Capriccio Ristorante Italiano – Roxboro Road, Durham

Since becoming a Northern Durhamite a couple of weeks ago, I've become painfully aware of our limited takeout options within a 4-5 mile radius. Don't get me wrong, we like living further out, but I do miss the plethora of options I had being closer to city center. Where we are now, we have several options for fast food, sandwiches, mexican and take-out chinese, but that's it.

Driving home this weekend I noticed a sign for a new retaurant next to Chik-fil-a in the old Bull City Deli building (prior to that I think it was a Schlotzsky's). I was intrigued and not two days later read the restaurant opening report at Carpe Durham. Last night, I dropped in to grab some take out. I noticed the signs advertising a take out window, but didn't see it set up just yet.

The decor is nice; a peachy stucco interior, filled with booths, soft Italian music playing. The lighting is soft, but bright enough to see your food. It felt very much like a family Italian restaurant to me. It's run by an Italian family and all the staff that I encountered was extremely friendly (especially Karen the bartender). While sitting at the bar, waiting for my food, I could hear only Italian being spoken in the kitchen – a good sign.

There are many vegetarian options and a lot of eggplant dishes, if that's your thing. For dinner, it's mostly pasta, brick oven pizza, panini, seafood and chicken. They also have a nice selection of salads. If you're a beefeater, this isn't the place for you. I found the pasta options to be priced kind of high for it not being freshly made pasta, but they do have a "make your own" section where you can customize pasta and sauce and add on homemade sausage or meatballs (not available last night).

I selected "Pasta Della Nonna" which was fettucine with ham and mushrooms in a tomato cream sauce. For the hubby, I ordered spaghetti with pesto and sausage. I tacked on two side salads with the house Basil-Chianti vinaigrette (for an extra $3.50$3.25).

The food was great. Everything was well seasoned. The pasta was cooked perfectly. The only complaint I have was portion size. The pasta dishes were definitely entree size, but not enough to have leftovers for lunch (which is what I'm used to from the nearby Pomodoro). The salads were honestly really pitiful for $3.50$3.25. 5-6 pieces of cut up romaine, 4 slices of olive and cherry tomato, some red onion, a few pieces of roasted red pepper, a couple of baked pizza dough squares and a slice of cucumber. This isn't local organic produce or anything so I really expected more lettuce for the price. The ingredients were great, as was the dressing.

We'll definitely go back, but probably for lunch or perhaps a special occasion. I'm curious about the pizza. The little breadsticks that came with the entrees were nice and crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. I can't see dropping $40 for take-out (entrees and salads only) on a regular basis. I think Pop's definitely has them beat for dinner (food and selection).

*Click for larger images of menu*

Chicken milanese and pickled onion pistachio salad

Ever since I saw this post over at Smitten Kitchen last week, I've kept it in the back of my mind. If you've never checked out Deb's site, you're missing out. I just love her saturated photography and adventurous cooking. Last night I had chicken thighs thawed and decided it was time to give this recipe a whirl. I made several modifications due to what I had on hand.

I used thighs, not breasts
I used parmesan, not romano
I used romaine, not escarole
I used pistachios, not hazelnuts
I followed all other parts of the recipes exactly. This was a big hit with my hubby, though I felt the onions and dressing a little salty. Again, I think my tastebuds have been a little sensitive to salt lately though. The chicken was excellent, moist, crispy and not greasy. And despite taking several detours with the salad, the sweetness of the pistachios was wonderful with the earthy parmesan, pickled onions and slightly bitter romaine. The combination of textures between the chicken and salad were great! I also loved that a lot of this can be made ahead of time. I'll definitely make this again.

Quick and easy tomato salad

This recipe literally takes about 3 minutes to make. It's fantastic when you need something quick and have a bunch of garden tomatoes to use up!Quick and easy tomato salad
Makes 4 side servings
Ingredients:
4 medium tomatoes, washed and dried
5 basil leaves
1 tbsp fresh chopped italian parsley (optional)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp pepper
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

Directions:
Chiffonade the basil. Cut tomatoes into quarters, removing the white stem area. Cut each quarter in half width-wise. Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix gently with hands to coat. Refrigerate 10-20 minutes before serving!

Corn and asparagus salad

I made this to take to my in-laws for the fourth and it's always light and refreshing! This recipe was inspired by a salad I had a few years ago at Foster's market.

Corn and asparagus salad
Ingredients:
Makes about 8 side dish servings
6 ears yellow or white corn
1 bunch asparagus (about a pound or so) with woody part of stems removed
1 diced green onion
1 tsp parsley chopped
1 tsp basil chopped
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp red wine or white vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
Trim excess cornsilk so that it doesn't char while grilling. Grill corn over high heat for 20 minutes, flipping corn every 5 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Coat asparagus in 1tbsp olive oil and salt and pepper. Grill asparagus over high heat for about 4 minutes, flipping once midway through cooking. Remove and allow to cool.Combine herbs, onion, olive oil and vinegar in medium bowl. Mix through. Cut asparagus on the bias into 1 inch pieces. Shuck corn and hold lengthwise with one end rested on cutting board. Using a sharp knive, start at the top and slice downward along the cob to remove the kernels. Continue rotating the cob until all kernels have been removed. Toss veggies in the herb mixture to coat. Salt and pepper to taste. Chill before serving.

Orzo salad

With spring here and summer on the horizon, I find myself grilling a lot and making lots of types of salads as side dishes. M doesn't like mayo so that narrows things down a bit for me. I made this last night and it was excellent. I used what I had on hand and urge you to try the same. It would also be great with the addition of artichoke hearts or some pine nuts!

Orzo salad
1/2 lb orzo
2 TB olive oil
1/2 cup sundried tomatoes (diced)
1 large handful of arugula (roughly chopped)
1/2 can of black olives
1/2 cup diced red onion
1 TB garlic powder
1 TB red wine vinegar
1 tsp dried basil
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup cubed mozzarella (or more if you really want it cheesey)

Cook orzo as package instructs. Drain and return to warm pot. Mix in the olive oil and arugula. Stir until the arugula wilts some and takes on a bright green color. If the orzo and pot have cooled too much, turn on the burner for a minute or so to expedite the wilting. Add all remaining ingredients EXCEPT mozzarella. Chill. Add cheese once cooled completely.

We had this with some grilled brats (sauteed onions and peppers), grilled asparagus and homebrewed beer (west coast pale ale). We cracked our first bottles last night and it was really really tasty. Thanks Mr. Beer!!!

I had leftovers for lunch today and the salad got heated and was yummy warm too. I love the texture of orzo!

Striper with baby bok choy and pea shoot salad

We are very much eating seasonally these days, or at least trying haha. Last night I made dinner with mom. She came by to deliver wedding gifts! We're tryign to use up the rest of my farmer's market buys from Saturday.We did a quick marinade of soy, chili sauce, ginger and hoisin and baked the striper for 20 minutes on 375. For the baby bok choy we used this recipe and followed it exactly (except we didn't have a full pound of bok choy). It turned out lovely.

I know presentation is definitely lacking and as much as I wanted to drizzle some sesame oil on the plate and garnish the fish with some fresh parsley, WE WERE HUNGRY. So we just ate it haha.

Now on to the pea shoots...I've never had these before and we all agreed in hindsight that we should only use the leaves or perhaps steam it all for like 20 seconds. Even though we picked out the big stalks, the texture was a little tougher then what we're used to in a salad. Unique flavors, great use of the rest of a pea plant. Taste was yummy! I'll definitely attempt again with those modifications. We used regular honey and a little more bacon. I think I also used about 5 cups of the pea shoots instead of 3. Here's the recipe and photo.

Pretty healthy dinner if you don't count the bacon. And really you can't when it's mixed with all those veggies. M and I of course completely negated this meal later by binging on the rest of the box of kashi crackers and cheese hahaha.

Pasta!

Last night for dinner I made a yummy parpadelle. I grilled some chicken breasts, some marinated portobellos and red onions on the grill (after wiping all the pollen off the grill of course hahaha). I chopped all that up, tossed it with some black olives, steamed broccoli, sundried tomatoes, roasted red pepper, some fresh basil and the pasta. Covered it all in a tomato cream sauce (courtesy of knorr). I made a quick cucumber salad to accompany. Turned out yummy!
I also made a repeat of my arugula salad from the other night with the remainder of my arugula from the farmer's market. The balsamic I made last night was much better with the addition of some water. It cut down on the acidity.
Tonight I think I'll be making some Mahi Mahi. I've never made it before, and truthfully didn't mean to buy it. I picked up the wrong package by mistake. I'll be searching for a recipe today to use as a starting point. I'll let you know what I come up with.

I started reading the Kite Runner last night. I'm told I'm reading it somewhat out of order with the companion book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Anyways the first one was great and I got about 35 pages into this one last night and it's very good so far. Reading on the couch last night made me think of getting a hammock.