Thursday, January 10, 2008

Pantry Dinners: Tuesday/Wednesday

I'm sad to say that I couldn't make this recipe because my butternut squash had molded. I quickly realized that substituting an acorn squash was a pain in the ass. In defeat, I just roasted the acorn with some olive oil, salt and pepper, then splashed on a bit of balsamic vinegar.



Okay, if you're like me, the best balsamic you've ever had cost $3 at Walmart. Well, that's all changed. I asked for a bottle of decent quality balsamic and olive oil for Christmas. I haven't been able to really use the olive oil yet, but this balsamic is amazing. It's not the $120 a bottle stuff, but if $16 is good enough to make me drink it straight from the bottle then I could care less. What I bought in the supermarket was a fraction of low-grade balsamic and mostly red wine vinegar. This is the real stuff. It's tangy and salty and sweet and ohmygod it made my paltry, too-old acorn squash a delicious treat. Both the oil and vinegar were ordered from iqourmet.



Wednesday night I was starving, but didn't want to move. At all. However, I did come up with the tastiest rice dish I've had in a long time. 1 package saffron rice, my last stick of chorizo, half a can each of black beans and diced tomatoes, and a few knife-fulls of smoked paprika did the trick. Top with a bit of cheese and I'm still enjoying it.

1 comment:

Mariana said...

I was wondering how the new b. vinegar was. Is it as salty, bitter as the cheapie stuff from the grocery store? That stuff is just nasty. I can't even imagine what really good Balsamic taste like. No, just can't imagine it...
You need to get a good loaf of bakery bread from the store and just use some of that new olive oil for dipping to see how that is too.
Your rice looks really good.