Thursday, November 18, 2010

Restaurant food at home: 2 of 2

I really enjoy eating out. Yesterday’s pasta was a dish ordered out of desperation, on vacation. When I find a good restaurant, I love love love eating out. I’m not quite ready to say that my favorite dish is whatever someone else cooks*, but I still love not having to cook - on occasion. I go out usually once a week, sometimes twice. I’ve found a generous handful of local restaurants I like, and there are more I’m eager to try. So tonight, I share with you something I’ve enjoyed when eating out but have never made for myself. It turned out pretty well.

I have eaten wheatberries only two times before this. That is inexplicable, because although I enjoyed them, I had not eaten them again until just now. My first time was at Third Avenue Cafe in Louisville, and the second was at Myra’s Dionysus here in Cincinnati.

So I buckled down and halfway recreated something I had at two restaurants at home.

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My home version isn’t quite as chock-full of goodness and the Third Avenue version that included celery, onion, and carrots, or the Myra’s version with black eyed peas, dried cranberries, onion, garlic, mint, and lemon tahini dressing. Mine, though, was still absolutely delicious.

I didn’t measure, but here’s the ingredients:

  • Cooked wheatberries
  • Cooked edamame
  • Apple
  • Dried cranberries

This is dressed with lots of apple cider vinegar and a little olive oil. It was delicious. I actually didn’t look back at the previous salad ingredients until I was composing this post. This salad is best enjoyed at room temperature, but it’s okay chilled as well. I know I couldn’t wait to eat my leftovers and it was pretty good straight from the fridge.

*I heard Mario Batali say this on The Splendid Table. I understand the sentiment, but I don’t agree.

5 comments:

  1. Looks chock-full of goodness to me! This sounds great, and looks absolutely restaurant-quality beautiful!

    I'm going to spend December making all the recipes I've seen during MoFo that I really want to try...this is definitely one of them!

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  2. I love wheat berries and don't make them often because Dan thinks they are "just okay". Your dish looks beautiful and sounds great. Another nice picture.

    Ali

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  3. good idea for a post - recreating restaurant dishes at home

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  4. Very beautiful. I will have to try it.

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  5. I've never had wheatberries, can you believe that? Are they sweet? I really should try them.

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