Dark Days - Meals 7 & 8

Well then.  I had a plan this time to break up this post in to smaller segments - but I am a slave to deadlines, and apparently other things have been popping up every time I go to write a blog post (ahem, maybe getting lost in reading other people's blogs?).

First off, here's a shot of the finished product of French Onion Soup from the last recap.  The topper was made of homemade herby french bread and local swiss cheese.  YUM!  I froze a few jars so that I can bring them out later to enjoy.

The past couple weeks we were able to eat out at not one, but two resturants which focus very much on SOLE food.  The first, Woodberry Kitchen, we went to for brunch with friends.  OH MY!  Dave had the sausage biscuits and gravy, I had sausage and grits with an egg on top, and one of our friends we were with got shirred eggs (I had to google that at the table - it means baked in a ramekin, sometimes with other stuff). We both chose sausage since it's made in-house!

biscuits and gravy

 My grits

Shirred eggs (I believe the menu said there was fairytale pumpkin inside!)

Later in the week, we had dinner at Dogwood.  These are horrific photos, but I will share them with you anywho:

 This was mine: organic lentils & barley with Moroccan spices, local chevre cheese & roasted red peppers on Tunisian carrot salad.

Dave got the Lamb Borek: Persian spiced domestic lamb baked in phyllo with feta, mint, garlic & rosemary, cucumber salad and local lettuces

So obviously these meals out were not entirely 100% SOLE, but simply supporting the resturants with such a commitment to local farms and good whole foods is a win in my book.

At home a couple meals were made - mostly brunch food (I feel like winter is the season for a hearty brunch):

 Local potatoes, onions and eggs over easy

 I couldn't eat all the sausage from Woodberry Kitchen in one sitting, so we fried up the slices and served with eggs and cheese for another brunch.

 Roasted these butternut squash from our winter co-op for a soup, but the one on the left was so OUT OF THIS WORLD amazingly tasty, that I've been eating it plain as a side all week.

Purple kale from Pennsylvania (found at Whole Foods - surprisingly within our 100-mile range).  I've been eating the stems chopped up in omlettes, and the leaves I made into crispy kale chips. (here's a good recipe)

That's about it for this wrap-up!

Just as a reminder, this post is part of the Dark Days Challenge,

hosted by Laura at the (not so) Urban Hennery.  You can find my intro post here.

4 years

Hooray for anniversaries!  Four years of marraige?  Even crazier: March 2010 marked 10 years (yes, TEN) together.  Dave planned a lovely evening out to Dinner at the Milton Inn.  Check out their site and see all the awards they've won... crazy stuff.  Although we're an old married couple... we felt like we wouldn't really fit in here for another 20 years.  Or maybe never.  It was very old-school hunting lodge meets fancy french restaurant?  Maybe?  I can't quite describe it.  Although the service and food was excellent.

Since I'm obsessed with food, of course I will share:

We split the Venison Pate for an appetizer: (example of old-school charm: when the waiter found out we were planning to split the dish he had it divided into two equally beautiful plates). 

I had the swordfish.  Dave ordered the rack of lamb.  We each had a glass of wine.  Everything was very tasty and fancy and I don't quite remember the details but it was lovely!

Then the dessert.  Isn't this cute?  Dave got the macadamia torte and I had the tiramisu.  This is the only point at which I felt I could whip out the camera, since hey - they wrote us greetings on our plates!  How can you not record that?