veggiebites: Wonderful Eats for a D.C. Finale

Tonight is my last night in D.C. until August and as I sit on my couch watching the "Sex and the City" movie (who is excited for number two?!?!) with my roommates, my stomach is happily remembering the past few days in food. Cinco de mayo is collectively our favorite holiday, so shortly after I got home from my last day at Ping Pong, we started making a feast for eight. On the menu were refried beans, spanish rice (Near East works wonderfully), sour cream, shredded Monterey jack cheese, tortilla chips, tomato and peach salsas and fajitas with red chile tortillas.

The key for optimum fajita flavor is caramelization. For the fajita fillers I used one red, one yellow and one orange bell pepper, one sweet onion and a large zucchini, all sliced with a julienne cut. I also added some chicken that we had in the fridge, but you can definitely omit the meat here. Grease your pan with a tablespoon or so of canola oil and get that thing hot (medium-high heat). Place your onions flat down into the pan to sear and immediately reduce the heat to medium. As much as you might like to peek, do not touch or move the onions at all for 5 minutes, this is where all of that beautiful brown stuff will come into play!

At this point you can add some garlic or paprika to the pan if you would like, and once you've turned the onions, you can begin to add the other vegetables flat down as well. You can make the heat a bit higher as you begin to add more vegetables and then lower the heat again slightly once they've seared just so that they do not burn (if you are adding a meat, cook it in a separate pan). Caramelize your vegetables and watch as even the weariest boys gobble them down:

On Thursday Tina and I went for an early dinner at Founding Farmers with two friends. I love, love, LOVE this restaurant for many reasons. In my opinion, if you eat with your eyes, your mouth can certainly water a bit from some great interior design. This place has got a beautiful bar right smack in the middle of the restaurant with wooden medicine cabinets lining the walls and jars of preserves on metal stacks at the entrance. The stairs leading up to the second floor of the restaurant run parallel to plastic birds on the ceiling that have light bulbs between their wings:

We ordered the Ramos House Fried Green Tomatoes as an appetizer for all, which comes with a goat cheese and homemade green goddess dressing. This appetizer is lightly-fried but thickly coated perfection all wrapped in the cutest parchment paper vessel:

For dinner Tina and I split the Lobster Macaroni and Cheese with creamy, ooey gouda and lemony accents. This is definitely a dish to share (and to go to the gym for later!):

Today my roommates and I went to Georgetown with several friends. Transportation time took longer than anticipated so we were all pretty darn hungry when we arrived at Dolcezza. I went there with Will two years ago directly after his time abroad in Argentina, and I definitely trusted his opinion on the authenticity of their Argentine treats.

The spot has about 20 flavors of gelato on hand at any given time along with cafe beverages and dulce de leche-filled treats such as churros and alfajores:

I ordered avocado honey orange and blood orange flavors, I always love avocado in desserts:

I also got an alfajor which can only be described as salty, milky, gooey, soft (OK, it can be described in many ways, but it is hard to identify just a few!):

None of us had eaten lunch so we stopped into Puro Cafe just across the street from Dolcezza for some afternoon snacks. My Grand-Little in Alpha Kappa Psi, Kayden, works for a marketing company called Tasty Concepts which is doing marketing work for Puro. We ordered our food and Kayden pointed us to the beautiful courtyard. I typically don't do dessert before lunch but it was just one of those days!