Dinner with friends.

Saturday night the wife and I went over to our friends Lindsey and Jesica's house for supper. Lindsey is a vegetarian, but her significant other Jes is carnivorous and had a hankering for some pork, so I thought I'd oblige her. I wanted to do a braised pork belly, but the wife rejected that idea (she's got weird texture issues, but that's a story for another post) so I settled on a a pork shoulder braised in apple cider with lots and lots of onions, and a chocolate cream pie for dessert. 

Wednesday night potluck

Last night our friend Kiki came over for a little Wednesday night potluck action. Kiki brought over a wonderful pesto, goat cheese, and arugula pizza that she made, while the wife and I whipped up sausage and eggplant 'casserole' from Mel at Bitchincamero and a biscuit bread pudding a la Homesick Texan.

The sausage and eggplant casserole was more like a strata than a traditional casserole (whatever that means), and it gave me a chance to use my brand new mandoline that my lovely wife got me for Christmas. I think it turned out pretty good, even though the eggplant (from a local big chain grocery store) was a bit on the tough side, but I blame the crappy produce. I did make some changes to the recipe, of course, like the addition of caramelized onions to the sausage / strata layer, some additional herbs, chile piquin, and plenty of pecorino romano, but I'm sure it's just as awesome with no modifications. I would suggest keeping the size of the bread cubes under 1"...

The biscuit bread pudding was divine, but how could it not be?