Good recipes

Dianne asked me if I was going to blog about dinner last night and my first thought was, "probably not." But after a bite of the dessert this morning, I decided I'd share the wealth.

We invited Dianne and John come over (that's Dianne Rodway and John Becker of the City Properties Group in case you're Googling either of them), to dinner and a whisky tasting. Of course, Tom was hosting the tasting. It gave him a good excuse to open some bottles he'd purchased and share with people who would appreciate good whiskies. That's not to say that all were good, but the good apparently outweighed the bad. I wouldn't know. I'm not one of those people; water was my beverage of choice.

Tom was in charge of the main course and he adapted a lamb shank recipe by Mario Batali he found on Food Network. He used veal shanks (osso bucco) since I don't do lamb, a variety of olives from the olive bar at Market of Choice, frozen artichoke hearts and thyme instead of rosemary as the herb. I did say adapted. Tom is quite good at that. The braised veal and veggies were served over Marscarpone Polenta, from a veal shank recipe, also from the Food Network. It was all delish—especially the polenta.

At Market of Choice strawberries and rhubarb were prominently featured, so we decided that would be the basis for the dessert. My favorite place to look for recipes is epicurious.com. For 20 years we subscribed to Bon Appetit, but my love for cooking had waned and they were taking up just too much space, so I gifted the issues to a friend. But I digress. There were lots of pie and compote recipes, but I finally narrowed it down to Strawberry Rhubarb Pudding Cake. It seemed easy and foolproof. And it turned out to be that and fabulous. Tom and I agree that of all the fruit desserts I've made this one springs to the tastebuds as the BEST. So I highly recommend it.