Here Come the Zucchini

Last time I wrote about our garden, the zucchini were still in their infancy. Now, as zucchini always does, they're coming fast and furious. This year we decided to grow an heirloom variety called Cocozelle, which are shaped entirely different than the more typical long style. These guys are nearly round when they're grown out!

This past Monday, as a part of our regular Meatless Monday, Cyn put together a side dish that turned out so well I wanted to devote this blog entry to it. It was simple, quick to put together and really tasty. It even reheated well the next day when I took the leftovers to work for lunch.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup shredded parmigiano cheese (almost any good melting cheese would work well)
• 1 small shallot, minced
• 1 small hot pepper, minced (optional, but we like it hot)
• minced fresh herbs (optional - summer or winter savory, oregano, parsley and thyme all work)
• melted butter
• 1 pound of zucchini cut into 1/4 inch rounds, slices, or strips (your choice)
• salt

Note: The more common long zucchini will work just as well!


Preparation

• Slice the zucchini, salt lightly and allow to stand on paper towels for 10-15 minutes. This will draw out some of the natural liquid contained in them, much like you would do with an eggplant.
• Dip one side of each zucchini slice in the breadcrumbs - it will form a nice crunchy base
• Place the zucchini slices on a silicone mat (to prevent sticking) on a sheet pan
• Mix the breadcrumbs, cheese, shallot, hot pepper, and herbs together
• Drizzle a little melted butter onto each zucchini slice
• Sprinkle the mixed ingredients on to each slice

• Cook in a 400 degree convection oven (425 degree regular oven) until the cheese is melted and begins to lightly brown

• Remove and serve hot

 

These little beauties are crunchy yet creamy, delicious and pretty darn healthy. Since we have so many zucchini in the garden, we spent some time talking about what else we might do with them and came up with a few ideas for future meals.

- Build a Zucchini Parmigiano sandwich (much like eggplant parm) with fresh tomato and mozzarella

- Fan the baked peice out on a plate and position fried eggs on top for a complete meal with protein

- Make a veggie Napoleon with the zucchini, tomato, ricotta and basil leaves

The possibilities are probably endless. How would you use them?

Cyn's Summer Pasta Salad

It's been hot in Northern Virginia this Spring and early Summer. So far in July we've had 6 days over 100F (38C) and the prediction is that we will end this month as the hottest ever on record for the Washington DC area. This past Monday was no exception, very hot, humid and sticky. When it's that uncomfortable, the thought of eating something hot just isn't that appealing. So I was pleasantly surprised when Cynthia told me we were having a cold pasta salad for our Meatless Monday dinner. Here is her recipe for this delicious and refreshing dish.

Ingredients (the dressing)

• 2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1/4 cup white balsamic (can substitute white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar)
• heaping tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup oil, I like EVOO

 Ingredients (the salad)

• about 1 cup corn, cut from two ears or cheat and use a can of corn, we grilled our corn before use here

•  1 1/2 pounds zucchini, julienne, placed in colander and tossed with 2 tsp kosher salt.  Let sit an hour, squeeze excess moisture out and pat dry. Do not skip the salting, your zucchini will create a water bath in the salad and the salad will be highly under seasoned. 

• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, torn or shredded, your preference
• 8 ounces fresh mozzarella, cubed or purchase bocconcini or ciliegine (small fresh mozzarella balls and smaller fresh mozzarella balls, respectively)
• optional, used here: oil cured black olives and fresh chives
• 1/2 pound of pasta, one with curls and/or ridges to catch and hold the dressing, Campanelle from Barilla was used in this recipe.  (I find Barilla brand pastas tend to hold their shape very well in a cold pasta preparations.)

Preparation

•  Cook your pasta a minute or two less than package instructions, or until it's just tender.  Dump into a colander and pass under cold running water just until it's cool enough not to melt your mozzarella, but still warm.

• Whisk all dressing ingredients together and throw in the mozzarella and tomatoes to marinate while you deal with the zucchini and pasta. 

• Once pasta and zucchini are ready, mix everything together and serve.  

 
If you want, you can make this a couple of days ahead, but let it sit out for half an hour or so and wait until just before service before adding the basil.  This recipe doubles well, and makes a fantastic base for grilled shrimp that has been marinated in garlic and lemon on those non-meatless days of the week. Served wit
  h a nice roll or even better yet, garlic bread, this makes a perfect hot summer night meal.

Oven Roasting Fresh Tomatoes for Pasta Sauce

A while back I wrote a post about using the preserved tomato sauce from 2008 that we still had in our pantry. It was the last jar of what was the best tomato crop we have grown -- to date. This weekend we picked and roasted the first batch from this year's garden with high hopes that we could match the richness of flavor from that magical year.

I wanted to share the process, especially since it's so simple, at least up to the canning, which I won't cover here. Those of you that can know it's not really hard, just a little time consuming.

The first step is pretty obvious, get yourself some tomatoes. We like to grow our own, but you can also buy them from a farm or farm market. Here's a little tip if you decide to buy -- offer to buy the "seconds", you know, the less than perfect tomatoes that everyone else has passed on. They can have blemishes, partial spoilage and even the occasionally bug hole. Don't worry, you're going to cut away any bad parts and you'll be surprised how little waste there is. Most farmers will be happy to sell you these orphans at a reduced price. Don't be afraid to haggle! Later in the season we'll do exactly that after our plants have exhausted their yield.

For now though, we are happily picking beautiful fruit from our plants. Here's what we got this weekend.

As you can see we like o grow a pretty wide variety of tomatoes. This year we planted the following varieties: Tigerella, Juliette, Sausage, White Cherry, Sungold, Boxcar Willie, Legend, Hawaiian Pineapple, Green Zebra, Black Zebra, Tommy Toe, Brandywine Red and Viva Italia. Not all came ripe at the same time but many are in this batch.

First, give them a light rinse to remove any remaining soil. You'll need a good sharp paring knife and a sturdy, oven safe roasting pan with high sides, the kind you might cook your Thanksgiving turkey in (no, not one of those cheap foil one's you buy in a supermarket, this is going to get heavy). Cut the tomatoes in chunks. I know that's a technical term but I'm sure you'll figure it out. The point is that the relative size isn't that important. You can even leave the cherry tomatoes whole. Fill the roasting pan almost to the top if you have enough tomatoes. Don't worry, they'll cook down in size as they release their liquid and some of it boils off. Add multiple (another technical term) cloves of whole garlic. The amount is really "to taste" so you may need to experiment some. We like a lot and fortunately we just harvested our garlic from the garden a few weeks ago.

 

Add a liberal amount of extra virgin olive oil (1/4 - 1/2 cup) to the pan, stirring just enough to get things coated. Add salt (about 1 tsp Kosher salt per quart of tomatoes). Put the pan into a 425 degree oven and walk away -- at least for while. The tomatoes on top will eventually start to brown. This is a good time to open the oven just long enough to stir the mixture up bring new tomatoes to the top. Repeat this process every time the tomatoes on top brown. How do I know when they're done you ask? Well, it's a little bit of a feel thing but what we look for is that the water to pulp ratio is about even and all the tomatoes are "broken down." All the skins will be loose and mostly separated from the meat.

Remove the pan from the oven and move to somewhere safe, we use the stove top. Warning, warning, warning! At this point, the mixture is pretty loose and at pretty much the temperature of lava. Make sure the kids and pets are out of the way. Allow to cool to room temperature.

You'll need a way to remove the skins and seeds and convert this beautiful mixture into a silky smooth sauce. We use a hard food mill we bought from Williams Sonoma years ago. It's a little bit of work put wonderfully gratifying to do. The food mill grinds the tomato meat, passes the liquid and removes the skins which are then discarded.

The sauce is now ready to be used as is, "doctored" into a variety of other tomato based creations, canned for future use or even frozen! The roasted garlic flavor will be there no matter which of the methods you pick and no matter how long you store the canned or frozen sauce.

I've said it before but it bears repeating, there is nothing better than opening a jar of this magic in the middle of winter and getting that garden fresh taste.

Four Seasons Food hosted by Delicieux and Chezfoti

Nine Wonderful Days In Ireland

It's been more than 2 weeks since I posted anything and I'm feeling a little guilty about it. If it matters, I do have an excuse -- I've just returned from a 9 day trip to Ireland! It was part holiday and part business, both of which went well. Cynthia was with me and we thoroughly enjoyed the people, the golf, the culture, the scenery and the beer.

During our visit we managed to rent a car and drive to two of our three rounds of golf. For those of you who have never driven on the "wrong side of the road", it's not as intimidating as it sounds. After about 15 minutes it seemed pretty natural. I should mention that the vehicle we rented was a standard transmission so shifting with the left hand added a little spice to the equation.  Some of the roads are pretty narrow, more like a lane and a half than two but there seems to be way more courtesy on Irish roads than in the US, so things have a way of working themselves out.



For those of you that might be golfers, two of the courses we played are pretty famous, and now having played them, I understand why. Ballybunion was first opened in 1893 and consistently ranks in the top 100 courses in the world. Perched on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, it's a typical links style course that offers amazing views and a real challenge to golfers of any skill level. We caught it on a rather benign day, no rain, modest winds, and with the help of our caddy Lez, had great time playing with two Irish Catholic priests who were visiting from Dublin. Maybe we got the good weather thanks to Father Enda and Father John.

The next day, another one without rain until the front edge of a storm rolled in as we were playing the last hole, we played Tralee, an Arnold Palmer course built in 1984. Most golfers have heard Palmer's famous quote, "Yes, I designed the front nine, but God clearly designed the back nine.". Hyperbole right? No, understatement! Numbers 10-18 at Tralee are, by far, the most dramatic, breathtaking and challenging holes of golf I've ever played. Once again, perched on the cliffs of southwestern Ireland, overlooking the ocean, I felt like I was on a computer graphically generated version of a golf video game. Huge elevation changes, forced carries, blind approaches and views that I would gladly pay to go back and see again made it truly memorable. I'll admit I was a little bit jealous of our caddy Tommy, since this glorious place was his office.

Our final round in Ireland was at the Killeen course at the Killarney Golf and Fishing Club. This course was the site of the 2010 and 2011 Irish Open and came highly recommended. However, that part of Ireland has had the wettest spring/summer in recent memory and the condition of the course has suffered from it. We got rained on for 6 of the 18 holes and left not particularly enjoying the layout. To be fair, it would have been hard for any course to follow Ballybunion and Tralee.

On to the food!

What we learned in our 9 days was that what the Irish do, they do very well. The ingredients are amazingly fresh and local, the food is prepared excellently and it is always brought to the table piping hot (this may seem a small thing but for me, it's not). Meats tend to be beef, lamb and chicken. Seafood is everywhere (it is an island after all) and super fresh. Vegetables are often an afterthought, except for the potatoes. If you go to Ireland, prepare to get your potato fix. They are a part of every traditional Irish breakfast and are served with basically every other meal of the day. One day, in a pub, Cynthia ordered Potato Cakes as her main dish. They were made by taking mashed potatoes, adding smoked chicken and a few pieces of vegetable then forming a cake which was then sauteed and covered in a mushroom gravy. Delicious actually. It arrived on a plate with a small green salad and a large portion of beautiful fries! That's right, potatoes with potatoes.

I did have one traditional potato dish that was new to me -- boxty. On my Meatless Monday in Ireland, I was in a restaurant with a group of work colleagues and their spouses. The set menu offered choices of beef, lamb, fish and pork. The staff had been told in advance that one vegetarian meal would be required and they came through beautifully serving me a traditional vegetable boxty. Basically, boxty is a mixture of finely grated raw potato, mashed potato, flour baking soda and egg.the mixture is fried in a griddle pan for a few minutes on each side, forming a thin "pancake" which is plated, filled with anything that you like and folded over in half creating a kind of unsealed calzone. In my case in was a mix of chopped vegetables in a thickened sauce. Very tasty.


In my opinion, the Irish do fish and chips better than the English. It is always amazingly fresh, fried to perfection and served right out of the fryer. The chips are thick cut, crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside and snap when you bite them. Also worth mentioning is the tea. As a tea drinker (I don't so coffee) I was happy to find a country full of tea drinkers who served a good black tea that they steeped quite long making it full and strong.Everything we had baked, breads, scones in the morning, even the toast served every morning with breakfast, was wonderful. The Irish swear it's because their dairy products are different from ours. Read different as better. I can attest to the fact that Irish butter is way better than anything you find in your local supermarket.

Interestingly, the very best meal we had in Ireland was at a traditional Italian restaurant -- Cucina Italiano, in Killarney town. We stumbled in one evening while walking around town trying to decide what to eat. I'd recommend anyone who is in Killarney to set aside on evening for a meal at this place. After the fact, we saw many people referring to this as the best Italian restaurant in Ireland on the internet.We also had a very good meal at the Lime Tree restaurant in Kenmare, a beautiful town known for having some of the best food in Ireland.

All in, we had a wonderful first trip to Ireland and look forward to returning some day.

Not Rachel Ray, But Well Worth The Extra Ten Minutes....

This week for Meatless Monday, we decided to see if we could back up Cynthia's words from her recent blog post and make a great meal without a lot of fuss and in a modest amount of time. Working together, without rushing, our plan was to make:

Three Cheese Ravioli with Garlic Scape Pesto and Baby Beets with their Sauteed Greens

Although we didn't quite enter into the Rachel Ray realm of 30 minutes, we did sit down to eat 40 minutes after we started, and it was well worth the extra 10 minutes!

Before you ask, no, we didn't make the ravioli from scratch. There are actually a few brands of packaged frozen ravioli available these days that are quite good. We used Rosetto Cheese Ravioli, available in many supermarkets. We did, however, grow the beets and the garlic scapes used in making the pesto. 

If you're unfamiliar with garlic scapes, they are  the flower stalks of hardneck garlic plants that produce a "bulb" that is both edible and delicious. It has a definite garlic flavor but is typically milder that the actual garlic. Here they are, next to the baby beets and their greens that we used for this recipe.

Here is a quick "timeline" of how it went down.

6:00 - Big pot of water onto boil, toaster oven on 425 F to preheat, shelled 1/3 cup of pistachios, grated 1/3 cup parmigiano cheese.

6:05 - Blender/food processor set up, pistachios into toaster oven

6:10 - Clean beets and greens and prep an ice bath (simply a bowl of water with ice) to receive cooked beets and greens

 6:15 - Beets into boiling water for approx 5 mins (remember, these are baby beets and don't need a long cooking time -- and leaving them with a little crunch adds to the finished dish)

6:20 - Beet greens into boiling water for about 30 seconds to 1 minute, literally, no longer, beets and greens into ice bath to stop the cooking process and hold the colors

6:20 - Grrrrrrrrrr, discard first batch of pistachios (forgot them and they burned), shell 1/3 cup more, back into toaster oven, paying more attention this time.

6:25 - Make pesto by adding scapes, toasted nuts, olive oil and parmigiano cheese to blender. Blend until smooth.

6:25 - Drop ravioli into boiling water used for beets and greens. Cook 5-7 minutes (or per package instructions)

6:32 - Drain pasta water, reserving 1 cup, leaving ravioli in the pot. Add pesto and that cup of pasta water back. Add beet greens. On medium heat, gently stir to combine and heat thoroughly. 

6:40 - Plate ravioli , add grated parmigiano cheese to taste nd garnish with baby beets. Serve while hot!

Just goes to show that you can get a pretty spectacular plate to the table in 40 minutes. Sure, there were two of us, but getting someone else involved is half the fun. Yes the burnt pistachios set us back a few minutes, but don't let those kind of setbacks kill the fun. Just fix it and move on.

A little hint: you can use almost anything to make a pesto, parsley, basil, broccoli, etc. The pistachios can traded out for other nuts. Experiment, don't feel like you can't put your own touch into it. Good proportions to begin your pesto quest are 1/3 cup main ingredient, garlic scapes in this case, 1/3c nuts, 1/3c good parmigiano reggiano (or any good hard grating cheese), 1/3c EVOO.  If using anything but garlic scapes, add a couple of cloves of garlic.  This will yield a fairly thick paste that turns into a beautiful sauce with the addition of a couple scoops of your pasta cooking water. 

P.S. Cynthia still thinks we could have done it in 30 minutes.

Herbs and Berries and Veggies, Oh My!

If Spring is kind (and it was this year in Northern Virginia), the first few days of summer are an exciting mix of things ready to eat, others growing rapidly and even more newly planted. We're not complete fresh food fanatics but we do really appreciate the difference between something you pick from from your own garden versus that which you can find at even the best (and priciest) grocery store.

So, rather than bore you with words, I'm going to let the pictures of our garden do the talking in this post. Enjoy!

The Herbs

Tuscan Blue rosemary w/ Pink Poodle echinacea

Santolina, thyme and chammomile

Lavender, upright rosemary, alpine strawberry

'Arp rosemary, fennel feet

Fennel Gone Wild --last measurement, 9' 9"

Artichoke, garlic chives, more Tuscan Blue, parsley, lovage, Greek oregano, ornamental salvia and portulaca

The Berries

Alpine strawberries - tiny but intensely delicious

Strawberries - gone now - but we had a bumper crop this year

 

 

 

Wild blackberries in our 'natural' area

Virginia's famous wine berries

The Veggies

Baby beets (Three Root Grex) and garlic scapes - just picked

Garlic fresh from the harvest

The tomato zone is full this year!

Clusters of 'Juliet tomatoes and a big fat mystery plant --it was marked 'Juliet as well!

Can't resist adding hot peppers to the garden!

'Socrates peppers

'Red Russian kale underplanted with a fancy schmancy mesclun mix from Johnny's Seeds

'Red Russian kale

'Bright Lights swiss chard with a horseradish back

'Homemade Pickles' cucumber seedlings

the newly planted bed o'beans --'Kentucky Wonder and 'Mellow Yellow

Leeks gone by but still beautiful.  We're hoping these beautiful flowers provide seeds for lots of 'leeklings'.

Potatoes - growing above ground in bags Cyn made from landscape fabric

Meatless Monday (and lots more) in Las Vegas

My first trip to Las Vegas was in 1972. Yeah, I'm that old. There are a lot of things to remember about that trip; playing blackjack in Caesar's Palace, even though I was under age, going to Hoover Dam for the first time and even seeing Elvis perform at the Hilton. Yes, THAT Elvis -- he wasn't even fat yet. Looking back, I find it hard to believe I actually saw Elvis perform live. I also remember you could get a full breakfast for 99 cents at any casino in town and most had all-you-can-eat dinner buffets for $3.99. It was all about getting you into their building to gamble. The food was plentiful but unspectacular.

I've been back to Las Vegas more than 20 times over the past 40 years and, needless to say, a lot has changed. Many of the hotels I saw on that first trip are gone, replaced with shiny new ones like the Wynn, the Cosmopolitan and the Palazzo. Over the years, Vegas has reinvented itself several times, including a failed attempt to portray itself as "family friendly." Now Vegas is back to its roots with the "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" campaign. But what has changed more than anything, at least in my opinion, is that Las Vegas is now an extraordinary food city.

Something happened in 1992 that changed the food culture in Las Vegas forever. That year, Wolfgang Puck opened a branch of his very successful Los Angeles restaurant, Spago, in the Forum Shops of Ceasar's Palace. Most people thought that the Vegas crowd, who had been trained to eat anything as long as it was cheap, would ignore the upscale and pricey interloper from California with the funny name. Wrong. It seemed that people on vacation and in town on business with expense accounts were more than ready to embrace a higher level of dining. Since then, every celebrity chef you've ever heard of and some that you haven't has opened one or more restaurants in town. Las Vegas is now THE destination for foodies that want to be able to eat the culinary stylings of everyone from Robuchon to Lagasse, from Flay to Keller and from Batali to Ramsey, all without leaving the Strip.

I recently spent 7 days in Las Vegas. Before you get all jealous -- it was (almost) all work. I did, however, get to three restaurants worth writing about, including one on Monday night, which presented a small challenge with stick to my Meatless Monday commitment.

The first of the three was Carnevino, (there must be some sort of cosmic irony that had me eating at a restaurant called Meat and Wine on Meatless Monday) one of the several restaurants that are partnerships of Mario Batali of Iron Chef fame and Joe Bastianich who has created quite the wine empire for himself. (I could be unkind here and say of his Mother Lidia's fame, but I won't).  I've been to several other Batali restaurants and have always come away happy, so I was looking forward to something good. Since this was a group dinner, we weren't ordering off of the regular menu.

The appetizer was set for everyone as a classic Caprese salad. I'm not a big fan of either fresh mozzarella or tomatoes but I will admit I ate most of it and really enjoyed it. The three main choices were a beef, a chicken and a fish -- all off the table for me since it was Monday. I spoke to the wait staff when we first arrived and asked if hey could accommodate a vegetarian meal. Without any hesitation they offered me several choices, all sounding great. I settled on a garganelli pasta with a ragout of mushrooms cooked in a brown butter sauce. When they served my dish, it was the sauce as advertised but on tagliatelle. I didn't particularly care and dove right in. About 3 minutes later, the waiter showed up with another full serving of the dish, this time on the garganelli. He apologized profusely and said he just wanted to make it right. Nice -- each of my five other table mates got a decent sized serving of the pasta from the extra dish. At least two of them told me they wished they had asked for a vegetarian meal! The wines were, as you would expect, spectacular, the pasta was made fresh and the mushroom sauce was perfect.

The second of the three was the Palm Steak House in Caesar's Palace. The Palm is  a national chain, founded in NYC in 1926 and is widely recognized for excellent steaks and seafood. Again this was a group dinner, although small enough this time to be able to order from the regular menu. I don't eat a lot of red meat these days, but when I do, I typically order a NY Strip steak. When we eat it at home, our usual portion size is 4-6 ounces, so when I saw that most of the steaks at the Palm were 16 oz and bigger, I defaulted to the only one that wasn't, the 9 oz fillet, not my favorite cut, but usually reliable. When I ordered it cooked medium, I told the waiter that it would be fine if it was a little on the medium rare side, knowing most fine steak houses will miss in that direction rather than the other. After having one of the finest wedge salads I've ever had (super crisp lettuce, tangy blue cheese crumbles and crispy fried onion straws), my steak arrived looked nicely charred on the outside. But when I cut into it, there was no pink warm center, it was medium well to say the least, and that may be being kind. Since I was sitting right next to my dinner host, I decided not to make a a big deal of it by sending it back, I didn't want to cause any sort of scene, so I just picked at it, eventually eating about a third of the steak. I know that every kitchen makes errors, but come on, this wasn't even close. Honestly, it was a waste of of good piece of meat. Although the classic side dishes were good, lyonnaise potatoes and creamed spinach, there is no making up for a badly cooked steak at a restaurant of this reputation. Dessert was served family style -- huge pieces of chocolate cake and carrots cake that were big enough to serve a family of 6 each. I sampled each, they were good, but I was pretty disinterested at that point. I really have no more to say about the Palm. On to a much better experience....

The last of my "big three" was another Batalli and Bastianich restaurant, aptly called B&B and located in the Venetian, my favorite hotel in Vegas. This time I was fortunate to have dinner with a friend who appreciates fine food and wine. We had great service, a great wine recommendation from the sommelier and pretty amazing food. Since this was a less business oriented dinner, I was able to spend a lot more time choosing and enjoying my meal. An added bonus was that my dinner companion felt, like I did, that sharing was a good thing.

There were so many good things on the menu that it was difficult deciding. After discussing it for a while we both decided to pass on the antipasti course and move right to the primi list of pastas. That is, until a guy walking by our table on his way out, told us to have the octopus appetizer. That's right, an unsolicited recommendation with the following words, "the best appetizer I've ever had, bar none, and I eat at a lot of restaurants." This was said as he pointed to his, shall we say ample stomach. So, how could we resist, we ordered the grilled octopus to share. The menu describes it as being served with borlatti marinati and a spicy limoncello vinaigrette. OK, I don't know who the guy was, but I wish I knew where to find and thank him. The octopus was perfectly grilled, succulent without a trace of rubbery texture and the borlatti beans were flavorful and al dente, the way beans should be served. The vinaigrette was a perfect foil for both.

Back to the original plan....we each ordered a pasta dish from the primi selections. I picked the bucatini all'amatriciana with guanciale and hot pepper and pecorino cheese. My friend picked one of the house specialties, Jose's Pyramids. The waiter explained these were named after the guy in the kitchen whose only job was to make these every day. Apparently the entire preparation takes six hours! Basically they was a hand made pasta, hand formed into a pyramid shape and filled with the creamiest, most savory short rib mixture ever. By this time, the waiter had figured out we were in it for the long haul and made the recommendation that he split each pasta dish into two, allowing each of us to have half of each. He further suggested that we do the pyramids first since the subtlety would be less appreciated if we were to eat the more aggressively flavored bucatini first. We liked this guy and took all of his suggestions.

Just about this time, the sommelier showed up asking if he could be of any help in choosing a wine. If you are a regular reader, you know I like red wine but don't really know it in depth. No fear - my friend did and he launched into a long and involved discussion about the merits af several reds from the amazing wine list. When he asked about a particular bottle of Barolo, the sommelier pointed out that, in his opinion that particular vintage would be better off with 10 and maybe 20 more years of aging. Yikes! Having a better idea of what we were looking for, he recommended a different Barolo saying that the 1996 was perfectly ready to be enjoyed. Um, he was right. To my uneducated tastes, this was a fantastic bottle of wine and paired perfectly with the pasta and main courses we told him we were considering.

At this point we were both pretty damn happy and were developing some high expectations for the main courses. Good news -- our expectations were met!

I had the grilled veal chop served with rhubarb mostarda and collard greens. I've eaten many a veal chop over the years and I'd have to say this one was the best. Cooked perfectly, this exceptional piece of meat was also presented beautifully with the greens placed just so on the chop. The slight bitterness of the greens and the little bit of sweetness of the rhubarb worked together to both complement and offset the richness of the veal.

 
 My friend had the rabbit porchetta with "vignole" and rabbit confit. The meat from the rabbit leg had been de-boned and made into a roulade. He was kind enough to share a bite with me (as I did with the veal for him) and it was pretty amazing. The meat was almost tender enough to cut with a fork! The surprising element of the dish was the sweet red pepper sauce that elevated the rabbit to a whole new place.

Finally, with our main courses, we shared a side of De Cecco broccoli served with peperoncino and garlic.

The waiter offered us the dessert menus, but I'm sure he wasn't at all surprised when we took a pass. I'm sure it would have been excellent, but we decided enough was enough. All in all a great meal. Good food, good service and good company makes a great combination. If you're in Las Vegas and have only one "special" dinner on your schedule, you won't go wrong by having it at B&B.

(I'm hoping my friend Brock will chime in in the comments section with his impressions, particularly of the rabbit)

P.S. I know this post is long -- I hope you made it all the way through to the end. If you did, thanks.