What We Ate: 6/7-6/13

 For Monday night's dinner I made one of my old favorites. Bacon Pasta. At least that's what the family calls it. Cook up some pre-cut bacon. Cook some pasta. Pour cream or half and half over the drained pasta. Throw in an abundance of parmesan or pecorino.  Generous drops of salt and pepper. Throw in the bacon and either arugula or spinach. I prefer arugula, children prefer spinach. Mix it all together. Maybe add red pepper flakes. Maybe add more cheese. It's simple and comforting and quick.

On Tuesday night a request was made for my lemon chicken.  It was an easy enough request to fulfill. I spent most of the free seconds of the day thinking about what would go with it. Potatoes seemed the obvious answer and I remembered that I had been thinking about patatas bravas. I remember ordering them in Barcelona, Spain many many years ago. I don't remember what they were like, but I remember thinking I was rather sophisticated ordering them. That's how memory works sometimes. We can't recall the details, but we remember the essences. And so on tonight's menu were these Patatas Bravas. Also, there was ratatouille. And homemade chocolate chip cookies. 

We spent three hours out on the lake paddle boarding on Wednesday. I was pretty starving when I was making dinner, but amazingly I didn't eat everything in sight until we actually sat down to dinner at the table sometime around 6. There were some repeats tonight: Patatas Bravas and those chocolate chip cookies. The patatas bravas because there was so much sauce left and the boys were huge fans of it and the girl was jealous that she hadn't tried them the night before. The chocolate chip cookies because it was essentially a slice and bake recipe and the idea is that we won't have perfectly good cookies go to waste because they're a little stale. In addition to that, we're having sheet pan tostadas and Esquites. For the Esquites, I didn't quite serve them the way it said to, but I don't think that really matters. I just left the corn in the sauce. The sheet pan tostadas seem harder than they are. Since I've made them before, I use the base recipe and kind of wing it from there. The key is the cumin lime salt anyway. 

Thursday found us swimming in grandma's pool over in Durham. Whenever we get home from a day spent there, we're always a little tired. So dinner is simple. We made some creamy lemon pasta and also some ravioli with red sauce as back up because I wasn't quite sure who was eating with us. There was veg on the side, of course. 

When Friday afternoon rolled around, I realized it was going to be a date night. Just the two of us. All I really could think about was either a Campari spritz or a gin and tonic with grapefruit instead of lime or maybe a watermelon margarita. It was really a toss up. As far as dinner, I dug out some sausage and cooked up some sweet potatoes and eggplant. As it turned out, the spritz and other fancy drinks would have to wait as we wound up bringing the food to a brewery where we met up with some of our favorite bike shop customers. 

By Saturday afternoon, I really wanted that spritz and I also really wanted seafood. So on my way back from a long run, I stopped at the store and picked up way too much seafood for two people. There were scallops and mussels and clams and lots of garlic and butter and lemon and white wine and parsley and bread to soak it up with. Plus I got my spritz. 

I didn't exactly give up on cooking on Sunday, but we wound up taking one of our running/riding trips towards Saxapahaw and snagged a reservation at The Eddy Pub where we indulged in burgers and fries. Then we somehow found ourselves on the patio of our local Mexican restaurant eating chips and queso later that evening. It had been so long that we ate any food like that it was kind of funny and delicious. And now we're full.