Baby Butternut Squash

I have a baby butternut squash growing in my community garden bed!  I've been wrestling with pests eating the leaves on the plant, so I worried whether I would get any fruit this year.  I'm so glad I have at least one growing!  Let's hope some more sprout up in the coming weeks.  :)

Roasted Chiogga Beets

I harvested a huge batch of beets on Monday night, for dinner with friends.  I pulled up at least a dozen of the tasty tubers.  I know it's summer when my kitchen sink has dirt and mud in it.  :)

I roasted the beets in aluminum foil, with EVOO, salt and pepper, on the grill for about 10 minutes.  (I had sliced them up, which helped them cook quickly.)  This was the first time, that I could recall, where I cooked up the greens as well!  After giving them a thorough rinsing, I destemmed the leaves with a paring knife.  Then I heated up some EVOO on the stove, added some diced onion, some minced garlic and simmered those until fragrant.  Then I added the leaves, which I had torn into smaller pieces.  It took about 3 minutes for the leaves to wilt.

I then grabbed a dish and loaded up the greens, added the roasted beets, and topped it all off with some herbed goat cheese.  The dish was a hit with my friends!

We're having a heat spell here in the Chicago area so my friends and I opted for a dinner of summer salads.
Other items we dined on that night:
-arugala, pumpkin seed, feta and watermelon salad in a balsamic dressing
-diced tomatoes with basil
-white bean and chick pea puree
-fresh baked bread and butter (I love being friends with a baker!)
-and homemade macaroons dipped in dark chocolate

and to drink we had arnold palmers with fresh made sun tea and lemonade.  YUM!

New York!

My company sent me out to NYC for business this past week.  Technically I only worked on Monday and Tuesday but Chris and I took advantage of the opportunity and flew out for the weekend prior to take in food, theater, and time with friends.

First up, the food.  Here's a list of the fun places we dined at:
1.  Shake Shack (of course!)
2.  Peanut Butter & Co in the Village.  It was a fun place to grab lunch.  I had the Nutella and PB sammy.  Chris had a double decker.  We both devoured our glass of milk (very much needed with such rich sandwiches).
3.  Lupa - we met up with my friend Julie (we're friends from L.A.) and her husband Scott for dinner here.  Chris and I dined here last summer and the food is always amazing.  We had marinated olives, salami and prosciutto for an appetizer.  I had the potato gnocci with fennel sausage for the main course (Chris had the lamb).  Then we had Prosecco and a chocolate tartufo for dessert.  SO GOOD.
4.  Stanton Social - I'm pretty sure next time we're in NY we will dine at Stanton Social again.  The restuarant serves small plates, meant to be shared.  There wasn't one thing we ate that we weren't incredibly impressed with.  Our plates included: potato and goat cheese perogies, Grilled apple and brie quesadilla, Haricot Vert with almonds and asiago cheese, the Kobe beef slider, and the Grilled Aged cheddar slider with jalepenos.  For dessert we had the warm donuts with caramel, raspberry, and chocolate dipping sauces and Chris had a milk shake shot (with Maker's Mark). OMG.  Save room for the donuts, people.  Save room for the donuts...

Now on to the theater we saw!  I saw 4 productions in 3 days.  What a whirlwind!
Saturday we saw a matinee of Rent, which Chris had never seen.  The show was alright...I remember seeing it in the 90's and it felt so edgy and exciting.  But now it feels a bit dated.

Saturday night, after our dinner with Julie and Scott ran a bit long, we literally jumped out of a cab in Times Square and ran into the first theater we saw to buy tickets.  That theater happened to be showing Chicago (ironic, I know).  It was a fun show and we only missed the first 5 minutes.  It's sort of an old school musical, which is fun.

Sunday we saw a matinee of "One Man, Two Guvnors" which was by far the best thing we saw that weekend.  This play is HYSTERICAL.  I can not recommend it enough!  (And later that night, the lead actor won the Tony for Best Male Lead in a Play!)

Monday night, after work, I walked from the Upper East Side to Midtown and bought a ticket to see Peter and the Star Catcher.  This was a creative, imaginative play about the Peter Pan story.  It was really impressive how they handled the stage and props and such.  And it was neat seeing the play on Monday, because the night before they swept the Tony's for all sorts of awards.  :)

New York twice in one year.  I'm a lucky girl!  Next up, Switzerland/Italy/France!  We fly out in two weeks.  I can't wait!