This Week’s Menu: Two at the Table Menu Week of April 6 2015

Easter is here and we were very successful overall in avoiding the things we gave up for Lent: meats, sweets, snacks, and quacks. (The quacks represent poultry; not many words rhyme with poultry.) We weren’t perfect, but if you’ve been reading our blog, you know that we didn’t make any dishes with meat or make any desserts. All of the times we cheated were tied to plans we had made before Lent started or celebrations of various sorts with friends or co-workers. We weighed the options and it seemed justified (or at least justifiable!) to cheat a little bit in those cases.

Now that there are no restrictions on what we can make, we were both a little surprised that the first dish out of the post-Lent gate wasn’t something like Steak Au Poivre or Pistachio-Crusted Rack of Lamb. We found we didn’t miss meat as much as we thought we would, plus we both lost a little weight. We don’t have any plans to go vegetarian, but we’re probably going to feature more vegetarian dishes on the blog going forward. (Full disclosure though: we’re spending Easter with Tony’s parents, which means spaghetti and meatballs followed by roasted lamb, so it’s not like we went very long without eating meat again!)

It’s another busy week, but we’re going to try to make four dishes, two that we’ve made before and two that are entirely new. We were also able to get a reservation on Saturday night for El Original, Lisa Fain, The Homesick Texan’s new restaurant, so we’re super-excited about that!

Tony is going to Opening Day at Yankee Stadium with some friends on Monday, so he will probably go out for dinner with his buddies. Since Kim also has dinner plans, so we won’t be making dinner.

On Tuesday though, we’re making a fun dish from Ina Garten, Herb-Roasted Fish, which we’ve made a couple of times before, including once for our friends Tom and Sharon. Making this dish involves using parchment paper to make a packet containing the fish, some thyme, and green olives, and then baking the packet in the oven. It’s simple and delicious. We’ll serve this with some sautéed broccolini and a 2014 Wolffer Estate Rose suggested by Michael from Wines by the Flask.

We’ll try a new recipe on Wednesday, one that will let us continue out mostly meatless theme: Real Simple’s Mustardy Kale Salad With Roasted Sweet Potato and Apple. We’ve never made this one before, but it sounds easy and very different from what we normally make, so we want to give it a try. We’ll have this dish with a 2013 Domain Daniel Pollier Macon-Fuisee, a white burgundy wine.

Kim will be out of town Thursday night, so Tony will be on his own. He is planning to make the Hip Foodie Mom’s Mushroom, Onion and Thyme Galette, which he has made before. This is a little ambitious for a weeknight, but we’ve purchased pre-sliced mushrooms and will try to slice up the onions in advance too. Even though the galette has to bake for quite a whole, making the dough is very easy, so this is not as daring as it seems. Tony will enjoy this with a 2012 Marchione Langhe Arenas.

We saw a new recipe in the New York Times today for Roasted Chicken Provencal and we thought it would be a fun dish for a Friday night. It’s made with shallots and herbs de Provence (a mixture that usually contains savory, marjoram, rosemary, thyme, oregano and lavender). We love both, so we were won over right away. We’ll serve this with a simple green salad with a mustard vinaigrette and lots of crusty French bread. We’ll pair it with a 2012 Cuvee Marie Juracon Sec.