While in New York City last month, we upheld our Sunday Nite Dinner tradition at our friends', Jeff and Aimee's, place. After a long weekend of non-stop eating festivities and a Sunday morning bike ride to Piermont, I just wanted to curl up for a extended nap instead of dinner planning. We were cooking for several meat-and-potatoes people, so we tossed around making skirt steak or meat loaf. We settled on good old reliable spaghetti bolognese. The rest of the menu was...

Heirloom Tomato and Butter Leaf Lettuce Salad
with avocados, medium boiled eggs, bacon lardons and Dijon vinaigrette

~

Vietnamese Green Papaya Salad
with basil, beef jerky and nuoc cham

~

Spaghetti Bolognese
topped by basil and shaved Parmigiano Reggiano

~

Lemon Pound Cake
accompanied by fresh strawberries

Why the green papaya salad? Well, Jeff invited his cycling club friend, Maggie, who volunteered to make the papaya salad if it fit into the menu. At that point, the menu was "fluid" and we neglected to tell Maggie what we were making. That's how you end up with a tasty and refreshing green papaya salad with spaghetti bolognese. The salad was made with green papaya, basil, shredded beef jerky and topped with nuoc cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce).

Recently, Hungry Bear and I have had a penchant for making salads with avocados and medium boiled eggs. I lost track of the time when boiling the eggs, and as you'll see in the slideshow, they turned into hard boiled eggs. For extra flavor and to complement the creamy avocados, we fried up some bacon lardons. Coupled with heirloom tomatoes and lightly dressed greens, this salad rocks.

Jeff made the spaghetti bolognese and used this simple bolognese sauce recipe by Giada De Laurentiis. It's an easy recipe that requires minimal prep time and ingredients. Compared to Michael Chiarello's bolognese sauce that Hungry Bear made in August, Giada's recipe uses more tomatoes and produces a meaty marina sauce, whereas, Michael's recipe makes a meat sauce with a touch of tomatoes. Both sauces are simple to make and delicious.

We ended dinner with a lemon pound cake and fresh strawberries. I used a classic pound cake recipe found in The New Best Recipe cookbook. The recipe can also be found on Kat on Thyme, a friend of a friend's blog. The cake was turned into a lemon pound cake by adding the zest of two lemons. The pound cake was light, buttery, moist and delightful.

Overall, dinner was a little eclectic and very enjoyable. It was quite a challenge for four people to prepare a meal in a small kitchen (a very nice, recently remodeled kitchen). In the end, we succeeded in making a great Sunday night meal to share with our New York City friends.

SNDsters: Craig, Nicole, Maggie, Ava, Aimee, Jeff, Hungry Bear, Chuck

Do you love French toast? Looking for a different twist on this breakfast classic? Then give this baked French toast casserole recipe a try. It's a great brunch dish that you prepare the night before and bake in the morning.

The baked French toast dish has three distinct layers. The top layer is a crunchy, caramely praline topping. The middle layer tastes like traditional French toast and the bottom layer reminds me of bread pudding. All together, it's a fantastic and decadent dish for breakfast or brunch.

We made the casserole last Friday while visiting our NYC friends, Jeff and Aimee. It was Aimee's turn to bring breakfast in for her co-workers. Typically, her co-workers bring in bagels or donuts, but Jeff raised the bar and made delicious fritattas the last time it was Aimee's turn. To keep the bar high, I suggested making a baked French toast casserole. Jeff, Hungry Bear and I made three casseroles — a large one for Aimee's co-workers and two smaller ones for us to enjoy.

The French toast casserole recipe is by Paula Deen, so of course, there's a lot of butter, half-and-half and sugar. The praline topping is made with two sticks of butter and a cup of brown sugar. I would recommend not using the entire amount of praline topping, or the casserole may be too sweet and buttery. We used the topping quantity in the recipe across three casseroles. The sweetness was perfect and didn't require any maple syrup. One last tip is to allow the butter to soften before making the praline topping.

The baked French toast casserole was a big hit with Aimee's co-workers. It's a great dish that's easy to make. Serve it with some fresh fruit and your friends and family will be raving about it for a long time.