On the Road: Rock Chalk Jayhawk

When I was growing up and wanted to escape the "boring" monotony of suburban Kansas City, I would hop in my car with my sister or a few friends and head west to Lawrence, KS. Lawrence is home of the University of Kansas and is everything a good college town should be - relaxed, cheap, quirky and cool.

I've been spending more time in Lawrence recently as my ruby slippers frequently transport me from the Emerald (ok, marble) City of Washington, DC, back to my home (and my boyfriend) in Kansas. The old haunts I used to frequent when I was growing up are still there, but I have managed to uncover a lot of "new" favorites as well. The last time I clicked my heels three times and wound up in Lawrence, this is where I ate.

Milton's

920 Massachusetts St.

Lawrence, KS 66044

The go-to place for breakfast. Smack in the middle of the main commercial street in Lawrence, Milton's is packed most weekend mornings with a good mix of students, families and locals. The food is fresh, delicious and cheap! There is usually a bit of a wait, but the time goes fast thanks to the piles of newspapers by the door and the fact that they give you a coffee mug when you walk in, so you can help yourself to some java until your name is called.

Papa Keno's

1035 Massachusetts St.

Lawrence, KS 66044

Lawrence is a great sports watching town, what with the powerhouse basketball team and the fairly (recently) successful football team. If you don't feel like braving the crowds at the stadium, relaxing at home with the game on TV and an open Papa Keno's box in front of you is a pretty close second. Try the Mama Keno, a deep dish pie with Roma tomatoes, spinach, feta and roasted garlic!

Teller's

746 Massachusetts St.

Lawrence, KS 66044

My favorite place in all of Lawrence! Teller's is a gem of a restaurant housed in a beautiful old building that housed a bank in its former life. They retained some of the old touches when they converted it into a restaurant, including the old bank vault door, which you have to walk through to reach the restrooms. The space is airy and modern and awash in candlelight at night. It's a great place to grab an upscale lunch, catch up with girlfriends over a bottle of $20 wine, or enjoy a romantic meal for two.

DC Cheap Eats: Capitol Hill

Forget the long hours, the low pay and the demanding bosses, the real hardship associated with being a Capitol Hill staffer is the frustrating lack of good lunch options around our office buildings. Predictable sub sandwiches, overpriced "designer" salads and mediocre Mexican can only take a girl so far. I've managed to uncover a few gems during my time on the Hill, however, that I don't mind sharing with the class. Now that we've improved the lunch situation, how about we tackle the paycheck situation next? :)

LeBon

210 2nd St. SE

Washington, DC 20003

(202)547-7200

A charming little cafe tucked just around the corner from the "main drag" of Pennsylvania Avenue, LeBon Cafe is a little slice of the City of Lights on Capitol Hill. The menu features French favorites like quiche and croque monsieur as well as hearty soups, fresh salads and tasty paninis. On nice days, they put out a bunch of sidewalk tables and you can enjoy your food while watching the action around the Hill. While not quite as good as wiling away your afternoon in a cafe on the Ile St. Louis, it isn't a bad way to pass the lunch hour.

Good Stuff Eatery

303 Pennsylvania Ave. SE

Washington, DC 20003

(202) 543-8222

A relative newcomer to the Capitol Hill lunch scene, Good Stuff Eatery caused quite a stir in the Halls of Congress when it opened this summer, promising good, fresh burgers fast. It didn't hurt that semi-celebrity chef Spike Mendelsohn, of Top Chef fame, was at the helm. With the help of my always willing taste tester, I checked out Good Stuff last week. We sampled the turkey burger with cheddar, a regular burger loaded down with cheese, bacon, bbq sauce and onion rings and the handcut "Spike's Fries", generously doused with cracked pepper and herbs. Not exactly health food, but delicious nonetheless! I'm still on cloud 9 from the dellllllicious Milky Way shake that we split, on a whim, at the end of our meal. Handspun when you order using house-churned ice cream, it was out of this world (Get it? Milky Way...out of this world... ok, sorry, bad pun ;)). Get the mini size...because even though it is tasty, it is really rich, and you'll likely lapse into sugar shock if you finish a large size by yourself! It was worth every delicious sip...

On the Road: Michigan's West Coast

My idea of summer vacation was shaped by many trips over the years to Cape Cod, MA. To me, summer just isn't summer unless you spend copious amounts of time lounging in the sand, overdosing on fresh seafood, plowing through stacks of fluffy beach books and eating ice cream for dessert every night. We got our summer fix this year by a side trip to the West Coast of Michigan after our Chicago visit. I hadn't spent much time in that part of the country before, and I found it delightful. The towns we visited were quaint and picturesque, the days relaxed and the people friendly. We ate plenty of fresh Michigan blueberries, visited a few farm stands to check out local produce, and had some enjoyable meals while exploring a few of the quaint towns dotting the coastline. What more could you ask for in a vacation? A few of our food highlights are outlined below!

Marro's Restaurant
147 Water Street
Saugatuck, MI 49453
(269) 857-4248

Saugatuck is one of the most charming towns I have stumbled upon in a long while. A quaint artists community situated in the heart of Michigan's Western Coast, we were delighted wile away an afternoon browsing through the many art galleries and gift shops in the area. As far as food is concerned, nestled among the myriad sweet shops hawking homemade fudge, ice cream and caramel corn, you'll find Marro's Restaurant. Operated by the Marro family since 1971, this is the kind of authentic place where you expect to find a little Italian grandmother wander out of the kitchen at the end of your meal, wagging her finger in your face and chastising you for not cleaning your plate. The place was packed for a weekday, so they must have had a whole team of Italian grandmothers in the kitchen, churning out classic Caesar salads, pillowy ravioli and decadent Alfredo. We ate enough to feed a small country (and avoid a clean plate club lecture!!), but that didn't prevent us from sampling one of Saugatuck's ice cream shops on the way out of town...

K2 Pizzeria
2 Washington St.
Grand Haven, MI 49417
(616) 846-3299

Our home base in Michigan was the charming Boyden House Bed and Breakfast in Grand Haven. The town's claim to fame is their musical fountain...a large fountain placed at the top of a hill that "performs" water and light shows nightly, all set to music. Never ones to shun local traditions, we decided to participate in the nightly pilgrimage down to the lakefront for the festivities. We enjoyed some pre-dinner drinks at The Grand, right on the main drag, and then ventured down to the waterfront for a little dinner before the show. I never met a white pizza I didn't like, and K2's version was more than acceptable. Our pie contained a generous amount of asiago cream in place of tomato sauce and was topped with feta cheese, grilled chicken, bacon, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes. Fortuitously, the rooftop balcony of K2 had an excellent view of the fountain, so we didn't even have to leave the comfort of our seats, and, umm, our beers, to enjoy the display.

Everyday People Cafe
11 Center St.
Douglas, MI 49406
(269) 857-4240

Douglas is Saugatuck's next door neighbor. While we didn't get as much of an opportunity to explore this town, we did stop at the highly recommended Everyday People Cafe on our way back to Chicago. We wanted a light but delicious lunch and this fit the bill perfectly. We sat in the garden on a sunny afternoon, tucked away from the (relative) hustle of the main street in Douglas and feasted on a fresh Caprese Salad and a tangy Greek Pita sandwich. Perfect fuel for our journey back to Chicago!

One Last Slice of Summer

There was a definite bite to the air when I walked to the subway this morning. The trees are starting to change colors, trading their green hued leaves for their pretty, multi-colored autumn outfits. While I am looking forward to welcoming fall, my favorite season, with wide open arms, I want to get one last summer recipe in under the wire, before these delicious vegetables go into hibernation for a few months. This easy dish was featured in the Washington Post earlier this year - delicious as a side-dish for some simple grilled chicken or fish and perfectly filling as a meatless meal on its own, it is chock-full of veggies you won't see for a while...the perfect recipe to say "until next year" to summer produce!

End of Summer Vegetable Pie
Adapted from The Washington Post

1 small eggplant, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch slices
1 small pattypan squash, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch slices
1 small sweet onion, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch slices
1 medium tomato, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch slices
8 large basil leaves, cut into chiffonade
4 T. Parmesan cheese
2 T. extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 9-inch pie plate with nonstick cooking spray oil.
Create a single layer of eggplant slices in the bottom of the dish- the slices should overlap only at the edges. (They will not cover the bottom completely). Sprinkle 1/3 of the cut basil leaves over the slices, then 1 tablespoon of the cheese; season with salt and pepper. Drizzle a teaspoon or two of oil over the layer. Repeat with the squash, then the onion and tomato slices.

Sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of cheese over the top, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste, and then scatter the breadcrumbs evenly over the cheese. Drizzle about 2 teaspoons of the oil over the top, then cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the vegetables are tender. Discard the foil; increase the temperature to 375 degrees and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until the excess moisture in the bottom of the dish has gone and the top of the gratin begins to brown, 15 to 20 minutes.

Let sit about 15 minutes before serving. Use a thin, sharp knife to cut the pie into 4 equal portions, then use a spatula to transfer to serving plates.

Farmer's Market Friday: Cherry Tomatoes

Still looking for inventive ways to use the season's bumper crop of tomatoes? After reading the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, which chronicles a Virginia family's quest to eat only seasonal, locally available foods for one calendar year, I have been inspired to preserve some of summer's vegetable bounty for the lean winter months. I'm not big on "traditional" canning because I have a small apartment kitchen that is ill-equipped for this type of undertaking and generally only need to feed one, but other methods of food preservation are appealing to me. One of the best ways I have found to capture some of the vegetable overflow is to slow roast tomatoes, an incredibly simple process. Once roasted, the tomatoes can be kept in a jar in the fridge, covered in a thin layer of olive oil, for several months. I plan on using them in place of store-bought sun dried tomatoes to pump up salads and as an addition to pizza or pasta. I can also vouch that they are pretty darn delicious right out of the oven. After smelling these tasty treats roasting for two hours, I bet you'll have a hard time saving them all for January too...

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Preheat over to 300 degrees. Slice cherry tomatoes in half and place, cut side up, on a rimmed cookie sheet covered in aluminum foil. Drizzle with olive oil, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. Toss to coat. Roast the tomatoes for until their skin becomes dark and wrinkly, about two hours. Serve immediately on their own, or save for future use in any recipe calling for sun dried tomatoes.

(Additional tomato goodness here and here.)

Peanut Butter Bailout Bars

As you may be aware, I work on Capitol Hill for a Member of Congress. Thus, I have been smack in the middle of the economic tornado our country has been dealing with for the past two weeks.

And when the going gets tough, the tough gets cooking. After another long day at the office, I spent the evening in the kitchen, whipping up some goodies for my hard-working staff as a treat when the economic rescue bill (hopefully!!) passes this afternoon.

I settled on one of my favorite recipes from childhood - an easy to make bar that tastes even better than a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. They are usually called Peanut Butter Gems, but, for one day only, I am rechristening them Peanut Butter Bailout Bars. The value of our retirement portfolios may be in free fall, but you can still get a pretty good deal on chocolate chips... Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Bailout Bars/Peanut Butter Gems
Recipe from my Mom :)

1 c. butter, melted
3 c. powdered sugar
1 c. crunchy peanut butter
1 pkg. graham crackers, crushed (just one of the little cellophane wrapped sleeves)
1 12 oz. pkg. semi sweet chocolate chips

Combine melted butter, powdered sugar, peanut butter and graham cracker crumbs in mixing bowl, stirring to combine. Spread mixture in 9 x 13 pan, pressing down evenly to ensure complete coverage of the pan. Melt chocolate chips in microwave or over very low heat. Spread melted chocolate over the peanut butter mixture. Chill in refrigerator for 1 hour prior to cutting and serving.