John and Jill Went Up The Hill …… An Italian Dinner

Italian Dinner

John and Jill came up from Atlanta to visit for the weekend. We had hoped to be able to grill and eat outside with them, but the weather was rainy and cold, so that option went out the window. Instead, Sherry prepared a variety of meals that fit well with the weather.

Sherry prepared a salad Nicoise for lunch, which required that I grill some crushed salt-and-peppered tuna steaks. While I prepared the tuna (rare, of course), Sherry set up a plate with Boston lettuce, pitted kalamata olives, sliced hard-boiled eggs, steamed green beans, roasted and quartered baby red potatoes, and cherry tomatoes, all coated with a Vidalia Onion-balsamic vinegar dressing. It was a wonderful and filling lunch.

For Dinner, Sherry prepared an Eggplant Napoleon, Chicken Marsala, while I made a Lemon Risotto. The risotto is flavored with the juice from a cut, squeezed lemon, 2 Tbsp. limoncello, and 1 Tbsp. cardamom. The meal was exotic and tasty!

EGGPLANT NAPOLEON (see photo)

1 eggplant, sliced laterally in ½ inch slices
4 portobello mushroom caps
2 large tomatoes, sliced into ½ inch thick slices
1 ball mozzarella, sliced into ½ inch slices
Pesto
Rosemary sprigs
Balsamic glaze

1. Grill the eggplant and mushroom caps. Set aside.
2. Prepare a stack of a mushroom cap on the bottom, then a slice of mozzarella, eggplant, tomato, pesto, eggplant, mozzarella, etc.
3. Hold the napoleon together with a rosemary sprig.
4. Decorate with balsamic glaze

To work off the dinner, we climbed to the top of King’s Pinnacle at Crowder’s Mountain State Park in Gastonia, NC.