RANDOM FEASTS

When it has been cold and rainy for days, sometimes the best thing you can do is get out of the house. We braved the blustery winds and met a couple for dinner in a little town close to home. Having been to this restaurant a few times, I had always wanted to check out the Mexican market next door to it. Do you ever wander down the aisles of the ethnic foods in the supermarket? I love doing that, wondering how everything goes together to make a meal foreign to me. Well, I had a blast in this little market.
Soon I had my little basket loaded to the brim with tamales, peppers, cilantro, chipotle sauce and chorizo sausage. In the meat section I ordered some beef riblets and a big cut of flank steak. In my head I was putting together a Mexican feast for dinner today.

Emily is gong to cook the riblets very slow in the crockpot in a sweet and spicy sauce used for tacos. She has become quite a cook and relies heavily on recipes printed out from the Food Network. I am going to marinate the flank steak for a few hours and then stuff it with sausage, poblano peppers, cheese and cilantro. Then I'll come up with a spicy sauce to pour over it. Pictures of our fiesta to come, and recipes if you want {if you trust me, I'm not using any}.
Surprisingly, the restaurant next door to the Mexican market is an Italian Trattoria. The restaurant, Island's Cafe, is named after the town, Blue Island, just a short drive from the south side of Chicago. It's a cosmopolitan mix of Italian and Mexican ethnicity. It also has some fabulous antique stores that I always mean to stop into one day.
The pictures get dark here, I'm still not that great at taking pictures in low light. You can see how small and intimate the place is. We went with another couple and had a great time. I had veal scallopinni on a bed of sauteed spinach and cheese. Oh, heaven. And I forgot the picture.
Here is The Husband and me, happy for a dinner out. We really had a good time.
And yesterday I received a little gift from Home Depot...
...my rototiller. If it weren't so wet out, my garden tilling would be underway. But we have to wait several days until the ground dries. I never thought I could get so excited over a machine. And The Husband is excited that he has something to till the beach with. I'll refrain from showing you pictures of the progress of my seedlings, but they are growing like mad. Soon I can put them in bigger pots.

I hope all of you are having a great weekend. Did you do anything fun? I'll let you know how this dinner turns out here in Kitchen Stadium, and I'll take some pictures. See you next week! :-)