January 2: Beef Braciole

Only two days into this "project" and I'm already posting a day late. I guess procrastination doesn't go away over night. In Training, we say it takes 21 days for a behavior to become habit. Following that theory, I can promise you that in another 3 weeks this won't happen again. However, I do have an excuse for writing this post a day late. We went out to dinner last evening in honor of my wife's Birthday, and after getting home and tucking the kids into bed for the night, my motivation to write was not at the high-end of the scale. Instead, we elected to get some value from our Netflix subscription and slid "Twilight" into the DVD player. And, for the record, watching a teen-focused vampire film is not my "new thing" for the second day of the year (although, that would have certainly been eligible for the "new" category). Instead, I'm selecting the meal in which I chose to indulge during my wife' birthday celebration as the subject of my new thing to try. We dined at Maggiano's in Troy, MI, and rather than stick with my old Italian favorites - ravioli, linguine, lasagne - I tried the Beef Braciole. For those of you who, like me, are unfamiliar with this dish, it's actually pronounced bra'zhul; which the waitress politely informed me of after I butchered the name while placing my order. Basically, it's beef cutlets stuffed with a ground beef/bread crumb/cheese blend and, in my case, served with flat noodles, cannellini beans and veggies in a tomato sauce. Bottom line, it was remarkable! Taking a hint from my stomach the evening before, I took it upon myself to learn a little more about this delicious entree from the Internet. Some interesting things to note: the American version is quite different from the traditional Italian recipe, and the Italian version is generally not eaten as a main dish but rather a side dish. Oh, and I guess the singular version of braciole, which is non other than braciola, is occasionally used as a slang reference for a penis. Let's just say I'm extremely happy I learned that little piece of knowledge following my meal and not before.