Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Mrs. Home Cook Goes to Washington

I'm sorry for my brief disappearance; I had to go on a last minute business trip to our nation's capitol. It was a long couple of days but the highlights were the two dinners I had earlier this week. The first was a perfectly cooked hamburger topped with cheddar, bacon, jalapenos and tomato with a nice slathering of mayo. The fries were crispy on the outside just the way I like them. Yum! The second was an amazing Monte Cristo sandwich. I've never ordered this diner favorite of turkey, ham and Swiss cheese on white bread coated and cooked like French toast and served with maple syrup because I'm not that into sweets. But this version (served at an Irish pub no less) was served with Hollandaise sauce instead of the maple syrup, transforming it into something savory. It was out of this world, but what wouldn't be when the sandwich is cooked in butter and served with a butter-based sauce. And the cottage fries that came with it...heavenly. Perfectly crisp and fresh, they were even better dipped in some of the Hollandaise.

Now it's back to home life and since we hadn't gone grocery shopping due to the trip we had to scrounge up something for dinner. Spaghetti carbonara is always easy to make and tasty to eat:

Pin It!

8 comments:

  1. Yum! I love crispy fries. They're best when it's almost like they've been double fried (really bad I know!) And that carbonara looks great too, I'm sitting here at 10pm and I still haven't had dinner and all I want to do is reach into the computer screen and have some of that pasta, it looks so inviting! :)

    Glad you're back safe and sound.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I hope you had an enjoyable trip in DC!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Katie - Crispy fries are the best. I'm pretty sure these were double fried. :)

    C Laz - I did. I wish I'd had a chance to see some sights but SP had a blast at all the museums.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Where in DC did you guys go to eat?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Longhairman - Is that you, A? We went to Capitol City Brewery and an Irish pub called the Dubliner.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes it is me. A. I can't tell you how many times I've walked by both of those places and never went into one of them. Don't know why, but never did. I hope you guys had as much fun as you could with you working.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Monte Cristo's are HEAVENLY! I've only ever had it served with raspberry jam (vice syrup) and powdered sugar and I have a recipe but haven't attempted to re-create it at home. I only had it once and that was YEARS and YEARS ago when I took Scott on the Spirit of WA dinner train for his b-day. In fact, I was 7 mos preggers with Bird at the time!

    ReplyDelete
  8. D - I've never had a Monte Cristo before because I'm not that into sweets, but this was heavenly because of the hollandaise. Yum! I was talking about it with my mom tonight and now I'm thinking I should try my hand at making it at home. It seems really easy, especially if the hardest part is making the hollandaise to go on top.

    ReplyDelete

I've been told there are issues with comments going through. After you comment, you should see the following message: "Your comment has been saved and will be visible after blog owner approval." If you don't see a message it means the comment didn't go through. Please try commenting again! I'm sorry!