Cucina di Paolo Restaurant in Boise

Cucina di Paolo

Hello Everyone,

Posted above is the link to there website!

This little restaurants/deli is fantastic! When Ray and I went to the Culinary Walk-A-About in August, Ray won an auction basket that had a gift card from this place. We haven’t had a chance to get anything from them until now. Since were moving and I haven’t been feeling like cooking we decided to use the gift card and get several of their items for this Christmas weekend. It was a little hard to find but, I had never been their before, so now I know where to find it! They have been a word of mouth business for over 18 years, as there website explains, I’ll post think link below.

We decided to buy the 6-piece chicken and spinach lasagna, it’s $19.00. Plus for $1.00 extra each you can have extra veggies added, so I had them add mushrooms and artichokes. It was fantastic! Not to spicy, with lots of fresh veggies. It tasted great!! I would love to try some of there other lasagna’s!

I also bought 2 individual chicken pot pies, they are $5.00 a piece. You can also get a family style casserole for $25.00. The pot pies are great! Ray like’s to get the Marie Calendars pot pies and they always make me sick so I never eat them. I wasn’t sure about this place for the same reason, but it hasn’t bothered me at all! Is was packed with lost of fresh chicken and veggies, and had a very light cream sauce. Delicious!! We also bought a quart size container of clam chowder, but haven’t tried it yet, we will tomorrow. The piece of lasagna and pot pie really filled us up! So if you’re in the Boise area stop on by! They have a wide variety of delicious Italian items to try! The desserts looked great! maybe next time we’ll try something. They do have a counter to sit plus a couple of small tables. Looks like most of their business is to order take and bake.

Until next time..

Amanda 🙂

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Culinary Walk About in Boise Idaho…

Hello everyone,

Ray and I have been married 10 years now! Wow!!! I can’t believe 10 years have already passed, where did the time go? We have had lots of good times and some bad times. Ray asked me would you marry me again now? I said yes! We had a great night tonight! Ray wanted to take me to the Culinary Walk About in Boise. All the proceeds benefit the local Meals-On-Wheals program. I want to talk about the wonderful food we had!

1. Adrid Club, Sous Vide River Farms Short Ribs, served with vegetable slaw and hoisin sesame aioli. I don’t remember eating this dish, maybe we didn’t get it? I don’t know??

2. Tavern at Brown Crossing, Herb-Roasted Double “R” Ranch Filet, served with lavender white cheddar mashers and a green herb sauce. Oh My Word!! This dish was so good I could have eaten the whole plate!!

3. Bella Aquila, Mushroom Risotto, served with crimini, oyster, and enoki mushrooms in a creamy Italian rice. I have to be honest here, I’m sorry but I didn’t care for this too much. It tasted too much like just onions to me..

4. Cucina di Paolo, Bruchetta 2 ways, served with grilled artichokes, Maytag blue, and pinenuts with marinated slow-roasted tomato. These were really yummy!!!

5. Boise Centre, Pepper-Crusted Ribeye Steak, served with chipolte remoulade. Herb-Crusted Pork Tenderloin Crostini, served with huckleberry chutney. This was delicious!!

6. Salt Tears, House-Roasted Turkey Salad Sandwich, served with honey/lime vinaigrette. Roasted Pork Shoulder, served with Dijon cream sauce. These were served on little buns like sliders, and they were ok. I did like the turkey better than the pork..

7. Dawson Taylor, Dark roasted Sumatra, Swiss Water Decaf Dark Roast Sumatra. We didn’t get a chance to try these.. I would have liked to try the decaf, since caffeine keeps me awake..

8. Reef, Mango Tango Salad, Fresh spinach tossed in a mango cumin vinaigrette with applewood smoked bacon. This was ok, not my favorite..

9. The Brickyard, Day Boat Scallops Seared Over Beluga Lentils, served with Cabernet pan reduction and micro greens. I liked the vegetables on this but I let Ray have the scallop..

10. Goody’s, Coconut Ice Cream, served with bittersweet chocolate topping. Ray loved this, but I could only eat about 4 bites, it was really good but very rich and so sweet!

11. Doubletree, Chocolate-Covered Idaho Potato Chips with Sea Salt, topped with Sweet Spicy Bacon Bits and Huckleberry sauce. Oh My Word!! If any food was sinful tonight this was it!! LOL!! I ate 3 of them! One of the best bites I had all night!

12. Ono Hawaiian Cafe, Sugar Cane Sweet Pork Tacos. I can’t remember if we ate any of these???

13. Bardenay, Braised Pork and Guajilo Chili Posole, Garnished with Savoy Cabbage, cilantro, radish, and scallion. Ray just ate this one, I like Posole, I made it awhile back and loved it, but I didn’t want any tonight. I don’t think Ray ate more than 2 bites of it, he said it was to spicy for him.

14. Zee Catering and Floral, Wine Cork Smoked Snake River Beef Brisket, served with Port wine mashed potatoes. This was another dish that I wanted to eat the whole plate!! YUMMY!!

15. Cottonwood Grille, Petite Beef Tenderloin Oscar. this was very yummy!!

16. Incredible Edibles, Huckleberry Pavlova, this was delish!! I ate 3 of them! They were only about 1-inch round, so good!! Mocha Mousse Cones, this was ok, to rich for me.. White Chocolate Truffle tart, these were really good to! Mini Gourmet Cake Bites, the one I had tasted like lemon and I didn’t like it at all, it was like wet dough covered in chocolate, yuck…

17. John Berryhill Bacon, 8 kinds of bacon, need I say more? It was all bacon baby! It was all delish!!

18. Life’s Kitchen, Santa Maria Tri Tip. served with black bean and roasted corn relish. I really liked the meat on this one, but not the relish too much..

19. Louie’s Ravioli di Lazio, served with mushroom-stuffed ravioli Grilled Chicken, served with balsamic pomodoro sauce. This was ok, not the best we had tonight…

20. Mickey Ray’s Brisket and Pulled Pork Sliders, I loved the brisket, but not the pork to well.

As you can see we really had a lot of variety tonight, a lot of it was really good and some not so good. It all boils down to personal taste, I guess… I hope we can make it next year! If you’re in the Boise area next year give this a try! We had blast!!

Goodnight all!!

Amanda 🙂

 

Emmett Cherry Festival

Hello Everyone,

Ray and I finally got a chance to go to the Emmett Cherry Festival this year! It’s like a fair, with lots of contest’s and food! Parking was really bad, Ray had to drop me off near the entrance, since I can’t walk too much.. Anyway’s we looked around the many food vendors and decided on going to the Elk burger booth. I had an Elk hotdog with chili, cheese and onions. Ray just had the Elk hotdog. The people selling the meat raise the elk and have it made into meat. It was fantastic! I haven’t had elk in many years. It didn’t have that gamey taste that most elk have, it’s probably because they raise them on a special diet. We walked around a bit to see all the booths, and to find the cherries. I wanted to buy some sour pie cherries in flats, but they didn’t sell any that way. They had them in 2 different cups and I thought they were a bit pricey. We ended up going to one of the orchards and buying 10lbs of them for a much better price. They are bing cherries, one of my favorites! I did get something that was to die for, it was a fried cinnamon roll, I know it was bad for me, but it was really good!! Ray and I shared it!

 I am hearing some really loud thunder right now so I better go.. Yikes I hate thunder and lightning

Until next time…

Amanda 🙂

 

Greek Food Festival

Hello Everyone,

Ray and I had a great time today at the Boise Greek Food Festival! My mom and step-dad came with us to! They have been having the festival for 30 years, and it was packed today! Ray had the Souvlaki, which is marinated pork on a skewer and served with a Greek rice pilafi. I had the Lamb kabob dinner. It came with the rice piliafi and what was called fasolia, which were green beans cooked in a tomato sauce. I love the green beans, I need to find a recipe for that! 🙂 We shared a Greek garden salad and something we both love to eat, Spanikopita! Spinach pie triangles with feta cheese. My mom had the vegetarian Gyros. It’s a pita with lettuce, tomato, red onion and tsatizki, it’s a yogurt cucumber sauce. Bill had the meat Gyros and it’s served with the same vegetables and sauce. They ate them all up! Mom and Bill decided to tour the church, I was getting tired so we decided to go. We did get to watch the Greek dancers and they were fantastic! Ray and I decided to visit the pastry shop and we chose a variety of items. One is my favorite Baklava, and we chose Galatobouriko, a Greek custard baked in phyllo dough. Kataifi, almonds and walnuts stuffed in shredded wheat. Kourabiethes, butter cookies in powdered sugar, and Koulourakia a Greek butter cookie. If you want to read more about the Greek Festival here is the link  http://www.boisegreekfestival.com/Home_Page.html

Well that’s all I have for tonight everyone, I’m very tired so off to sleep I go!! 

Amanda 🙂 

 

Russian Food Festival

Hello everyone,

Last Saturday Ray and I went to the Russian Food Festival that is held in Boise. All the proceeds go the Russian church and community. I didn’t post anything about yet it, because I was looking for the menu they gave us. Ray and I also went to a huge parking lot yard sale after we ate, and it was hot!! I got sunburned on the neck and my arms and I ended up with sun sickness Sunday. Feeling much better now!!! We love this festival, the food and music is fantastic!  Here is what we decided to sample..

Pelmeni: Russian Stuffed dumplings, with beef and or beef and pork. We had the beef ones with a little sour cream on top. It was my favorite dish of the day!!

Piroshki: Russian turnovers, they had them stuffed with a variety of fillings. Potato and beef, apricots/apples/ and raisins, potato/mushroom, cabbage/beef, and eggs/green onions. We had one of the Potato/beef and Ray ate the other one and I don’t remember what that one was. They were pretty good, not my favorite.

Blini: Russian pancakes, they had some with beef/mushrooms and some filled with some kind of sweet cheese. I loved these, so tasty!!

Mushroom Zakuson: Russian style marinated mushrooms, they had a pickled flavoring to them and spicy These were really good too!

Carrot Salad: Russian style marinated carrot salad, this was also pickled. We bought some of this to bring home, and were still eating it! lol!

The others items we chose to sample was the Shish-Kebab with rice, it was just ok, the meat was too overcooked for my taste.. We had some kind of dough that was fried and had a meat filling and I’m sorry I can’t remember what it was called. This is just a small listing of what they had, there was so much food there! We took a take-out dessert box, filled with amazing treats, like Baklava, almond cookies, and a peanut cake. We also brought home a Russian chocolate log, it has almonds and vodka, were still nibbling on that! It’s really strong!!!

I almost forgot to add that Ray bought me the cutest Russian doll set. They are absolutely the cutest dolls ever! They are hand made and painted..

The Greek Food Festival is in a couple of weeks and you can bet we’ll be going to that one to!

Later everyone!

Amanda 🙂

 

Weiser Idaho Candy Store and Deli

Hello Everyone,

I decided to start a new category for Restaurant Reviews. Since Ray and I like to try new and out-of-the-way places all the time! It’s fun to just drive somewhere we have never been, see the town and what they have to offer. Ray has been wanting to take me to this place for a while, I have either been sick or busy… Here is their website if you want to look at it.. http://www.weiserclassiccandy.com/

Boy am I glad we went there!!! If your ever in this neck of the woods, it’s worth stopping at. I had the Pilgrim Turkey sandwich, and it tastes a lot like a day after Thanksgiving turkey sandwich with cranberry sauce. It was delish!! It came with pickles, and potato chips. Ray had the French Dip which he also loved! We had a cup of their “Soup of the Day”, it was Tomato Basil, and it tasted very fresh! Ray had a hand dipped vanilla ice cream bar with nuts and I had vanilla frozen yogurt infused with frozen raspberries and in a home-made waffle cone! Yummy!!! They also sell many different kinds of hand-made chocolates and candy. We bought several chocolates for Mother’s day gift’s and some just for us!! We will be going back sometime, it’s about an hour drive away from us, but it’s a beautiful drive!! What I didn’t sleep through anyways! 🙂

Well that’s all for tonight everyone!

Amanda 🙂