Dinner for two

To celebrate Judd's first work-free weekend in weeks, I made a farmer's-market inspired dinner for two at home. I served: pork tenderloin with apple cider sauce, roasted carrots with parsley, potato and celery root puree, and sauteed green beans with shallots. I bought almost every ingredient for our meal from the Stokes Farm stand on the corner of 65th and Columbus yesterday morning, including the apple cider, green beans, potatoes, celery root, apples, and fresh herbs (i.e., sage, parsley, and thyme).

I kind of screwed up the apple cider sauce, which I had torn out and saved from an old issue of Cook's Illustrated - - it needed to reduce a lot longer, but we were too hungry to wait. And I think I might brine pork tenderloin next time I cook it since it didn't have much flavor without the sauce and turned out a little on the dry side. But all around, I was pleased. Especially with the easiest component of our meal: the roasted carrots. All I did was slice them into long wedges, toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roast at ~400 degrees in the oven on a baking sheet. 40 minutes later, I sprinkled chopped parsley on the top and voila - delicious sweet carrots!

There were so many gorgeous vegetables for sale at the farmer's market that I am planning another happy and industrious day in the kitchen today to address the butternut squash and cauliflower I didn't use yesterday. For breakfast, I'm making the Barefoot Contessa's herbed-baked eggs (eggs also from the farmer's market, recipe from Barefoot in Paris). For lunch, I'm making butternut squash soup with sage, parmesan, and truffle-scented wild rice (Uncle Ben makes perfectly good long grain wild rice, and I just add black truffle oil at the end). I plan to add the remaining left over apple cider from yesterday, too. And for dinner, I'm going to roast a chicken - yes, I am roasting an entire chicken - with cauliflower gratin, bread stuffing with fresh herbs (I am in the throws of planning my Thanksgiving menu and am test driving this simple meat-free stuffing from Fine Cooking), and sauteed brussels sprouts. I can't think of many other ways that I'd prefer to spend a chilly fall day.