Sunday Dinner

We usually take a bit of a break from cooking once the weekend hits, but tonight we got back in the kitchen for some lamb chops, beet greens, and roasted cauliflower.  We kept the lamb simple, seasoning them with a little salt, pepper, and fresh rosemary, and threw them on the grill pan.  Though things got a little smokey, we managed to not set off the smoke detector, and get some perfectly medium chops.

The beet greens were saved after making some beet chips earlier in the day.  More on those in a little bit though.  We just sauteed the greens with a little garlic, olive oil and butter.  I hadn't had them before, but they were really tasty...similar in texture to sauteed spinach, but they still had the sweetness of the beets.  The roasted cauliflower is one of our favorite side dishes.  We first had it at Graffiato, Mike Isabella's restaurant in DC.  The seasonal, Italian-inspired, small plates never disappoint.  We've made a few attempts at recreating this dish, and have come pretty close, considering the menu simply lists roasted cauliflower, mint and pecorino as the ingredients.  But now that Chef Isabella's cookbook is out, we have the recipe in hand.  Its super simple, and super tasty.  Between the 2 of us, we almost ate a ginormous head of cauliflower in one sitting.

are you drooling yet?

We capped it off with a little salad to finish off our creasy greens, topped with some red onion, chopped walnuts and gorgonzola.  We usually make our own dressing when we have salad.  In this case, we used some orange muscat champagne vinegar that we picked up on a recent expedition to Trader Joe's and some olive oil.  The sweetness and citrus was a perfect complement for our salad.

As for the beet chips I mentioned a little earlier...I like beets, but they aren't something I would normally buy. When I hear beets, I think back to my childhood and the cartoon "Doug".  The beauty of the CSA is that it gives you a chance to try something out of your normal routine.  So what were we to do with these beets?

We turned to our friend Gojee for some ideas.  If you haven't heard of Gojee, you need to check them out.  You can tell them what you're craving, what ingredients you have, ingredients you don't like, etc. and it will search the interwebs for recipes that fit your criteria.  That's how we stumbled upon the recipe for beet chips.  They couldn't be simpler: peel the beets, slice the beets, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and pop 'em in the oven.  

A simple, tasty and healthy little treat!  Now if only we could get a few more weekend days before heading back to work tomorrow.  The weekend always flies by too fast.