 9, 1983

Duration: 170 minutes

Scarface is the story of Tony Montana, a small timer from Cuba who recently emigrated to the United States. He begins to work with Frank Lopez and as he earns more trust and responsibility he also earns more money and power making him unable to stop as he rushes to get what he wants to ultimately be the lead guy. Will anything stop him from getting what he wants? How long will he be able to hold it all together?

So we were really excited, here we were starting our movie challenge, and watching a movie that we'd heard of with stars that we knew (namely Al Pacino as Tony Montano) and boy were we disappointed.

Scarface is totally 80's. It is so cheezy it had me laughing when I should have been covering my eyes. The music, the hair, the outfits...it was HILARIOUS! I just felt compared to other Gangster movies I had seen this did not cut it. It was pretty horrible from beginning to end. The story was the same as every other gangster movie (guy starts to get power hungry, guy tries to take over the mob, guy takes over the mob and realizes that it isn't that easy, guy loses control and everything falls apart) and it just didn't have anything to me that really made it stand out except for it's ridiculous cheeziness.

I would give it 2 stars, Jon said he would give it 3 stars. I'd say take it or leave it (unless you too are working your way through AFI's 10 Top 10!)

Post in Comments:

What genre are you most excited to see me review?

I personally am looking forward to the mystery genre and western genre!

Foodie Wednesday: Arthur Avenue

As a continuation of Mother's Day after the Bronx Zoo we picked up Tim's wife Christine and drove over to Ann & Tony's restaurant on Arthur Avenue.

Arthur Avenue, is the heart of The Bronx's Little Italy. My mom had heard a lot about it and wanted to go try it out. She had done her research which landed us at Ann & Tony's restaurant. We were probably the only "non-regulars" and non-Italian people in the place! They literally had to put a table together for us towards the front of the restaurant. It was pretty cool!

We started off with a bottle of Chianti (yum!) and bread with olive oil. The olive oil was only the best dipping olive oil any of us had ever had. From what we could tell it was a combination of olive oil, salt, pepper, oregano, garlic and crushed red pepper. It was divine. They had to bring us seconds because none of us could stop eating it!

It was a prix fixed menu so for our appetizer they brought out for the table: eggplant parmesean and fried mozzerella cheese. They were both delicious although I perferred the cheese because I'm not quite an eggplant lover yet. Then they brought out our pasta. We had a choice of two and I chose the penne in vodka sauce. It was delish! I should have bought some to bring home it was that good. Even though I knew I had another dish coming I just could not stop myself from finishing the bowl!

My entree was chicken parm (of course!) and it was huge. I brought 3/4 of it home for Jon for dinner that night so he got to enjoy a taste of Arthur Avenue as well. Lastly, we all had a small bowl of ice cream for dessert. We had wanted gelato but their freezer had been left over and their basement was covered in gelato so that was not meant to be.

The meal lasted about 3-3.5 hours! It was a lot of food but it was over a lot of time and it was so good. I came home and immediately changed for the gym and was down there for 90 minutes. I felt fine the next day!

Overall, I loved eating on Arthur Avenue. I would definitely return (with reservations again of course.) I would know to eat light before going next time:) It's a hidden gem and next time I would love to look in the Italian Deli's and Gourmet Food Shops to see what unique ingredients I might be able to pick up.

Post in Comments:

Have you ever eaten on Arthur Avenue?

What's your favorite Italian restaurant?

Tuesday Travels - The Bronx Zoo

(Tim on the tram as we're trying to meet up with our parents & Bridget!)

For Mother's Day my mom wanted to go to The Bronx Zoo. I hadn't been to The Bronx Zoo since I was probably 12 (oh if you could only see the photos from that trip - bad haircut and all!) So my brother and I met up and took the 5 train (because I have an aversion to the 1,2,3 trains) to 145th Street where we promptly had to switch to the 2 train because that was the only way to get to the Zoo (oops sorry Tim!)

We walked the couple of blocks from the subway station to the Zoo and were ready to go. Only problem, my parents were in Parking Lot B waiting for us and they had already purchased our tickets. We realize Gate A is not where we need to be so we ask the woman there how to get to Parking Lot B. She tells us to go out the corner and up the block and turn right when the street ends. So we walk the 15 minutes in the direction she says only to end up in Parking Lot C! Yikes. We walk up to the guy collecting money from the cars (and yes, a car pulled up behind us as we were asking him directions!) He informed us that Parking Lot B was literally on the opposite side of the Zoo from where we were and that the best way to get to them was to go through the Zoo.

We discovered that our parents could return the tickets they had purchased for us so we bought tickets and then tickets on the shuttle because everyone informed us that we couldn't possibly walk to where we needed to go. As we were on the shuttle driving to the other side of the park my brother was looking at the map and realized it would have taken us 10-15 minutes to walk it. Oh well...lesson learned.

(The trainer feeding the sea lions.)

After meeting up with our mom, dad & Bridget (our grandmother) we caught the feeding of the sea lions! I love the sea lions. They did all sorts of fun tricks and it was fun to watch them.

(A picture of the baby sea lion - he was just a pup!)

After the Sea Lions we walked through the monkey house, saw the bears, baboons, tigers, etc. We also took a tram ride through the Asia section of the park. There we got to see the elephants, rhinoceros, different kinds of deer, wild horses among other things. We spent a good 2 1/2 hours wandering the zoo.

(The Giraffes!)

All in all once we met up we really had a nice time at the zoo. We just walked our own pace and saw what we were able to see. Everyone had a really nice time! Jon and I need to go back this summer...I didn't get to see the gorillas which I'd like to see and Jon has never been to The Bronx Zoo and it's on our NYC list. So I'm sure I'll be posting about it again. It's a great day trip for people of ALL ages!

Post in Comments:

What is your favorite animal to see at the Zoo?

Mine is easily the penguins or the giraffes!