tuna melt special ala moon city cafe

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blue plate special

blue plate special

there used to be this great cafe in downtown springfield, when i was growing up, the moon city cafe.  my fam went all the time on saturdays.  i loved it. a little dingy and funky with npr always playing.  my favorite thing to get, a tuna melt with pasta salad.  i had the sudden realization the other night when for dinner i was making but what?  a tuna melt with pasta salad, i think since the age of 10 i may have been trying to recreate my favorite meal at moon city!  this i will say was one of the best versions of the melt plus pasta salad combo in a long while.  the secret to this time’s success?   oh the wonderful sandwich maker!  this is my ode to moon city cafe.  i do miss you so!!

meatless monday — muffaletta revisited

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a little muffaletta

a little muffaletta

the question was…..can you freeze a whole muffaletta?  the answer is YES!  when i made a vegan muffaletta for meatless monday some months back i had a whole uncut muffaletta left over.  so the experiment began, freezing the sandwich.  this week was a clean out the freezer week and the muffaletta came out for this monday’s meatless dinner.  and yes shockingly you can freeze a muffaletta.  i rebaked it and added a little provolone cheese.  it was as yummy as the first time.  the ladies at work got curious about it when i brought in the leftovers for lunch.  this resulted in a little muffaletta tasting with the extra slices.  conclusion…….yum!

meatless monday — black and bleu baked potato

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now that’s some hearty eating

yep the baked potato has fully won me over.  for meatless monday i got a tad creative with my toppings.  my plan was to create a black and bleu potato.  now traditionally black and bleu means beef with bleu cheese but come on folks this is MEATLESS MONDAY, no beef for me.  looking for the best black substitute i could find i stumbled across a homemade black bean burger patty in the freezer…..perfect.  the potato was topped with the smashed up black bean patty, bleu cheese and on the side was a spinach salad topped with bleu cheese and poppy-seed dressing. for an on the fly creation this one was pretty damn good.

meatless monday — “lets do dinner!!!” vi

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pumpkin gnocchi

for this dinner party get together i was half worried i had gotten over ambitious.  the menu included homemade pumpkin gnocchi, a fall spinach salad, and for dessert a pear-apple tart.  gnocchi is one of those wonderful things potato dumpling pasta, yes, yes and more please. and i soon discovered actually very easy to make.

the guest list included the hargiss siblings, cythnia, ashley, cassie and adam.  topics of conversation included, tales of our childhood pets, how parental units can seem just crazy, various art topics, and expectations of ghost tours.

the crowd gathers

i was suffering from a cold so i could basically taste nothing of the gnocchi.  so sad indeed.  but eating it as leftovers a few days later i realized it was a warm yummy fall dish.  though it could have used a bit more curry and nutmeg for my taste and the best part of it was the cranberries, but when are cranberries not the best part.  overall though i felt and i think most the guests would agree, the salad was freaking amazing.  last minute, thrown together spinach and pear salad that i’m know crowning as the “fall spinach salad,” the secret ingredient, roasted pumpkin seeds!

a plate of fall yum

dessert of an apple-pear tart was also accompanied with me busting out my abundance of leftover infused whiskies to sample.  tea cups were passed around and the smelling, sifting, and sipping began. ( the tart was also very yummy and bad for an excellent breakfast tart the rest of the week.)

brown sugar and butter you just can’t go wrong

this meatless monday was an excellent end of the year bash for the monday dinner parties.  i won’t be starting them back up till after the new year.  although i am secretly counting down the days till i get a christmas tree, make wassel, and a whole lot of christmas cookies to share around the fire!

RECIPE:  FALL SPINACH SALAD

serves 4-6

1 bag fresh spinach leaves (washed)

1/2 cup roasted pumpkin seeds

1/2 cup pear slices (sliced 1/8 inch thick)

1/3 cup red onion slices

juice from 1/2 lemon

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 1/2 TBSP olive oil

* whisk together lemon juice, garlic powder, black pepper, and olive oil in a small bowl.  set aside.

* in a large bowl toss together spinach leaves, pumpkin seeds and red onion.  right before serving toss salad with dressing (dressing may need a quick re-whisking)

“c’est vendredi, le gin dans le frigo” (aka national french week)

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after about  8 years worth of french classes from high school through college, that is the one phrase still embedded into my head.   in college my professor on fridays would come in asking the question “quel jour sommes nous?”  (what day is it?)  we had all been instructed to reply “c’est vendredi, le gin dans le frigo!”  (it’s friday, the gin is in the fridge)  oh how many times i feel like saying that when i see our french teacher wandering the hallways, never more so than last week, when he had the entire building celebrating “national french week.”

bleu, blanche, rouge

the cafeteria of course did our part for french week. the entire cafe was decked out with french and canadian flags and for each day we had signs that translated the menu.

got some french pride?

en francise, si-vous plait

the building was outfitted with signs and information all about french culture and naming the parts of the building.  and we could see the classes playing petanque, aka bocce, or lawn bowling.  i love petanque. have my own set in fact, really kind of want to join petanque club.  the kids also had these passports that they were supposed to get signed after having a conversation in french with someone.  once they figured out i could speak french my line for my register got a little longer.   national french week made me miss the days of french club with nutella and everyone counting down the chapters till you got to the food unit which meant cultural day aka french food and party, where sometimes i would bust out my accordion.  all i wanted to do all french week was show up in the french class and be like lets make crepes!!  maybe i need to join french club again.

meatless monday — loaded baked potato

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baked potato yumminess

i never buy potatoes.  this statement always seems somewhat dumbfounding to my german-irish family.  “you don’t eat potatoes?!”  is the usually reply.  yes i eat them i just often don’t think about making them for myself.  yet of late i’ve had potatoes sitting around from various recipes i’ve crafted for dinner parties.  with meatless monday needing to be simple and easy i thought why not a baked potato!  (note….i actually had to call my mom and ask how to cook the baked potato.)

conclusion……oh my god why don’t i make baked potatoes more often?!?!  my potato was coated with olive oil and sea salt and pepper.  once out of the oven i topped it with goat cheese and roasted red peppers.  mmmmmmmm    and it never hurts to have a few vegetarian buffalo wings to go with it.  this weekend i even bought a bag of potatoes just to have around for instant yummy dinners.  here’s to the baked potato!!

a chilli of a halloween

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that’s a fall meal

halloween is my favorite holiday.  i however am not a big fan of going out and doing things on halloween.  my favorite way to spend halloween is cooking up a yummy dinner, drinking a fall beer, and watching my most favorite halloween movie, “arsenic and old lace.”  this year i cooked up some turkey chilli to make frito pie, homemade cinnamon rolls and treated myself to a mother’s oktoberfest brew.  while i watched the movie i consumed my dessert an andy’s pumpkin pie concrete, honestly it’s there best specialty concrete they make.  it was a prefect halloween!