only four more dinners and I will achieve greatness. Or something. I will achieve something. Today they took the rest of my office walls down around me. They were prying tracks off the ceiling and my desk is covered in grotty ceiling tile nuggets now. Tomorrow I’ll clean up and get ready to move to my new space which will be about 150 feet from my current one. They are redoing our offices for the changes in how we want to work going forward – an unsiloed strategy where we work together to a common goal instead of to our own ends for the common goal. We got to hear some big goals today and I can totally get into where we are going because I feel my particular team has been going there all along and I’m excited to have other parts of the org together creatively working together as it will make what we do a whole lot easier (or harder depending on the day). What do we do in the Discovery Center? Hopefully we inform and inspire people to get involved with Wycliffe. We tell the story so that people can see things they might not have before. If you come to Orlando, you should visit us-I know someone who would love to give you a tour! Tonight I made apple glazed meatballs and mashed potatoes. I’ve made them before and they are a really delicious mahogany color. I will rewrite the recipe here for my changes, which I tracked this time and hopefully you will try this recipe. 
dinner #26
meatless Monday and we’re having Crack & Cheese. Meatless Monday actually started way back during World War I by Herbert Hoover who was appointed to the US Food Administration. Kind of interesting to me as I never heard about it until a year or two ago. I guess it is a backlash against the massive pork, bacon and huge portions we eat in the US. As for Crack & Cheese-I blogged about it here before. Same recipe mostly applies and still like the way that strong Gruyere stands with sharp cheddar. Tonight we are having it with steamed broccoli and I don’t think we will miss the meat at all.
dinner #25
what started out as Richard Blais’ 10 hour brisket rapidly evolved into something else. I brought home a 2# pot roast cut of meat and wholly planned to use his recipe and then read through it with my thinking brain on. Ten hours? Yeah, that isn’t happening. So, I pulled out my dutch oven and put a sear on the meat. Instead of then letting it rest and rubbing with his coriander, brown sugar and mustard slather I poured it over the top, added a cup and a half of apple juice to the pan and let it go for 3 hours. Spicy, sweet and perfect for dinner. We had some fresh sliced asiago bread & butter, steamed zucchini and a few pickles made of green beans and cauliflower and a few slices of Skellig Irish Cheddar cheese. One of my favorite dinners of the month so far!
dinner #24
I am feeling tired today for one reason or another. Didn’t get this done last night because I was tired then too. Dinner 24-almost finished with #31days and quite glad of it actually. I cleaned house most of the day yesterday and then that culminated with a leaking toilet and Z having to drop the wet cat (from the toilet) in the tub because it put me over the edge. We went out for dinner to one of our standby restaurants. We like it but I think I realized they are trying to cash in and expand last night because the food felt more…institutional. More like they were figuring out how to produce more for less. It could have just been my constitution though so I won’t hold it against them. Tibby’s New Orleans Kitchen. It has po-boys and gumbo, shrimp & grits. You know the drill. I had a half po-boy filled with shrimp and a dab of remoulade with a side of fluffy grits. For dessert we had some beignets. Honestly they weren’t my favorite beignets that I’ve ever had but they were comforting in that fried dough sort of way. I hope they are able to expand and not lose the charm that they had for me in the beginning. 
festival favorites
we have been to the Food & Wine Festival a couple of times this year and I would like to try to make it back one more time-in the evening-to really round up how I feel about it. Both times have been during the day and I really think I’d like it better in the cool of a fall evening. But so far we have two favorite dishes. His is from Argentina-a beef skewer with chimichurri served on boniato puree. Mine from China-a Mongolian Beef Steamed Bun. I am in love with the texture of steamed buns and this one has some sort of neutral shaved beef and a spicy creamy sauce with crunchy noodles. I’m hoping for one more before the end of the 2013 festival season which ends November 11.
My Urban Pantry 