Last night we had an experiment. Used our new kitchen toy, a KitchenAid vegetable sheeter attachment, to sheet a butternut squash and make lasagna noodles. Sauteed some Italian sausage with onion, garlic and fresh sage. Flavored some butter with fresh sage, then let the butter just start to brown, made a bechemel, and added ParmR. Flavored some ricotta with some of the sage that had cooked in the butter for just a few minutes before I pulled it out. Put the whole thing together and baked. Alas, I used too much bechemel and it just collapsed when I pulled slices out to serve. Tasted good though so we'll make again with a tweak or 2, besides greatly decreasing the amount of bechemel used. Oh, we had broccoli rabe as a side. No photo because collapsed, over-bechemel'd lasagne is NOT pretty.

If you change your mind about going high end, The Cellar is a great place to go, elevated/high-end Italian. It is in President Warren Harding's winter home. We were in DB as vendors for a convention and went there our second night in DB after reading on-line reviews. We went again during that trip. Another vendor, second-generation Italian, we told about the place went twice as well. The convention was held in Daytona Beach a couple more years and we always visited The Cellar. Be aware, there is a dress code, it IS expensive, and don't be late. Also a bit difficult to find. First time we drove right by it and ended up circling until we found it. When you call for reservations, ask to be seated in the basement, the room is dated to that period and beautiful. Wish we lived closer or had another reason to visit DB because I'd love to go again.

I don't know what that "The Cellar Door" thing is, it is something Chowhound put on apparently. The name of the restaurant I wrote about is "The Cellar Restaurant," nothing about a door.

Haven't been feeling well, so have had limited on line time. Finally have started to feel better last couple of days. DH brought home a Christmas treat for us, a black truffle and a couple of jars of osetra caviar. Used part of the truffle tonight. Made a court bouillon and poached a bunch of WC Key West pink shrimp, as well as some squid. The squid and some of the shrimp will be used in a marinated seafood salad meal probably Tuesday. Then I made a risotto using a bit of white wine, the court bouillon, and leeks. Stirred in some homemade truffle butter I had made using bits left over from the last truffle we had, frozen, and forgotten until being found in last couple of days. Lined up the shrimp, shaved some truffle over, drizzled home olive oil, and served. Only thing I would do differently is make some homemade truffle oil to drizzle rather than using plain.

Another comment about "specials." Have to agree with everybody that asks prices if they aren't given or listed on the specials board. We made that mistake once and got burned bad, it was like $35-40 more than regular prices and they weren't cheap to begin with. It was some kind of beef steak special, not good enough to remember what exactly, just remember getting the bill and going into shock over what they charged for something that wasn't really special. That was a once and done restaurant.

Also, just recently went out and had a server stand by our table obviously reading off the specials board on the wall that we could both see as well. Annoying because we can read and read faster than she could talk.

Besides the comments about crying babies mentioned previously, what about oblivious parents letting their little kids run around the restaurant? Or play with the salt/pepper/sugar shakers getting our dirty little germy fingers all over the tops ? Or play with the jam/jelly/cram containers like building blocks, again with the dirty/germy fingers. Even better the containers that hold the various forms of sweeteners, let's take out the packets, pour water/soda/juice in the container, play in it with our fingers, MAYBE dump the liquid out and put the sweetener packs back in. Believe it our not, we've seen all of these behaviors in the last couple of months because we tend to go out for breakfast at least 1 weekend morning evey week, quite often both.

We have an immersion blender that has about 10 or 12 speeds on it. I'v been toying with the idea of using that and 1 of our induction burners (they have digital temperature controls and are very accurate) to try to "pseudo" vide something just to see what we think about it before investing in something like the Anova. Hubby kind of poo-poo'd my idea though. I think it's worth a shot as long as I can figure out something to put around the guard on the immersion blender just to make sure part of the plastic bag doesn't get sucked in.

We had a pie made with roasted butternut squash, caramelized onions, hatch chiles, smoked fresh moz, ham, and just enough cream to bring it together. I thought it was really good. DH thought it was okay, but that's probably because it didn't have a lot of meat in it. It was a vegetarian recipe, but he wanted some meat, so I used some leftover ham from the freezer in place of the edamame that was supposed to be in it. No pic because my pie crust didn't turn out that great. I left the pastry dough a tad too dry so it was breaking apart on me, especially the top layer. Upshot though was extremely flaky and tender pie crust.

I kind of winged it from a base recipe I found, mostly for the amount of time to cook, since I wanted to make a couple of subs. For about 2-1/2 pounds of ribs, you generously S and P ribs, heat pot over medium high to high, some oil of choice, brown off on 3 sides (not bone side), remove the ribs, pour out all but about 1 tsp of the grease. It was a cup of chopped onions, but I didn't use that much since I had the pearl onions to use up, so used about 1/2 cup. Add onions, a Tbsp of tomato paste and 2 really big cloves of garlic well smashed and saute until onion is starting to get translucent. Got to stir frequently or T-paste will burn. Add 1 of those little 4-pack bottles of Cab S or Merlot to deglaze and cook for 2-3 minutes until all the fond comes up, and a multi-sprig, sprig of thyme, probably equivalent to 4 or 5 singles. Added 1-1/2 cups of about a 60/40 mixture of commercial beef broth and water (just because I'm not fond of the chemical taste you can get sometimes with commercial beef broth if you use a lot, could also use chicken stock in place of water). Brought liquid back up to a boil, added the ribs back in, meat side down as much a possible, added veges on top, then cooked in my stovetop PC on high for 35 minutes, natural cool down 15. Remove ribs and veges and put liquid in a fat strainer/separator to de-fat it. The time for an electric PC was either 10 minutes longer or 10 minutes shorter, but I don't remember which, sorry, though it also did the natural release.

Now, what I'd do different because the carrots and pearl onions were falling to pieces also, potatoes were pretty much okay though. I had initially thought to interrupt cooking time and add in veges, but the ribs were so perfectly cooked, literally falling off bones (even the really thick meaty ones) and that membrane short ribs has was even edible, that I think I'd take the ribs out, de-fat the liquid, maybe add a little more liquid because I was really surprised at how much had evaporated, not a lot, certainly no more than 1/2 cup at the absolute very most, probably less though, and cook the veges for 5-10 minutes depending on how much you like them done and do an instant release, then put the ribs and veges back in to heat back up.

We had no leftovers. Hubs went back for seconds an hour or so later and finished what little was left. He REALLY liked it. I bet this would be spectacular made the day before and gently reheated the next night since things like this tend to be even better the next day.