MoFo no mo'

Happy November! I can't believe October is gone already - it passed so quickly, especially with all the fun writing and great reading out there in the blogosphere. I am so glad I participated in VeganMoFo 2009; it was such a good experience. I feel like my blogging is much more interactive now, mainly because I discovered from comments people left that someone really was reading my blog and it wasn't just my little online journal of cooking adventures. I'm sad to see it end, but I have greatly increased my repertoire of blogs to read, and after a month of being very conscientious about blogging damn near every day, it was very liberating to take last night off.

So....last night we finally actually did something to acknowledge and celebrate two beautiful years of marriage. We did not get a couch this weekend, and therefore did not watch a movie (a very specific one) like we had intended, but we looked at couches and had dinner at a cute Italian place just down the street, La Fourno.

When I first started getting into cooking with seasonal foods, I had a little "cheat" card at the front of my (overstuffed) recipe box to tell me what fruits and vegetables were in season. There were two reasons I did this - first, I figured seasonal produce would probably taste better since it had a better chance of being ripe. Second, I figured it would save us some money, rather than paying $8 for a bunch of asparagus in December. When I stopped using the recipes I had tucked away in that heavy little box, I stopped referring to that card, quite by accident. What I'm getting at is this:

I don't know when melon season is, but the best honeydew ever adorned our salad.

Oh! And it was made with a mixture of romaine and arugula, so I made good on my promise to eat raw arugula in a salad sooner than I expected! Anyway, the salad was the evening's special and when the waiter described it Mister and I were unanimous (not hard to do with only two people...) about starting our meal sharing that salad and the fabulous bruschetta they serve. As I mentioned, the base was a bed of romaine and arugula and decorated with halved grape tomatoes, cubed honeydew, and mandarin sections, then finished with a peppery vinaigrette. I don't know where they got that honeydew, but it was seriously the best I have ever had.

Tonight, at Mister's choosing, I made Risotto Mexicano. Things were going well, the peppers, garlic, and tomato were simmering away and the beans were heating. The rice was almost ready to join the party and Mister came in to see how it was going.

Mister: What's it doing?
Me: Simmering.
Mister: Then what?
Me: Then I put the spinach in.

This is where I realize I forgot to buy the spinach. Angst is very disappointed.

Me: Then we eat it.
Mister: What's it go in?
Me: Bowls.
Mister: Do we have chips?
Me: Do you want chips?

Mister heads out to the convenience store down the street on a quest for tortilla chips, spinach, and one ripe banana. He returns with tortilla chips, three not-even-close-to-ripe bananas, and some weird sour gummy candy (no spinach). The chips were organic blue corn Tostitos. I don't know if the organic or blue corn really make a difference, but they taste good and purple food is fun.
The forks are just there for decoration. We ate our whole bowls with the chips.