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Today I added a new feature to the Dinner and Drinks blog… email subscriptions through FeedBurner.com.

If you notice to the right, there is a new little box (a widget in blog terms) that supplies a link you can click on.  If you love to read about our culinary adventures,  but you can’t remember to check the website for new posts, just click the link and follow the directions.  Once you have verified your email address, any time a new post is published, you will hear about it in an email the next morning!

There are other, more high tech ways to do this through feed aggregators and other words I am still getting used to, so bear with me.  Maybe one day in the future I will be able to explain it to any readers who are like me and don’t know right from left on the keyboard!

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Easy Gameday Appetizer

A few posts back,  I mentioned our favorite way to eat chorizo as taught to us by our friend Alba.  So, I can’t take credit for this recipe, but I wanted to share it with you because it was so easy to throw together for an afternoon snack while watching college football today.  And,  since I wasn’t thrilled with the last chorizo we tried,  I wanted to share this new brand with you.

   The brand I found was Citterio Rustica Chorizo.  I found it in the deli section of my local Harris Teeter.  It wasn’t very spicy, and the consistancy was similar to pepperoni.  I would try other brands if I saw them, but this was a good one to remember.

So, the recipe is pretty simple:

• Slice some chorizo sausage (you will probably need to remove the casing) and heat it up in a hot non-stick pan until it starts to smell good and render some of its fat.   Then transfer from the pan directly onto baugette rounds.  Done!

 Thanks for showing us this Alba!

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Dinner at Panciuto

Well, ten years ago on this very night, a young biology student collided with a strapping physics major during dollar pitcher night in Bloomsburg, PA……   

So, to celebrate our ten years together, the hubby and I went out to dinner at Pancuito in downtown historic Hillsborough.  It is a great little restaurant, only seating 50 people. Tonight must have been a  weird slow night for them because we were one of the few people in the place.  I guess Thursday night isn’t a huge dining out night in our little town of Hillsborough, because Pancuito is certainly not empty because of the food!

When you first sit down, they bring you a tiny glass of prosecco to put you in the right frame of mind.   They make all of their own pasta and bread at Pancuito, and if it isn’t in season locally, it isn’t on the menu. Green Gourmet..  I love it!

To start:

Beef Tenderloin carpaccio with roasted sweet potatoes in truffle cream vinaigrette

Grilled bruschetta with goat cheese spread, proscuitto, fried egg, golden chanterelles and pea shoots.  (YUM!)

Second Course:

Black spaghetti with sauteed shrimp, calamari, sopressata  and arugula in saffron-tomato butter

Grilled trout “alla porchetta” with wilted mizuna greens and gnocchi in lemon-egg cream (Amazing gnocchi!)

Third Course:

Pumpkin ricotta cheesecake with graham cracker cookie, cardamom maple syrup and maple leaf crisp  (This was so good, it was beyond words; autumn on a plate)

Wine:

We had a bottle of really wonderful Niedermayer Pinot Nero from Italy.

My favorites were the bruschetta, the gnocchi, and the cheesecake.  Mmmmmmmm.

If you live within 20 miles of Pancuito, you MUST go there. It is wonderful and the staff is so nice.  Someone came in to sit at the bar and they really wanted ravioli.  No ravioli on the menu, but what came out?  A butternut squash ravioli that was made special in the kitchen . That is service.  Our waiter could have rushed us out so that he could close up and go home, but he let us take our time and enjoy our special night out.

So there is my raving review.  Pancuito has special wine dinners throughout the year, one of these days we are going to get to one before they sell out.  Check it out if  you can, they have a special email list if you are interested!

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