Effie Ophelia Brunch

So today the husband and I decided to try a really cute looking restaurant that is in Lancaster City, very near to us. The menu emphasizes fresh and local food, so that piqued my interest. And the fact that it looks so darn CUTE! See above. Notice the large window-there is actually seating there, like being right out on the sidewalk. And below, notice cute pillows.

There is my iced coffee I started out with. You could pick what kind of sugar you wanted (I choose raw sugar of course) and they bring it out on a little dish! Fan-cay. And I of course dribble my cream on the table.

Effies has a Sunday brunch in the summer only. They use whatever fresh produce they can get their hands on. Many things on the menu used heirloom tomatoes, even a bloody mary mix with heirlooms. Local bacon and goat's cheese. And berries!

Berries, like in my blueberry and cream stuffed French Toast. My confession is that for a long time, I was not a French Toast person. Bread with a layer of milky-egg cooked on it? No thanks. But I will eat it if it is made well. And this was the best durn French Toast I ever had! They used hunks of real (i.e. not sandwich/Wonder) Italian bread, stuffed with cream cheese and whole, fresh blueberries. Then grilled so the outside was crisp, not a layer of milky-egg. With cream cheese and real maple syrup....I'm drooling and I just ate this today!

Close up of the magnificent French Toast. Ooh la la

And this is the husband's BLT with heirloom tomatoes, local bacon, lettuce, mayo on organic whole grain bread. With home fries made with white and purple fingerling potatoes. The picture is a little blurry, I was in a slight hurry to start eating! Note cute toothpicks in sandwich.

I have another food confession, I don't really like melon. Which includes cantelopes. I know, I'm weird I guess. But they had this cantelope granita for dessert which sounded light and refreshing on a summer day. So I thought I'd give it a shot. And I liked it! It came topped with frozen champagne grapes! I've never had a granita, and the texture is really interesting. Light and fluffy, not the texture of things you leave in your freezer too long, which I previously imagined.

I would highly, highly recommend you go here. The brunch entrees are about 8-12 dollars. I am pretty eager to try dinner here soon. It is a BYOB, and I also suggest getting a bottle of local wine from the Red Rose Wine Tasting room in the Hagar Mall near Central Market off of King Street.

Cheesy Sausage Potato Cups with Yogurt Mustard Sauce

Today I entered this in an online contest for original recipes using dairy products like cheese, milk and yogurt. This has cheddar cheese AND yogurt....so I'm sure it will win!
Hehe well I think it has a shot anyway. But if not, I still liked eating it a lot.

Directions: Preheat oven 450.

There are my beautiful potatoes, fresh from market this morning!
Scrub potatoes and cut in half.
Cut a small amount off ends so potatoes stand up straight! The more narrow cut off ends will be the ends they stand up on, to be cute little potato cups :)

Toss with a good glug of olive oil in a bowl, and stir in some salt and lots of pepper.

Arrange potatoes spaced out standing up straight on a baking tray.
They are nice and peppery.
Bake in oven for about 20 minutes, or until potatoes start to look lightly golden and roasted.
Here is my chipotle turkey sausage from the Turkey Lady at Central Market. The stand is actually called The Turkey Lady. They have tons of different types of turkey sausage, and this one sounded good today. Regular hot Italian sausage or chorizo would be good I think too. And the cute little bell peppers! They were too adorable so I had to get them. Regular bell peppers will work.

While the potatoes roast, cook the sausage link in a non-stick skillet, breaking up into small pieces.


Dice the pepper into small pieces.


Slice the green onion. Put the sliced, darker green tops in a bowl for garnishing the potato cups. You will cook the rest of the onion with the pepper.

Cook the white and light green parts of the green onion with the red pepper in a small skillet with some olive oil until soft.

Mix together with the sausage and let it cool a little.

Mix the cheddar cheese with the butter in a bowl with a fork. Stir cooled sausage-pepper mixture in with cheese.

When the potatoes are done, pull the tray out.

Using tongs and a melon baller, scoop out the inside flesh, making lots of little "potato cups".
I like the little cups! (If you haven't noticed.)
Save the scooped out potato flesh for later.

Fill each potato with the sausage/cheese mixture. If you want to put extra shredded cheese on top, you should!
Put oven temp down to 350, and slide tray back in for a little, just 5-10 minutes until the cheese is melty.
While they get melty, mix shallots, yogurt, and mustard along with some salt and pepper in a food processor.

Mix till combined. This will make a lot of sauce, but you can use the extra as a coleslaw dressing! Yum.


Put your potato cups on a platter, and spoon a little yogurt sauce on top of each one. Then throw on the green onion pieces. So these were really tasty. I loved the sauce with them...AND
I had extra sausage and cheese filling, so I mixed that with the potato flesh I scooped out. I put that mixture into 2 ramekins, and topped with a little extra cheddar. I baked that as a side dish for dinner! And I chopped cabbage, onion, carrots and used the extra yogurt sauce as a coleslaw dressing! So you really kinda get two side dishes as a by-product of this!

Ingredient List
Serves 4-6 as appetizers
Ingredients:
9-10 new potatoes
Olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 link of spicy turkey sausage (or regular Italian sausage)
1 red bell pepper (0r a few cute red and orange mini peppers)
4 green onions
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
4 TBSP unsalted butter
12 oz plain yogurt (don't use non-fat)
1 TBSP deli mustard
1 shallot, roughly chopped

Tagliatelle with White Wine and Veggies

I wanted a light pasta dish last night, but couldn't find a recipe I liked anywhere. (Or at least one that didn't require me running out to buy ingredients I didn't have!)
So I made this one up, using the organic tagliatelle pasta I had bought at Wegman's (one of my favorite places!).
I think this dish would be good using whatever summer vegetables you have around. I usually have something to use up, since we get a share from an organic farm. This would also be good with fresh tomato, zuchinni, some basil.....whatever you like!

First, thinly slice one yellow summer squash, about 4-5 cloves of garlic, and chop one red onion. Start a large pot of water for the pasta.

Mmmmm garlic!Heat up some olive oil in a medium pot, and add the onions and garlic. Saute until soft.

Add 3/4 cup of dry white wine (I used Chardonnay) and about 2 TBSP of white wine vinegar, and 1/4 cup chicken broth/stock (or veggie broth if you want a vegetarian meal.) Add a little salt and lots of pepper. Let this simmer until the liquid is reduced by about half.

Meanwhile, saute the squash in a small pan with olive oil.
Cut three TBSP of butter. (Yum)
Add butter to the onion-wine dealy. You can turn the heat off and mix it in until it melts. Taste and add some salt and pepper if needed.
Add a generous handful of arugula (or rocket whatever you call it) to the squash and cook just for a minute, until it wilts a little. I prefer mine to be not very wilty.
Oh yeah don't forget about the pasta! Cook according to package directions, and drain. You could also use different pasta here like linguini.
Put some pasta on a plate, then wine sauce, then squash and arugula, and top with some freshly grated parmesan cheese!
Yum....
Mmm

Eat with the rest of the wine.
Improvising pasta dishes is fun.

Cape May Eating

My husband and I spent a four-day weekend in Cape May, NJ. I love all the gingerbread Victorian houses, outdoor mall, restaurants, sunset beach...I definitely prefer Cape May over my childhood beach, which is Ocean City, NJ. I mean, Ocean City is a dry town!
The more I like cooking (and eating of course) the more food becomes one of the more important parts of vacationing. So here is our quest for good (not overpriced) food on our trip.
DAY 1
Lunch
Drove into Cape May hungry, and found ourselves at the Island Grill. Caribbean-ish food. I ordered a black bean and shrimp salad. It had mango and avocado. Also got french fries on the side since I was hungry, and the salad wasn't that big. The husband had a Cuban sandwich with pulled pork, ham, and pickles along with sides of coleslaw and pasta salad.
VERDICT
Hmmmm not sure. The Cuban sandwich was tasty. And a large portion. For 10 dollars, pretty good stuff! My salad, also 10 dollars, was pretty good, but nothing to write home about. The shrimp just looked like defrosted pre-cooked shrimp. And the french fry side was 4.50!! I don't know if I would bother trying again.
Dinner
We had planned to visit the Godfather.....the pizza place. I ate the best white pizza I have ever had in my whole darn life there!!! We were there last summer, walked to the location this time and it was gone!! Alas, we were sad and so hungry.
So we walked to the Washington mall and found Stumpo's, a small Italian place. I had a shrimp ceasar salad and the husband had a margharita pizza with olives.
Verdict
Again, I'm in the middle. My salad was pretty darn good. The shrimp was grilled and flavorful, the dressing and croutons were made in house. But I only got 4 small shrimps in the salad, which was 15 bucks. The pizza was good, but not great. What I did really really like was the basket of little garlic bread nubs, so buttery and garlickly! I could have eaten mostly those for dinner. The entrees seemed overpriced here, as I learned many places in Cape May are. I mean, 20 bucks for a pasta dish that doesn't even have meat in it??
Day 2
Today we skipped lunch, since we ate this for breakfast at our B&B:
Eggs Bene-Chip (named after the owner, Chip) Fresh fruit Zuchinni bread Potato pancakes
This was at the John F. Craig house, if you are interested in a good B&B in Cape May I highly recommend it!
Dinner:
We had my birthday dinner at the Merion Inn. This place has a early bird/night owl special: three courses from a selected menu for 18.95. When you look at the fact that most of the entrees alone are over 20 bucks, makes for a good deal. We had the patio to ourselves too!
Verdict
I say thumbs up! First course: Jersey clam chowder-tasty. Second course-Fresh Jersey bluefish with eggplant caponata and the Merion potato cup (like a twice baked potato!) Dessert: Jersey white peach pie with almond oatmeal dessert!! The husbands entree was a steak (of course) stuffed with artichokes, pine nuts, and sharp provolone cheese-whoa. I almost wished I had ordered that!
I also had a Fume Blanc wine (which I learned is just another name for Sauvignon Blanc) I was a little disappointed....I was expecting a smoky flavor but it still went well with the fish.
Day 3
Another full breakfast at the B&B, including berry cream cheese stuffed French toast that I would love to make at home here sometime.
Dinner
The number 1 rated restaurant in Cape May on TripAdvisor.com is George's Place, a small Greek place that serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. We got in for dinner, and it is a narrow place with all booths, but still managed to look nice and not diner-y. We also brought a wine to have with dinner.
Verdict
BEST MEAL EVER! Well at least in Cape May and probably the best restaurant meal I've had in a long time. This place was first of all much cheaper than most other nice places in Cape May. Our entrees were about 12 bucks.
Our appetizer had hummos, tzatziki, olives, a huge hunk of feta cheese, another cheese, and grilled pita. As you can see, it was a big portion. The humoos was amazing. It made me realize maybe I have been making my own hummos a bit too thick. The feta was so good....I like feta but I have never had feta that was just so darn tasty.
My entree was the 6-pepper tuna with greek salad. I was surprised at how delicious the salad was! I have eaten Greek salad before, but this was just bursting with flavor....must have something to do with that great feta. The tuna was also packed with flavor, and just a little spicy! I loved loved this place.
Does anyone else have some food recommendations for Cape May? I would like to try one of the pricey-fancy ones sometime, but only if I know it will be worth the money.