Ventnor -

by gansie

Ignoring Butter

The scene: Hannah G’s, Ventnor, NJ.

“Can I have the crab and artichoke dip and the Chamberlain salad (mixed greens, red onion, shredded swiss, cashews and apples with a sweet & sour vinaigrette) to share. I’ll have the spaghetti. Thanks.” (Whole wheat spaghetti, with butternut squash, fried fresh sage & organic spinach. And holy crap they ended up pan-frying the entire dish so the noodles were slightly crisp and the squash tasted like sweet potato fries.)

“And I’ll have the nut-crusted salmon with sides of snap peas and garlic mashed potatoes,” 80 excitedly said.

“Okay, I’ll bring out some bread and potato chips,” the waiter said as he walked inside.

Potato chips! Potato chips!

Of course I love bread and butter. In fact, I barely can tolerate bread and oil. I really only use the bread as a vehicle for butter. But, anyway, even though we ordered a fuck load of food, we were pumped for those chips.

Although, I was nervous for too crunchy, kettle-style chips. Instead we received crisp, yet slightly bendy, potato-flavored chips. Dipped in a garlic mayo.

And I ignored the butter. When was the last time you ignored bread and butter?

in Restaurants 1 comments

by gansie

Jersey Shore: Converting Haters to Defenders

This past weekend I brought a few skeptics down the Jersey Shore. Many of my friends have only driven through New Jersey and bought into the crap spoken about this lovely state. Or believe what they saw from Snookie and crew on MTV.

But through our overwhelming intake of Jersey-style Italian food, I think I may have turned them into lifelong defenders of Jerz.

Speaking of food, with the pounds of pasta and side salads and creamy crab ravioli, we accumulated a ton of leftovers. Dedicating our fridge space to beer, I figured out a way to feed us all breakfast and get rid of the 4 rolls of garlic bread we still had from the night before.

Garlic Bread and Feta Egg Bake

Egg bakes are perfect for feeding a ton of people and anything can be thrown in, as demonstrated by my collection of baked egg dishes. [See here and here.] But this one was just straight awesome and didn’t need much additional seasoning because of the flavorful bread.

I cubed the garlic bread leftovers from Uncle Gino’s in Ventnor. Placed them in a buttered oven-proof dish and then poured over a mixture of eggs, crumbled feta, a few splashes of half and half (don’t make the coffee drinkers mad!) and salt and pepper. Let the bread soak in the liquid for 10-15 minutes before baking uncovered at 375 for about 30 minutes.