I checked out Black Sheep Coal Fired Pizza last Saturday.

It was a great pizza. I was expecting a sauce with a little more bite, but the crust made the whole package work. I will return again, but only at times when there isn’t such a long wait. At least I got there before the Strib published their review – probably the crowds are worse now.

Is it made with clean coal?

The staff at my hotel were kind enough to point me to a small bistro, il solito posto, for breakfast. It was just around the corner from my hotel in an alley. I liked it well enough I had nearly every breakfast there and more than one supper. It was small with a friendly staff who were willing to let me into their stories.

The coffee was perfect.

The first thing I ate there was the Eggs Salmone. It was a great way to start a long day.

This kind of muesli has now become my favorite breakfast food. All you do is take a nice muesli, like Bob’s Red Mill Muesli, mix yogurt and muesli at a 2:1 ratio and refridgerate overnight. Milk or juice can be substituted for yogurt if preferred. Then in the morning serve it with a nice dollop of yogurt. If you want to be fancy garnish with fruit, honey or granola. Two of the four people in my household love it.

I made my first intentionally flat bread today. The recipe was for a pita. It was an ordinary yeast dough, but then it was rolled into smallish circles, placed on a hot stone in a 500° oven. After a minute or two in the over the dough puffed up like it was being blown up by an air compressor. As soon as I took them out of the oven, they would immediately deflate and take on the familiar pita shape.

I whipped up some fresh hummus with just chick peas, sesame seed, garlic, lemon & salt and had then with the still warm pita. It wasn’t nearly as good as the very authentic home made hummus Joel brought my the other day for breakfast but it was very good.

The pita’s were good enough to serve to guests but given the availablity of really good pitas made locally, I might not bother.

Home Made Pasty, originally uploaded by timbu.

Yesterday I made my first pasty. If you aren’t familiar with pasties, they are a flaky pastry filled with meat and vegetables usually potato and/or rutabaga. They were brought to northern Minnesota by Cornish miners.

I made my pasty with leftovers from the beef stock I had made earlier in the week. It wasn’t really an authentic pasty since it was made with beef, carrot, celery and parsnip. They still turned out very good.

The kids ate them up like they were candy. That was gratifying, especially after their lack luster reaction to my beet soup.

How to prepare a pomegranate with minimal splatter.

I loved serving the seeds arils during the holiday season. I’m going to make it a Christmas tradition at my house.

Taste of Scandanavia located in North Oaks.

I’ve lived in the area for years and never been into this restaurant until September. I thought it was a bakery and so just walked right on past several times, eating at the Panino restaurant a few doors down.

I happened to be in the area and my kids were hungry and I didn’t want to make dinner. I was intending to go to the Panino’s. I walked past the restaurant and realized, hey it’s more than a bakery. I walked in and was instantly at home.

It is my new favorite place near my house. They have very reasonable prices and great soup and salad combo. The raspberry vinagrette is amazing. I’ve had several tasty soups including Carrot Ginger, Borscht, and Squash. All of the soups were amazing.

I made peanut soup on Friday night. It was super easy to make and cheap to boot. I pretty much consists of milk, peanut butter and some spices.  It was pretty good but not amazing. The home-made croutons really made the dish. After making croutons from scratch I can’t figure out why anyone would ever buy croutons at the store. They are so easy to make at home.

Feast of Soups

by Jacqueline Heriteau

I’ve been cooking more than usual lately. I’ve had a few successes and one failure.

The success came while making home made beef-stock and cabbage soup. Both recipes came from “Feast of Soups” by Jacqueline Heriteau. Both recipes were easy to follow and tasted great. Making stock from scratch really seems to be worth the effort.

The failure today was spectacular. I was making “Sweet Potato Pie”. It’s a recipe I’ve made before. The failure was one of technique. I was blending the pie filling while scraping the mixture from the sides of the blender. My hand slipped and the spatula got stuck in the blades. The last half inch of the spatula was shredded. Then for reasons I can’t quite determine, smoke and black bits started coming out of the blender. Since I couldn’t seem to get the spatula bits out of the filling I eventually gave up and tossed the whole mess. I hate making such a dumb mistake.

I checked out the 112 Eatery with a co-worker and our respective spouses. It is a tiny restaurant in the warehouse district that has been getting a lot of buzz lately.

I had the Bibb Salad and the Egg Sandwich. Our table also had a collection of sides which included the cauliflower fritters & creamed corn. The creamed corn bore zero resemblance to the gelatinous goo that comes from the can. It was light and sweet, with a buttery flavor that wouldn’t quit. Although the sauce was very buttery it somehow managed to feel relatively light at the same time which seems to break some fundamental rule of physics. I didn’t have time to ponder whether any physical laws of the universe were broken; I just wanted to eat more corn. The salad was both artfully plated and delicious. The dressing was really light but very tasty. The egg sandwich was amazing. Jeannie also had the egg sandwich and wasn’t so impressed, so your mileage may vary. It had an interesting peppery sauce which added just the right piquant while not overwhelming the eggs. It’s funny, in the end I wasn’t crazy about the expensive entrees, but the low priced items and sides were home runs in my book.

Dessert at our table was the tres leches cake and the “chocolate pot de creme”. They were both good. The pot o’ chocolate did seem a little like eating fudge right out of the Mrs. Richardson’s bottle but what is not to like about that? The desserts were very large and two people can easily split one dessert. I took 2/3 of the chocolate pot home and have snacked on it for days.

The menu had a number of small plates which could make going to eat at this great restaurant really inexpensive. I’m not in a huge hurry to go back, but you can bet that I will be back when my hankering for some creamed corn reaches a certain point. The servers tip to us was that tables which can require two weeks advance reservation can be had easily by walking in before 5:00 and after 9:00.