I was having a craving for sushi, so I took Shannon to Tokyo Icheban, my town's premiere sushi restaurant. Ironically I didn't order sushi at all, even though it was the original lure of this place. The service here is generally excellent as soon as you walk in the door and starts to wane the longer you're there. They seem to have a policy of sending 3 people to each new table and then just getting around to other people later. It's because of this that we didn't order dessert, which was a chocolate hazelnut ice cream in the shape of a pear. Every time we go there we've wanted to order this dessert but it's always out of stock. I guess we'll never know if they actually had it or not now.

We shared a pot of green tea, which was particularly strong. I drank only 2 cups and I was literally buzzing about the table. We shared an order of yam tempura. Shannon had the California Rolls (which were much better than mine) as her entree. There are over 200 menu items to choose from, so I was having a hard time deciding. I was going to go with another eel dish because I know it's something I'm not going to prepare at home for this project, but instead I went with yakisoba. It was steaming so viciously that it was challenging to take a picture. It was actually quite tasty once it cooled off enough to put in my mouth. Luckily my chopsticks skills are horrid and there was plenty of cooling time between trying to scoop and the actual delivery of food.

I was quite surprised that I ate an entire skillet of noodles and am still feeling the burn. It's like I've got a big ball of dough resting in my stomach. It certainly doesn't help that we went for ice cream afterwards either. I was feeling generous and left a decent tip, about 40% of our bill. I guess I'd like to support one of the only worthwhile restaurants we have here.

In search of lesser-used vegetables and still in the mood for curry, I decided to make Curried Cabbage. I haven't had a whole lot of success making cabbage dishes outside of cabbage rolls and coleslaw. This dish was alright, except for the fact that it had cabbage in it. I happen to like curry a lot, especially the part where I end up smelling like it in my sweat (free ginger-coriander deodorant!) but the cabbage just didn't do it for me. The taste is too bitter and needs to be masked by something and even though the curry flavor is dominant, the cabbage still had its role in the flavorful.

Luckily my main dish was excellent. Unfortunately I only made enough for myself and Lemongrass Chicken with Sweet Lime Sauce is exactly the kind of dish that Shannon loves. So much so that I took a single bite and, being the darling boyfriend that I am, wrapped up my portion for her to eat for lunch tomorrow. It's a great sweet and sour kind of blend in the sauce and the marinade just makes it that much more flavorful. Not only that, but the marinade also blackened it quite nicely on the outside while keeping the meat tender and juicy on the inside. I actually liked it quite a bit from the single bite I ate, and this isn't typically a flavor combo I would go particularly gaga over.

Tonight I made the ever-popular Chicken Vindaloo. I have had this at several places, none particularly authentic Indian, and did not find it particularly spicy. However, everything I've ever read about vindaloo is that it is the spicy curry. Needless to say I was expecting a very, very hot dish. When it wasn't scorching my tongue after the first few bites, I thought maybe it was a cumulative heat that would kill me later on. Maybe I was a little scared of adding too much heat because of all the warnings, because it never really burned me at all. I feel burned by the lack of burn, to be honest.

Shannon thought that this dish was very good or, in her words, "I like it. It's better than the other curries." Since she is the one that introduced me to curry in the first place, I imagine that makes it quite good. I thought the whole process of making the vindaloo paste was quite time consuming and although I listed all of the ingredients here, I'd really just recommend buying a commercially prepared vindaloo paste if it's available. More and more I'm finding myself attracted to curry pastes, having yet to actually buy one, simply because there are so many tiny amounts of ingredients in these recipes that it's just not worthwhile to try and make such small portions.

Following in the footsteps of the Alton Brown dinner, I decided to make a similar recipe to one that I saw Jamie Oliver cook on Letterman a few nights ago. The original dish involves shrimp and scallops, which would have been lovely if I had shrimp and scallops. Scallops are something like /pound which puts them far out of my price range, no matter how fond I may be of them. One of the comments on the Jamie Oliver bulletin board was that this dish wasn't Thai, as he stated, but more Malaysian. So, I call them Malaysian Noodles. They were delicious and freakishly filling. There was a hint of spiciness from the chilies that was nicely dulled by the coconut milk and it just has a very nice hot and sour sort of flavor to it.

Since I didn't have the seafood accompaniment, I made Grilled Lemongrass Beef to go along with it. I've actually never had lemongrass before (on purpose anyway) and, for some reason, was surprised that it tasted pretty much like, well, grassy lemon. The lemony flavor was all but completely overshadowed by garlic and chili. I have to say that this is probably the most beautiful steak that I've cooked so far this year. Take a look at those perfect grill marks! The marinade is also quite tasty, even though I had expected it not to be. One thing that was a little off-putting was the smell of fish sauce emanating from the grill. Instead of cooking it juicy steak it smelled as though I was whipping up fillet-o-fish from McDonalds. Luckily the finished product did not resemble this in the slightest.

Altogether I successfully made an Asian flared meal once again without simultaneously repulsing myself. Not only did I finish the whole thing, but I was quite full afterwards with plenty of leftovers (I only had the pictured amount of a single steak). I must say that I am quite happy with this accomplishment, even though I am somewhat disappointed with lemongrass. On a similar note, I am now curious of how I can get my hands on lime leaves.

I've been trying to cram in Good Eats episodes lately wherever I can. Every time I watch an episode of Alton Brown's show I always learn something, even if it's a tiny, mostly irrelevant fact. In this case it was another way of roasting a chicken. My typical method has been to throw the whole bird in a roaster and cook it until it is done. His method is to butterfly it (a skill I learned watching the show) and roasting it under the oven broiler. I roasted the chicken on top of vegetables before, but mostly because I don't have a roasting rack. Turns out that he's fond of that method because it adds flavor.

Aside from the method itself, I also learned that by keeping my oven door open enough to let out some of the hot air I can keep the broiler on indefinitely where previously it would always shut off on me. This will be especially useful when it comes to crisping cheese and so on in the future. To flavor his chicken he made a spice paste and applied it under the skin. This spice paste he said was technically a "gremolata". I modified it slightly to make Roasted Lemon Rosemary Chicken; something I'm not usually fond of.

The resulting chicken was far more tender and flavorful than any chicken I have previously made and divided easily into quarters for simple servings. It also took less time to cook and had delicious, crispy skin. I am completely sold on this method of roasting a chicken, except that it tends to be far more laborious (frequent turning, actual cutting involved etc.) than my previous method.

Alton lost me when he recommended that I use the leftover oil in the pan mixed with mustard and red wine vinegar to make vinaigrette for a simple green salad. To his defence he was using a much larger chicken and had a lot more oil leftover, but the majority of what I had was the cold, coagulating type of chicken fat that a good salad dressing would not make. Since this dressing was what I had hoped to use to make my side dish, I ended up eating the chicken by itself.

Ah, pork and beans, a common staple pretty much anywhere in this hemisphere. I have to say that this pairing is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Tonight I went with a Cuban flared variety. From what I know of Cuba they're not particularly renowned for their cuisine, yet every recipe I've found off the internet so far claiming to be Cuban has been quite flavorful. Tonight's dinner was no exception.

I've never purposely made a "mojo" before while knowing it by that name, but this recipe is comprised of flavors I'm pretty familiar with: lime, cumin, garlic and the dreaded cilantro. The Lime Mojo Pork Chops were infused mostly with lime flavor and a nice Caribbean summer taste. The heat was surprisingly mellow, but I have been eating a lot of spicy foods at work lately, so I'm sort of building up a resistance. I topped mine with a little bit of Fresh Tomato Salsa.

For the bean dish I made Cuban Black Beans. I could've actually (dare I say it) added more cilantro to the beans than what I had. The flavor was not particularly pronounced at all after being cooked, but I figured I wasn't going to mess with it. I like black beans pretty much any which way, so this dish was nice. The leftovers are fine cold if you're in to bean salads, perhaps bettered by an addition of a simple vinaigrette. I think this dish would also be good with the addition of some tomato sauce because it can easily dry out.

I've never had Beef Korma before, but every picture I've ever seen depicts it as a thick, red curry that's almost like a stew. After simmering for about an hour, mine still looked more like a Thai coconut soup; very yellow and very runny. The runny part was my fault because I didn't have any nuts to grind and use to thicken it, but the color has me baffled. I've looked through several recipes and they all contain the same or similar ingredients, so I cannot figure it out. Maybe I need bloodier beef or something?

I had some chick peas leftover from the Curried Chick Peas, so I figured I'd throw them into another curry-type dish, Cumin Chick Pea Rice. I'll admit that this was basically an excuse to make Thai Coconut Rice and pass it off as another dish. That and I wanted to make a tall tower of yellow rice. There's something about Jasmine rice combined with coconut milk that's just so delicious. Of course, it's just as well with chick peas and cumin, also favorite combinations to me. I used this to thicken the korma in place of the nuts and topped the dish with fresh cilantro (why I keep doing this to myself now, I don't know). It tasted like a tomatoless butter chicken. With beef instead of chicken, of course. The flavor is pleasant enough, but I prefer beef cooked in other ways and would likely cook butter chicken over beef korma in any instance in the future.

I've been scouting out 1 pot dinners lately, for the sake of convenience and because combined flavors often taste better than a bunch of separate ones. I found one for Fennel Chicken and Lentils that, at the time, looked quite different and interesting, so I went with it. While actually preparing the dish it didn't seem that different from anything I've done before though. I'm still trying to use up the pantry contents; all the dried beans, rice and pasta and so on, so a recipe using lentils was still a good idea.

Having learned my lesson when I tried to make Dhal, I did not add salt while cooking the lentils and made sure to use filtered water instead of my hard tap water. They were done in about 3/4 of an hour! I was actually thinking about all the little tricks and lessons I've learned while doing this project and I'm having trouble keeping track at this point and I'm not even half done. That's good news.

Anyhow, regardless of how crispy I could get the bacon, it still softened up when I mixed in the lentils. There seemed like there'd be too many flavors going on here. The smoky flavor from the bacon mixed with fennel and wine, plus all the aromatic vegetables. Nothing really seemed too overpowering even though all the flavors were present, though. I liked this dish in a curious sort of way, and even refilled my plate. I'm not sure if I'd call it enjoyment, but it was definitely satisfying and hearty. Sometimes, that's all that really matters to me, I guess.

CNN taunts me today. Scrolling along the bottom of the screen is, "Today is Tuesday, May 23rd, the 143rd day of the year. There are 222 days remaining in 2006." 222 days? A while ago being 1/3 done felt like a huge accomplishment that just easily flew by. Now the 2/3 remaining seems like a daunting task. This seemed like a perfect excuse to try out the new Mexican restaurant that opened up downtown; Amiga's.

Amiga's opened up in place of a tiny hair salon. My city is fairly small and doesn't have "hole in the wall" type eating establishments, but this is the closest we've come so far. When Shannon and I pulled up I could smell bacon immediately. Apparently today's sandwich was the BLT, which was already a bit of an indication about the level of authenticity we were getting into, despite being touted as "the best Mexican food in town". I really liked the feel of the place, like you're just walking into someone's kitchen. It's a very small scale operation; something I could see myself potentially running with Shannon or something, only with an entirely different menu.

The woman working there was really friendly and I told her I was trying to decide between two dishes. I ordered the dish entitled Mexican Rice, Beans and Chicken or Beef. I picked the beef. It was that or something called tortilla pie, but after seeing that it was just 5 tortillas layered with ground beef in between, I decided on the rice and bean dish.

The beef reminded me of the Browned Beef and Gravy I made back in February; just salty, slow-cooked beef. The rice just tasted like rice, despite being speckled with "Mexican mix" type seasoning and what I had expected for the beans (refried or otherwise as a side dish) was just a few kidney and romano beans mixed in with it. I was not impressed and made proper use of the 6 different types of hot sauce on the lone table. Shannon ordered the bean dip, which was a side of sour cream, a side of commercially prepared picante, some Tostitos and canned refried beans on top. The price was very reasonable for a take out meal, but so is McDonald's. It's a far cry from anything I'd ever want to eat again.

A friend of mine wanted to learn how to make Carrot Cake, so her and her boyfriend came over and we made cake and homemade Lasagna. Ever step of the lasagna was from scratch, including the noodles. It was my first attempt making homemade pasta from semolina flour and I'm hardly a pasta expert. Us guys went to work on the pasta while the girls made the cake. Our dough was still pretty dry after the egg had been incorporated, so we started adding a little part of water. That wasn't working too well either, so we added another egg to the whole batch and ended up with pretty much perfect pasta dough.

I was under the impression that because the noodles were fresh that they were sort of steam cook in the tomato sauce. After 40 minutes in the oven, once all the cheese had melted and browned up beautifully, they were still kind of chewy. This didn't seem to bother anyone, including me, as the rest of the lasagna was excellent and we were all pretty much starving. It was actually kind of nice to have a bit of texture to the lasagna because it didn't fall apart when it was cut, or the second you took a fork-full of it. Perhaps there's a good reason not to eat undercooked pasta that I should be aware of, so I'll probably avoid it in the future.

There are so many different ways to make lasagna, but I prefer it with at least 1 layer of spinach and ricotta or cottage cheese. A lot of the "authentic Italian recipes" I was looking at included a lot of bacon or cured pork, which is something I've never tried. A lot also involved a carbonara or cream type sauce rather than tomato. Now I'm kind of curious what "real" lasagna is supposed to taste like!