This past weekend was the last weekend to order pumpkin pancakes at Java Jive. Say it with me now: Pumpkin. Pancakes.

Imagine what heaven might taste like and you’d be wrong, wrong, wrong. These pancakes are so much better than that. Crisp at the edges, slightly custardy in the center, and when doused with the cinnamon syrup alongside, wowee zowee. Admittedly, the cinnamon slightly overpowered the syrup—I do love cinnamon but it can be potent in certain doses—but never mind: they were brilliant. I wisely talked myself out of ordering some soysage to go with it; I didn’t even make it through the entire stack, much less have room for some other source of food. In fact, my simple glass of milk cut through the sweetness nicely.
Oh, Java Jive, I can only hope that I am passing through Atlanta at some point next October/November so that I may experience this nirvana once more.

Actually, it really wasn’t. Well, maybe a little bit.

I had these sort of slightly grandiose plans for cooking all day on Thanksgiving; nothing too overly strenuous, but enough that it would be comforting. From the moment I got up around 8, I had the very comforting and very wonderful fourth season of Doctor Who playing in the background. I set up a game plan for that Meal of All Meals and set about sticking to it.

I was going to roast my own turkey breast, but that became an immediate no-go seeing as how anything resembling a raw turkey had been snapped up by equally ambitious cooks days ago. How about making my own stuffing? Well…I could but today I was all about quickness.

I thought about making mashed potatoes but again…I wanted more couch time with the Doctor. So off to the only place upon on a holiday: Whole Foods! Actually, I got Thanksgiving dinner from there last year, but this time I had a different plan. By the way, I love driving when there’s a holiday; nobody is on the roads and it’s all very 28 Days Later-ish.

So here’s what I did: I got some sliced turkey breast from the herbed beauty of a bird I saw behind the hot bar. I also picked up some sage stuffing, mashed potatoes, and a six pack of Sweetwater 420. I was going to have wine but I’ve been having a lot of wine lately so therefore I wanted to go back to my first love: beer. I also picked up the fixings for the side dish I am going to give you the recipe for today.

Officially, the main ingredient for this dish is romano beans, which are flat large beans, not too dissimilar to a snow pea, and apparently, barring that, you could used fresh unshelled cranberry beans. Okay, I didn’t have access to any of those, so I used nearly 2 pounds of haricot verts, and those worked out fine.

I’d like to add that this dish is probably one of the best things I have ever made, let alone eaten. I finished up the leftovers today and oh Lord was I sad to see every last morsel go.

Don’t forget to trim the green beans very well, dried rosemary is also no proper substitute, and take the time the recipe calls for. Oh yes, the leftover tomato-ey gravy is perfect for sopping up with Parker House rolls.

Braised Romano Beans

adapted from Laura Sbrana

1/2 cup evoo

1/2 minced celery

1/2 minced carrot

1 cup minced red onion

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 sprigs fresh rosemary

1 tsp. tomato paste

1 cup crushed tomatoes, preferably plum

salt and fresh ground pepper

1 1/2 lbs. romano beans or fresh green beans, trimmed

Heat oil in a deep skillet or a shallow three-quart saucepan. Add celery, carrot and onion and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until veggies barely begin to brown, about 25 minutes. Add garlic and rosemary and cook until fragrant, a few minutes. Stir in tomato paste and tomatoes. Bring to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer until mixture is well combined, about 5 minutes.

Add beans, setting them in pan all in one direction. Add 1/2 cup water. Bring to a simmer. Baste beans, season with salt, reduce heat to low. Cook gently, partly covered, turning in sauce from time to time, until beans are very tender, about 40 minutes. Adjust seasoning and serve hot or at room temperature.

I promise to take off the crankypants now.

Here is a blurry photo of the Local’s Thanksgiving plate.

That’s how I feel.

I didn’t expect anyone to circumnavigate their plans around my birthday, but I hoped a few would make a game play.

Except for Gomez, Kisgen, and Will, none of you did. And the lack of friendship sort of made my birthday suck.

I’ll post food stuff tomorrow. I’m too hurt to do it now.

p.s. Thank you to Daniel at the Local for serving me a mini-plate of holiday food. I didn’t need it, wasn’t thinking ’bout it, but it did the trick. You are lovely.

So last night I was taken out to my favorite sushi restaurant for my birthday, but the batteries in my camera died so I couldn’t take any pictures of the plates and plates of food.

All spare batteries are dead.

Today I was lazy and ordered pizza. I promise there will be pics of what I am cooking for Thanks(less)giving tomorrow. Lots of them.

I’m not being lazy, I swear, though it will totally seem this way as the days have already ticked down to Thanks(less)giving.

I bought a small sourdough loaf, an organic bottle of root beer (which I am always a sucker for because I heart a soda that doesn’t have assloads of caffeine in it), and some probably boiled potatoes from a hot bar. I made a mustard, fancypants cheese, field greens sammich with the bread and had the potatoes as a side. Go me.

I never said it was easy all the time.

I think I posted on here in the spring about my attempt to make a proper Spanish tortilla—which, if you’ll remember, is sort of like a potato frittata. Well, the photos can show that I failed tremendously. The damn thing fell apart when I attempted to flip it and I was disappointed. Some recipes are harder than others, true, but when they sound like you should easily be able to manage it and you don’t, you feel like quite the failure.

Of course, I’ve also conquered that most difficult of rice dishes, risotto, twice so far, so when I found a fairly simple recipe for Zucchini Frittata, I felt I might give it a go.

Now I only have to caveats to add to what I did to the recipe. It calls for a large 12-inch nonstick or well-seasoned skillet. I have neither, so I used my 10-inch nonstick, cut back on the amount of eggs, and everything was jake.

I also used 2% milk instead of whole because that’s what I had, and because my skillet wasn’t as large as the recipe called for, I finished it under the broiler for about two, three minutes. And don’t worry about using the amount of zucchini the recipe calls for; it will soften, brown and wilt.

Zucchini Frittata

adapted from Laura Sbrana

7 tbl. evoo

4 cups zucchini in 1/8-inch thick rounds (about 3 small to medium zucchini)

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 bunch scallions, chopped

8 large eggs (I used 6)

1/4 cup whole milk

1/4 cup grated Parmigianio-Reggiano cheese

1 cup coarsely chopped basil leaves

8 zucchini flowers (which I didn’t have nor used)

Heat 4 tablespoons oil in a heavy 12-inch skillet, nonstick or well-seasoned, on medium-high heat. Add zucchini. Season with salt and pepper. Pile scallions on zucchini and season again. Cook veggies until they begin to sizzle; stir and continue to cook until they soften and start to color, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat.

Whisk eggs in a bowl. Whisk in milk, remaining oil, cheese and half the basil.

Fold remaining basil into zucchini mixture. Cook briefly until basil is fragrant. With heat at medium-high, add egg mixture. Reduce heat to medium-low. As eggs begin to set, use fork or spatula to lift edges toward center to allow uncooked egg to flow in pan to edges. Continue cooking until there is no more raw egg, finishing under a broiler if necessary. Remove pan from heat.

Use kitchen shears to snip zucchini flowers crosswise in half-inch strips over frittata. Use a spatula to loosen bottom of frittata. Place a plate large enough to cover pan over the pan; with kitchen mitts, flip pan and plate over so frittata falls onto plate. Slide back into the pan. Cook another 3 to 4 minutes on medium-high, until bottom is golden. Remove from heat, allow to rest 5 minutes, then slide frittata onto a serving plate and serve.

The LSC has gone and I am sad so you will receive a food blog entry, but it’ll be pics of things we cooked.

These are from the dinner we had with the Matts last Tuesday. There were bell pepper chicken sausages alongside braised green beans with caramelized onions and tomatoes. It was pretty terrific.

This is from when we cooked a slightly hungover breakfast on Wednesday. Baked eggs with bacon, spinach, tomato, cream and a little Parmesan. And yes, I burnt the biscuits.

On Friday, the LSC made me a casserole of green peppers, whole wheat pasta, grated Fontina. It was all bound with a mornay sauce he found in my one of my cookbooks. It was so good that I agreed to relent cooking duties for at least one night during the week in our marriage. A man who can cook—and heck, who likes to cook for his lady—makes me realize I am a lucky girl indeed.

The Internet was down all day yesterday and most of today so I promise I will make it up to y’all tomorrow. I will need something to distract me from the LSC leaving.

I really do.

I’m too old to properly enjoy MJQ though I have danced my ass off there in the past, I have forded past the questionable squalor of their bathrooms, and have marveled that I don’t have a drug problem because dang, those bathroom countertops and toilet edges are perfect for snorting drugs! Whatever. I don’t really care…because frankly even at 31, I feel that grumpy.

Murph, the main awesome really TALL guy, decided with his partners to open a grown-up post-MJQ place, the Bookhouse Pub. And I will say that it’s beautiful; it’s all lacquered wood, sleek proper coziness, and frankly, it’s a place that I totally would want to get tipsy and fun in because it’s an adult bar. I love being in there, but I’m here to talk about the food.

The LSC and I ordered two apps—and don’t you hate that term?—off the menu, and both entrees we also ordered from the specials menu. Above you see is the fried dill pickles; the LSC liked them well enough, and heck, even I ate some and I effing hate pickles. He hoped for deep-fried dill spears that he has been familiar with, but ate up these chips. They did indeed have some beer-soaking yum.

I am actually really simple when it comes to food. More so than I lead most to believe. Being a Southerner, I think of pimento cheese as chunky, lots of mayo, and honestly, lots satisfying. The pimento cheese toast offered by the Bookhouse Pub was not quite what I expected; it was a totally whipped (like light, like near frothy) version pressed between eight overly buttered toasted pieces of…well, toast. The grilled bread was too buttery, was too salty (I have always claimed to be salt-sensitive, so go me, wussy!), yet I devoured it anyway.

I now give you one of the specials—and the last dish was also another special on the menu. This is the Smoked Chicken Salad Sandwich.

I didn’t expect warmth from the chicken salad itself but it’s a bit disconcerting when the foccacia bun is warm and the filling is very chilly. I didn’t finish it, and the LSC, who is not plump, whom finishes my leftovers, declined because he didn’t care for the contrast.

The LSC kind of lied to me with this special. He said it was ace, but later said—in the SAME MEAL–that the pesto was good but sort overwhelmed the sammich. I have always found that this is the case with pesto.

Listen, I ain’t saying the Bookhouse is bad. I’m just saying that for apps and snackies and nice beer list I’m all about it. It’s not fine dining; heck, it doesn’t even have spitting distance for the Porter.

I hope that the menu gets better than somewhat fancy bar food—and that’s what it is, don’t fool yourself cause I won’t fool myself—until I think I’ll just eat at home.