A meal fit for Rossano Brazzi

I realize everyone is still eating Thanksgiving leftovers today but it's Foodie Friday and the show must go on!

Says the girl who basically skipped yesterday. It's fine. You were busy too.

In continuation of my Dick van Dyke show theme of this week (yeah, I'd almost forgotten it too), here's the meal I cooked up this week that was inspired by a meal on the show:

Spaghetti and Meatballs!

Rob and Laura eat a lot of meals in the show. Considering the fact that Laura is a housewife who is a famously good cook, it's not exactly surprising. What I enjoy, however, is how often their food plays into the plot or character development of the show - dating back to the pilot episode, where Laura proves to Rob that she very much intends to stay home by cooking liver for herself and pointedly leaving a liver for Rob out of the frying pan. A fight over liver ensues.

In "The Night the Roof Fell In," Rob and Laura have a tremendous fight. The next day, they're both determined to make up that they independently plan to surprise the other with their favorite meal. What I cooked is Rob's favorite: spaghetti and meatballs. I did a couple of things differently for mine: my mom used to make spaghetti with angel hair pasta rather than spaghetti pasta, so I prefer that. I've also been trying some non-meat options for food so I can gradually decrease my meat consumption, so I did bought some meatless meatballs instead. But, I did make my own marinara sauce and it was delicious! Click the photo below for the recipe:

A woman unhappily in love? She forgets to turn on the oven!

So, I plan to make souffles. I had planned to make them yesterday, but it seemed silly to make two and be alone to eat it. Then, I had planned to make them today when my friend came over. But, I spent the whole time crafting (which was the purpose of her visit) and ran out of time to make them before she left. And then dinner took a while because I had an outrageous headache and I waffled back and forth over what to eat. And, finally, it was 8 o'clock at night and I still hadn't even started the souffles and I had run out of the energy to make them. I still plan to make souffles because it is too good an opportunity when discussing Sabrina. I will make a mini post when I do.

In the meantime, here is the recipe I plan to use. It looks delicious and I will let you all know how it turns out! Click the photo to get to the recipe.

Also, here is the scene that inspires this recipe choice:

He seems more like the champagne type to me.

I struggled for a while on what to cook for this week. As you have probably noticed, I'm trying to theme each week to a certain movie. The reason is that eventually, after this month, I can theme the blog to a certain movie or two each month. And then I'll have recipes and crafts and outfits for that particular movie. It's a little harder doing it each week but, again, this is kind of a test run. So, it's ok.

I kept gravitating toward champagne because there are several scenes that involve it. There's one where Rock Hudson's character prepares a bottle for when Gina Lollobrigida comes to his room and there's the morning after when he realizes she never came to his room and he spent the evening alone. The bottle cork winds up creating a plot twist that makes it even harder for Rock Hudson to spend alone time with Gina Lollobrigida. So, it seemed appropriate.

So, I discussed with my friend Kat what I should make and when I told her that I was debating doing something with champagne for my recipe for the Come September week, she suggested I make Champagne Cupcakes. Which is brilliant! But the thing is, my roommates don't really eat baked goods unless I stand there and hand it to them, so I can't count on them to eat them. And my office has been particularly health-conscious so I can't do the normal of thing of leaving them in the break room. And I know I'm not going to eat an entire batch of Champagne Cupcakes. So, it was a really clever idea but I wasn't entirely sold. And I kept looking on Pinterest until I found this recipe: Creamy Champagne Chicken. It's delicious and I highly recommend trying it out. I made mine with carrots and corn and mashed potatoes.

Bon appetit!

Un altro... horse's neck

I'm going to start my first Foodie Friday with a cocktail. One of my favorite things about being an adult is that I have started to learn how to make drinks that I like. Some are mostly 2 ingredient shindigs and some have a little more pizzazz - it depends on my mood and what I have on hand. A lot of the cocktail recipes I've tried are inspired by movies. So, today I'm going to talk about one of the first cocktails I've ever researched: Horse's Neck.

Do you remember that part in Top Hat where Helen Broderick's character turns to the Venetian waiter and, after a jumble of mispronounced (presumably) Italian words, gives up and orders, "Horse's Neck?" Well, I wondered for years what that was all about.

Years ago, my mom and I looked up Horse's Neck and found out it was a cocktail - for some reason, we thought it was ginger ale and orange peel. I'm not sure where we got that impression. Even the non-alcoholic version is made with lemon peel. Maybe it's what we had on hand at the time? It was delicious, at any rate. So, I do recommend it. It is not, however, Horse's Neck.

Anyway, fast-forward to a few years later and I get hooked on this mystery series called Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen. One of the characters in that book orders a brandy & ginger ale and me, being who I am, thought, "well, I have brandy and I have ginger ale. I'm going to try it!" And it's now one of my favorite drinks to make.

Now, fast-forward a little while later and I'm looking into expanding this blog with recipes and crafts and I start looking up different recipes inspired by movies and this cocktail is one I look up - just to verify that I was right about the whole orange peel thing. Well, lo and behold, I was wrong about the orange peel but, as it turns out, Horse's Neck is brandy and ginger ale! There's also an optional dash of bitters and a lemon peel.

Here is the recipe for those who would like to try at home.

Once you've mixed this delicious cocktail, you can sit back, take a sip, and imagine you're in Venice, dressed in a magnificent bias-cut gown, and pretend you're Helen Broderick... maybe throw in a clever one-liner for good measure.