Slow, slow, slow

I got treated to lunch today with Jim's company. We have an excess of Chevy's coupons, so that's where we ended up. For whatever reason, I was absolutely ravenous and couldn't wait to eat today. I ordered my usual portabello and asparagus fajitas without the butter and Jim got a combination platter. This uniquely resulted in me having the more expensive dish and Jim's meal being the discounted one.

For the first time that I can remember, service was painfully slow. We didn't get our meals out quickly and our server didn't even bring me tortillas for my fajitas. Usually I would be more patient, but I had to be back to the office by 1:30. Even with leaving at 12:15 and taking a long lunch, I barely made it back on time. Typically even in a group it's not a problem to go to Chevy's and back in an hour. So that was a bit frustrating. And then the lack of attention just added to the irritation.

Anyway, the food was pretty good today. For whatever reason, I had yellow and green bell peppers instead of red and green. That was a first. And Jim snagged me fresh tortillas, which is always a treat. Jim's mixed platter was absolutely huge, but he ate it all plus two of my tortillas.

After the fact, I'm beyond thirsty. The biggest beef I have with Chevy's is that it's all ridiculously salty. And I am dying of thirst as I type this. Oh, and I'm also really, really full.

For dinner, I made a side dish to supplement JIm's leftovers, Bobby Flay's Smoked Chile Scalloped Sweet Potatoes. It was an easy enough dish to make, and I got to use the sweet potatoes I bought last week as well as green onions and cream. I started by slicing up the sweet potatoes into very thin slices. I don't have a mandoline, so they weren't all exactly equal, but they were close enough. I blended up a can of chipotle peppers in adobo in the food processor until it made a nice puree, and then I mixed up a tablespoon of the stuff with half and half and heavy cream. It was supposed to be all cream, but I tried to lighten it up by using some half and half, too. After that, it was simply assembly--a layer of sweet potatoes, salt, pepper, a few tablespoons of cream drizzled over the top and repeat until all the potatoes were gone. I pressed down on the mixture occasionally to make sure all the pieces were submerged and garnished it with green onions. I covered the casserole with foil, baked it for half and hour and then removed the foil, baking it for about another hour.

The result was a very unique, flavorful dish. The chipotle pepper gave it quite an unexpected kick. And as weird as it was to eat spicy sweet potatoes, it worked. I liked it. I'm not sure I liked it enough to make them again anytime in the near future, but I definitely would consider the recipe a keeper.