Random meals

We've had a bunch of random meals recently that I took pictures of, but they've just been sitting on the camera waiting for some kind of coherent post. That doesn't seem to be happening so I'm slapping them together in a random collection.

It was a random Sunday morning when G asked if we wanted to meet for brunch at La Fourchette. I've heard great things about La Fourchette but had never been since when I'm over in that part of town, I tend to head to Taka or maybe Antica Posta.

As it turns out, brunch is not quite as exciting as dinner. G got the branzino which has a nice filet on top of a frittata. Josh got the shrimp n grits. And I got this duck confit with eggs. The eggs are soft scrambled with cheddear, leeks, and calabrese chiles. I found they were a bit overcooked or they just sat in the pass. Their texture was okay though. The duck confit was deliciously tender.

I'd like to come back to this place for dinner.

I made a large batch of these Cecilia Chiang's dumplings for the freezer. They had been standing up extremely well to the normal boiling method. But I decided to follow the recipe exactly and pan fry them and serve them with a dipping sauce with black vinegar, chili oil, and ginger.

I added too much water to the pan and they got pretty messy. In the end, the bottoms -- and any browning -- stuck to the pan. Sigh. And I thought the regular dumpling sauce was better. Well, back to boiling for this batch.

This was our second to last CSA. Honestly, I am a little tired of the CSA. It's a lot for two people and we don't eat at home as much as we should. Plus, I had to get the last two pickups so I definitely feel the need to drive into Buckhead on Thursday afternoons.

We were looking for lunch in between normal serving hours. We headed over to Sapori di Napoli in Decatur. There was a gaggle of screaming children inside so we sat outside on the patio. I still wish for more char on their pizza, but it was pretty solid.

I was looking to make a lasagne. I mixed up a beef and sausage some san marzano tomatoes. Then slapped together the fastest lasagne (for me) ever with dekalb fresh lasagne sheets, nearly an entire two pound container of ricotta, and dotted the top with fresh mozzarella. Then I put it into the fridge and we cooked it the next day.

Super cheesy and delicious. And we got six meals out of it. Awesome!

I've been to Taka a lot recently. But when he said he had the best toro of first quarter, well, we went twice. Taka knows that I like uni a lot too, so I got a bunch of both in my sashimi omakase.

Summer has replaced the hot ramen with a cold vinegary ramen. I remember not really liking it the last time I had it but I did enjoy it a lot. Though I do still like the hot ramen better. :)