finding my inner foodie

Ho, Ho, HO it's a Belgium Christmas

2009-12-17T20:11:00.005-05:00

Erin and I decided to celebrate Christmas a bit early at our new favorite bar: Armsby Abbey.
We recently went to brunch there and when we paid our bills we were given a flyer for their Christmas Celebration! They replace all of their taps with Christmas inspired brews.

Sign.
us.
up!

So here's what we gulped:

My 1st was: De Koninck Winter, Belguim Strong Pale
- Cider-like aromas of Sweet apple, caramel, toffee, nuts and spice.
(I really liked this one! i think my favorite)
Erin's 1st: Reindeers Revolt (i think she picked it because of the name!), English Strong Ale
- Buttery malts dominate the aroma with some butterscotch, cinnamon, caramel
and a bit of dough
my 2nd: Holidale (nitro) Berkshire Brewing, American Barley Wine
- Sweet, spicy and fruity
I picked this one because erin's sister works at Berkshire breweries
AND wine..come on!
Erin's 2nd: Gouden Carolus Noel, Belgian Strong Dark
- great aromas of chocolate, spice, vanilla and citrus orange.
The epitome of what Christmas beer should be (they actually said that :)
Erin said that this tasted just like root beer! odd. they had great glasses too!

We also sampled one of their amazing "slates". This one had: sweet potato hummus, pita, bread, blanched almonds, olives, a chipotle dip and pancetta...perfect nice. perfect food. perfect brew.

Home for the Holiday's with Tom and Jerry's

2009-12-16T12:48:00.005-05:00

How is it that I grew up in Watertown and have never tasted a Tom and Jerry's??? I blame my parents for not introducing me to them, mainly my dad as I soon found out that my sister monica has been introduced numerous times...let's just say Santa has alot to make up for haha!
Needless to say both erin and I were introduced to these fine fellows on our recent trip to Watertown. and boy oh boy are they tasty.
Now I wish this could be a post where i describe how you to can create this wonderful christmasy drink on your own...but its a family secret! Only to be sampled at The Crystal Restaurant.

Now after some googling I learned that Tom and Jerry's are an actual drink with an actual history, but like most traditions each maker has their own additions that are impossible to replicate...this is true of the Crystal too!

So good luck, but if you want to try the real deal...head down to Watertown's Square :). Thanks Mom and Dad!

Christmas Cookies, Carols and Cheer

2009-12-07T13:31:00.024-05:00

What would the holiday's be without cookies? no holiday at all if you ask me!

My friend Molly just bought a new house and her kitchen is the perfect setting for the baking extravaganza we decided to attempt last weekend. Molly and I emailed a bunch of cookie ideas back and forth and decided to be lofty and try to bake six different cookies in one day...we succeeded!

Our lofty list included:
-No bakes
-Peanut butter blossoms (aka the cookies with the Hershey kiss!)
-sugar cookies (roll out cookies)
-gingerbread men
-Fig 'n' Flax thumbprint (Eatingwell's 2009 cookie winner)
-Lemon Coconut Snowballs

Now if you click above three of these are from the KAF cookbook! great tool and of course baking with Molly King Arthur was the star of the day. We used KAF in all of our recipes. Molly really thinks it makes a difference in the quality of the cookie!

We started the night before by cranking out the no bakes.
they are super simple and take all of five mins. Since these need to sit we thought they would be perfect to do the night before.

The next morning Molly and I were ready to begin. We decided to start with the Peanut butter blossoms.
We got all the ingredients ready and started in. Molly has a great mixer so it made baking alot more efficient and fun!

I mixed and molly unwrapped kisses. She did a great job of "kissing" each cookie. We also opted to add a little snow to each one to make them more festive!

Next up were the roll out because we knew those would take awhile to cut and bake. Thankfully Molly is a pro, and actually enjoys rolling and cutting...so she took charge of those:They were pretty amazing!

While she worked away on those I decided to try out the two new cookies: Fig n Flax and the Lemon coconut cookies!

I knew that the coconut ones had to cool and then be rolled in sugar again, so those came first. Check out that fresh lemon rind...they were so fresh and light!

and then later rolled in confectionery sugar....:)

Next up were the Fig n Flax....now I know that these sound healthy, and they were by far the healthiest tasting, but I really enjoyed them. Take note that fig and anything pretty much appeals to me :). The Flax give the cookie a bit of a nutty/whole wheat flavor too!
Check out all those spices. We added some holly and berries to christmasize these too! (molly is a genius)

We took turns putting cookies in the oven and thankfully they all cooked at the same temperature too!
If you are wondering where erin was, she was in charge of the camera (and spent some of the morning outside taking pictures of the first snow!)

After a morning of baking we tackled the big challenge...decorating...again Molly to the rescue. She has a great piping set that makes decorating cookies a whole lot prettier and a whole lot easier!! Check out some of our handy work:

genius at work

Where did this decorator come from???

Not to be overshadowed we also threw together some gingerbread to make gingerbread men too! These baked while we tackled some sugar cookies and then they got added to the counter to be dressed to impress!

Finished Product:

BAKING EXTRAVAGANZA 2009 complete...PHEW!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T09:36:00.009-05:00

This year's thanksgiving was full of family, fun and festivities! This was the first year that I spent away from my family, but I got to spend it with my future in-laws!

Let's rewind to "the night before Thanksgiving...." and all through the kitchen, not a pan was left unused! Erin's Family hosted Thanksgiving at their house this year, however Erin's mom graciously let me bring my numerous side dishes! I really loved having everyone over at our apartment this year and I was nervous I was going to miss out on cooking/baking all my favorites. So, when Karen gave me the green light to cook away...I did just that!

My contributions included: my grandma's rolls, My mom's (and Betty crockers ;) Homemade Apple Pie, Gingered Pumpkin Pie, Green Bean Casserole, Brussels Sprouts with Bacon Horseradish Cream, AND Sweet Potato Pie!

I tried really hard to pair the list down...but I just didn't want to leave out anything!

The day before I spent a few hours baking, prepping and cooking so that Thanksgiving would be stress free! I started with the baking and by roasting our sugar pumpkin for fresh pumpkin puree. My grandma's rolls were next up because they have to sit for a few hours prior to baking.

Next was the pie crust and filling...everything came together quite easily and I was VERY happy with the way my pies turned out!

I next moved on to prepping all my casseroles. I made each of these last year so I was pretty comfortable with the directions for each. I did implement a major change to my Brussels sprouts recipe this year! Since I am not really eating meat these days, and I really LOVE Brussels, I took the advice of a fellow baker online and substituted the bacon for TJ's Soy Chorizo...it was amazing! Added a great spice to the dish.

Oh...and this is what erin did while I cooked....

she's all mine! (you can see me working away in the background. i love it)

erin and I celebrated that night with a bottle of prosseco at a cute little Italian restaurant in our neighborhood. A much needed drink!

The planning turned out great and made for a stress free Thanksgiving day! Erin's sister Lizzie and Mom created a great table scape, and we had some herbed goat cheese, fruit and nuts as the meal cooked away....

We had such a great Thanksgiving. I was very Thankful to be around family and fun!

Hers and Hers Chili and Pumpkin Cornbread

2009-11-23T13:30:00.005-05:00

Although we are smack in the middle of fall and football season I have yet to make my turkey chili...it could possibly be that this is the first fall I really haven't eaten any meat...so it just hasn't been on my radar. But apparently is has been on erin's! So when she ever so nicely demanded that I whip up some chili I gladly agreed!

She offered to enjoy it meatless with me, but I figured why not just make two separate batches?

I use this tried and true Weight Watchers Turkey Chili Recipe, with a few additions of my own.

What goes good with chili (other than beer) why cornbread of course! I had seen this recipe for Pumpkin Cornbread earlier this month and its been in the back of my cooking brain ever since.

After a quick trip to the grocery store for minimal supplies I got to work!

I decided to start the batch of chili with all of the veggies and brown the meat separately. Once I added the spices I then transferred 1/2 the chili over the turkey meat, and left the other 1/2 meat free! hence: Hers and Hers Chili.

My add ins:

-frozen corn

-butternut squash

-mushrooms

I will add that its mighty spicy, but that's the way that erin likes it! You can feel free to reduce the chili powder or red pepper flakes to your desired hotness.

While the chili was simmering away I went to work on the pumpkin cornbread. I simply followed the directions (no molasses in house so I substitute some maple syrup per erin's suggestion) and waited to bake it until we were ready to eat (i think cornbread is the best warm out of the oven!).

Here's a close up of both....

YUM YUM. The cornbread had a nice holiday spice to it and cut the heat a bit in the chili.

Armsby Abby

2009-11-23T13:29:00.007-05:00

When erin and I lived in NYC we use to love to go to Brunch on the weekends. It was so nice to sit at an outdoor place, or inside in a cozy pub and have unlimited mimosas and breakfast food at 1pm!
Since we've moved we haven't gone out to brunch. However our friend recently recommended a place in Worcester, Armsby Abbey. She mentioned that all of their food was local and their beer selection was impressive to say the least!
It certainly exceeded our expectations.

To start they have a free parking lot and inside of the restaurant reminded us alot of places in brooklyn and NY that we loved! Upon arriving we were greeted warmly at the door and given our choice of a window seat (they had cushions and everything!) or a high bar table. We opted for the bar table and took our seats. The beer list was massive so we started with cocktails.
Erin got the Cabin Fever which consist of: Vermont Spirits Maple & Hangar One Spiced Pear Vodkas, Mathilde Poire Liqueur and Cabin Fever Maple Liqueur served straight up with a Cinnamon stick garnish. She actually got a Pear instead of a cinnamon stick.
I chose The French Kiss: St. German Liquour, prosseco, fresh lemon juice.
They were both amazing!

Then on to the food. After alot of hemming and hawing (I really wanted to just get cheese and bread ;). Erin ordered the breakfast calzone, Housemade Corned Beef Hash featuring Niman Ranch Corned Beef (Alameda, CA), Red Peppers, Sweet Empire Onions, Red Potato, Vermont Cheddar and Local Eggs from Gibson’s Dairy Farm (Worcester, MA) served with a side of our Homemade Hollandaise Sauce. I got the veggie quiche: Roasted Pumpkin & Sautéed Leeks, Chevre from Crystal Brook Farm (Sterling, MA), fresh Basil and Local Eggs from Gibson’s Dairy Farm (Worcester, MA) served with a side of dressed farm greens from Berberian Farm (Northboro, MA).

As you can see the ingredients are from local farms and they also pair each food item with a beer!
After our cocktails we each ordered a beer too. I went for the BBC Raspberry and erin got the Dogfish Pale Ale.

Everything was SOOOOOO good!
Their menu changes every week and we have plans to return for pre-dinner drinks before erin's birthday.
They made regulars out of us for sure!!

Marathon Munching!

2009-11-10T12:32:00.006-05:00

So of course most people carb up before marathon's right? And who was I to argue with tradition. Although I will say that it was also erin's first trip back to NYC since we moved so we wanted to celebrate that as well. After a quick trip to the running expo we were ready to eat!
We had already decided to hit up our most frequented neighborhood, the West Village.

We first made a pit stop into Boxer's for a refreshment:

Beer for Carbs!

Okay in all honesty it was erin's beer and i quickly vetoed eating here...because frankly I am not a fan of beer in plastic glasses :(

We then made our way down the street to a cute little tapas restaurant. Erin and i had actually always wanted to try this place when we lived here but it was always super busy or closed. So I jumped at the chance to grab a window seat and chow down.
The menu was great! We opted to share some plates including: mussels, calamari, shrimp and a veggie sandwich with goat cheese...YUM! The waiter found out that I was running the marathon the next day and kept sending bread over to the table...

everything was so tasty!

After heading back to Staten Island (we were staying with our friend molly's in laws which was SO nice!) we headed to Aunt Gina's for Halloween Dinner! She had tons of snacks out all afternoon which I didn't hesitate to graze upon.

I finished the night off simple with a nice bowl of pasta...I was ready!

The first pie of the season. fail.

2009-10-27T12:26:00.010-04:00

Our apartment is officially filled to the brim with Apples . Although I eat at least one a day, right after our picking I had to head to Chicago for work. When I returned i knew an apple pie was on the agenda. We just couldn't wait until Thanksgiving.
Enter my mother's famous Pie. Now its not my mother's because she made up the recipe or anything, she is just so perfect at executing it (Betty Crocker's Better Homes and Gardens). Honestly no one else compares. I would NEVER buy a store made crust or a store pie for that matter!! Not that I judge anyone who does (I have had my fair share of delicious store bought deserts) it was just a homemade crust/pie has been ingrained in my cooking brain for as long as I can remember.

Now if you read my blog you know that i cook "healthy" and those ingredients that aren't healthy or I don't particularly care for tend to get omitted or substituted with something else.
For example:
Oil - omitted or applesauce in baked goods
Butter - i like to use brumble and brown (a yogurt based spread)

Normally when it comes to crust I stick with the old tried and true recipe. No substitutions here, however I don't have Crisco in my house normally and i assumed that using brumel would suffice...the crust rolled out beautifully! the best it EVER has! I even placed a phone call to my mom letting her know that this would be my "best pie yet...". I really should have known better...
Now I know you are thinking, "that pie looks great" and it does! But the flavor in the crust just was not there. It never fully browned and honestly the crust tasted like cardboard...

A few weeks later, with the hard lesson learned, I purchased some Crisco and tried again...

Look at the brown on that crust!
Erin actually didn't mind the taste of my first attempt however after tasting this one...she understood my feelings.Even I can admit...sometimes substitutions just do not work!

Spaghetti Squash Sesame Stir-fry

2009-10-14T11:56:00.012-04:00

I purchased a spaghetti squash the other day in anticipation of making one of erin's fall favorites: Spaghetti Squash & Pork Stir-fry. I made this awhile back and since then I haven't been eating meat, other than fish...so I decided to try a little change up and omit the pork and add shrimp!

I started by cutting the large squash in half and then carving out the middle, keeping the seeds. Then I place both sides face down on a cookie sheet and roast the spaghetti squash for about 40 mins at 400 degrees. The good thing about this step is you can even do this the night before and shred the squash for the next day.

As you can see by the last photo that the cooked squash resembles spagetti strands!

Then i went to prepping all the "add ins". The nice thing about Eatingwell is although some of the ingrediants/sauces you might not have on hand, you don't have to use that much and they last forever!!while the squash is cooking I prepped all the "add ins" and got all the sauces out of the cupboard!

All together now:

Of course I didn't miss the pork at all...but the real test...neither did erin!

Supporting local Farms, and local apples

2009-10-12T15:26:00.009-04:00

On our MUST DO list for New England Fall activities we can now cross off Apple Picking. Not only do I enjoy apples year round, but when I get the chance to pick them myself...im in heaven.

This year, while researching where we should pick, I was overwhelmed with all the choices. erin and i probably have at least five orchards within a five mile radius of our apartment...probably more than that! We both decided that we wanted to pick one that was a bit off the beaten path, a little less crowded, and definitely local! After all the hemming and hawing we literally just drove around until we found a cute sign pointing us up a steep hill. There we found Nicewicz Family Farm.

It was definitely local with a great little farm stand out front, pumpkins, and of course a tractor for erin's photo pleasure!

We paid for our big bag and made our way across the street to trees! We passed some great pear trees on the way and finally found my favorites: Cortland, Macs and Macons! The owner steered us in the right directions and ordered us to make sure we sampled the goods while picking. we obeyed!!

I sure made use of every inch of our bag.

Erin made use of our new camera:

stay tuned for apple recipes galore...

Apple of My Eye

2009-10-07T13:17:00.006-04:00

Autumn is in full force up here in New England and sticking with the Fall theme I decided to try HG's Apple Cobbler again. If you are a frequent reader (um...hi Dad!) then you may recall me trying this dish last year to mixed reviews...take one.

I loved it, but in a "this is a healthy desert" way. And if I recall erin stuck with Halloween candy at this point, so I didn't have super high hopes. But hey, apples/oats and fiber one...sign me up!

As noted before you also get a HUGE portion of apple crisp for not alot of calories, which is always a plus.

Apples peeled (I used mac's even though the recipe calls for sweet...i like my apples tart!)

Crumble prepped (oats added)

and into the oven it went! 10 mins later...warm appleness was delivered. topped with whipped cream.

Now as mentioned I was highly prepared to have leftovers for myself because this is just not an erin desert...

BUT, she LOVED it! I don't know what it was this year but she said it was really really good!

We recently stumbled across the highly loved Edy's Pumpkin Ice Cream and I dare say it would be an unstoppable desert!

Pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin burgers

2009-10-05T13:42:00.012-04:00

Tis the season for Pumpkin recipes and as I thought about my late eats I opted to combine by food group...this one we shall call Pumpkin!

I love fall and I love all the cooking that comes with it. I love squash (all types), apples, cider, soups....and on and on. Harvest time brings out so many new foods to cook with that it doesn't make me miss the heat at all! Well maybe sometimes.

I will start with my latest batch of Pumpkin cookies! I stumbled upon this recipe last year and it is so healthy, yet delicious that I knew it would be making more appearances. These are Eating Well's Pumpkin Cookies. The ingredients are quite simple and so is the execution. I used applesauce in lieu of the oil (didn't have any).

Combine the dry, combine the wet. Then put them together:

and stir. They are great little treats to try and quite spicy in flavor...meaning allspice, nutmeg
and cinnamon Oh MY!

I couldn't wait to share these with our friends Scott and Terra! But what they shared with us was rather amazing as well!I apparently am not alone in my love of cooking with pumpkins as erin and I so happily discovered on our latest trip to Peekskill! Our friends terra and scott had an amazing recipe in mind for breakfast one morning:

Pumpkin-Apple Pancakes!

These were incredible!! I really can't blog about how they were made because I went for a run and when i returned the house smelled of pancakes, pumpkin and warm apples...I couldn't wait to try these!

(um...yes that is a fresh piece of apple in the pumpkin pancake. heaven)

As I was eating them I exclaimed: "It's like fall in my mouth"!! Thanks Terra...YUM

Of course with desert and breakfast I had to include a great "pumpkin themed dinner". Again these are a repeat as erin and I are both huge fans. SOUTHWESTERN PUMPKIN BURGERS!

I made these last fall and the fall before and frankly they are a must try. I don't think you would even know there is pumpkin in the recipe by taste, so it's perfect to make even if someone is not a pumpkin fan! The southwestern flavors (hello cumin) really pair nicely with the pumpkin and the corn(the corn is erin's favorite part).

Sadly...the camera enjoyed the burgers just as much as we did.

To add to that we finally have a NEW camera who I'm told is not a big eater. We took it apple picking this weekend and it didn't eat a single one!

willpower.

Engagement Party Extravaganza!

2009-09-29T12:12:00.015-04:00

The celebration just keeps on coming!! erin and I were lucky enough to celebrate our engagement with a great group of friends and family this past weekend! Our friend Emily offered up her great apartment and our friend Molly certainly provided just about everything else!
We had quite a turn out of food, friends and fun!

Since this is primary a food blog, let's start with the food...brought by friends.
Erin's mom brought the cake and it was incredible!! as you can see she had the decorated draw a tree, with a swing on it to show where we got engaged. perfect.

Molly also contributed to the desert by bringing her amazing sugar cookies decorated simply with homemade white frosting. YUM.

I had requested some of Molly's past goodies including: fig and goat cheese bruschetta (this was by far my favorite dish of the night...my families too) and chipotle black bean dip! My future Sister in law Kara brought a buffalo moz. bruschetta and turkey cauliflower meatballs (both a huge hit!). Emily made some tasty Sangria!, a spin-artichoke dip (always a winner) and a great veggie platter! Erin's cousin Jayda brought beer bread with a dip (also one of my favorites).

To round out the spread I decided to bring: Shrimp Cocktail, a lovely cheese platter with a homemade fig-mango cherry jam (made by the chef at my restaurant!), homemade Hummus, Nectarine and Mozzarella Skewers with Pesto,(used my homemade pesto sauce and my Dad threw these together) and a fresh fruit platter with a Kahlua/cool whip dip.

Check out this spread:

Seriously...there was barely room on the table for all this food!
We were so blown away by all the support and love we got...my heart was bursting with happiness and my stomach was pretty full too!

Move in Madness

2009-09-18T13:51:00.007-04:00

Our friends Nick and Molly just bought their first house and we couldn't be more excited for them!! It's amazing and Molly finally has a big kitchen to use all of her wedding swag in and her limitless knowledge of baking and recipes (her mom works for King Arthur Flour, so it's practically in her blood ;).

We headed to their house for their first, of many, weekend get together's. Of course it was filled with food and fun! Despite the fact that they just moved in, Molly made a great spread for us to enjoy AND they had picked up not only Sam Adams Oktoberfest, but Shipyard Pumpkin! (my favorite).

These are some of her homemade sugar cookies with homemade frosting decorated as fall leaves, squirrels and acorns! These tasted as good as they looked.

She also wowed the crowed with a great dip from Cooking Light: black-bean chipotle dip that she served up with chips/celery and carrot sticks. This was a crowd pleaser and as you will see soon was also a must have at our engagement party!! She has the best platters for these things (that she again completely supplied for the engagement party spread). There were other delicious snacks throughout the weekend and of course I wanted to contribute something...So I came up with breakfast for the next morning.

It was a perfect recipe to do for a group and travelling because I was able to prep the night before and just throw it in the oven when I went for a run the next morning! I took advantage of Molly's great kitchen and prepped there, but this is totally something you could take with you if you were staying over at someones house!

Baked Apple-Cinnamon French Toast So simple!

I combined all the dry ingredients above(minus the raisins..erin's not a fan). I used a low-cal bread to save some calories but you could use a variety of breads to make it heartier as well! I also think that raisins would have added a little texture, but any dried fruit would do. I failed to save enough crust less pieces of bread to cover the top completely...but we made it work! and it was yummy with real maple syrupy. I don't think that Nick and Molly knew they would be opening a cooking school when they bought their new house...but they know me well so I don't think it will be a big shocker :).

Chinese take-out...made in!

2009-09-15T13:04:00.004-04:00

I love the little town that I call home...but it is rather little. and with that comes limited options for take out food (which is sometimes a good thing!) Our choice is typically Chinese food which is fine by me because you can either splurge or go with the steamed options. Either way you are still getting take out...even if its a fake out. So the other night erin and i were craving some Chinese food. We dialed up our trusty neighborhood place and to our horror they notified us they were not delivering that night. WHAT??????????

In order to make sure that never occurred again I decided to finally try a recipe I had bookmarked awhile ago for Moo Shu Vegetables. I had turned erin on to Moo Shu awhile back so I knew that she would be game. Of course you can always choose to add a meat of choice to this dish.

I did have a few items to purchase for this one because most of the ingredients are fresh! (fresh ginger, bag of shredded veggies, bean sprouts, scallions and hosin sauce) The most expensive (hosin sauce) will last me awhile though, so it will definitely pay for it's self. I already had the rice vinegar from a previous recipe, and most Asian recipes I stumble upon call for these sauces!

The directions are super simple and direct. and since it calls for pre-shredded veggies the most prep I had to do was chop the ginger/garlic and scallions. We were ready for dinner in less than fifteen mins.
The veggies themselves are fairly low in calories so I would pair this with brown rice, tortillas or throw some meat in there!

Sadly my camera ate the picture of the final product just about as fast as we did. It was delicious. It had the same flavors as take out minus the oil aftertaste! The fresh ginger really complimented everything. YUM.

Try it now. put down that phone.

Purple Monster

2009-09-08T15:26:00.004-04:00

Around the food blog world a Green Monster is a food group in and of it's self! I have seen so many different variations of this "smoothie" that of course I had to try my hand at it!
One morning after a long hot run I opted away from my typical bowl of oats and decided to use up some "last leg spinach". I threw that in my trusty blender along with:
-1 cup of Skim milk
-1 frozen banana (this takes the place of adding ice as well)
-1/4 cup of frozen raspberries
-1/4 cup of frozen blueberries
-1/8 cup of oats (i had read that this gave a good texture to the smoothie...and i'm a texture girl (twss)

As the blender began it was of course green and then...the purple took over. Fine by me!

I have since tried kale in replace of the spinach and although i loved it, its not for the faint of heart. I definitely think kale gives a hearty more green taste to the monster. You can of course also substitute any frozen berries that you have on hand, or are in season.

What color is your monster???

Back to School, Baking and Basil Pesto

2009-09-04T13:23:00.010-04:00

Back to school and back to baking! Sometimes i feel like a stay at home mom when I work from home, and i get the urge to bake erin something fun to eat when she gets home (I don't think she minds all that much!). So while i was looking through my Hungry Girl book I stumbled upon Funky Monkey Squares. These were super simple, super low-cal and used up some bananas on their last leg! Now I can't post the recipe because it is in her book "Hungry Girl 200 under 200", but this is seriously worth the buy! It has TONS of simple/tasty recipes and will more than pay for itself with all the fun ideas.

The ingredients came together rather nicely although I will admit I was a bit worried at how thin and small the bars looked in the pan! But after cooking and cooling they looked perfect. They are a bit on the thin side but make up for it in taste! Erin is always my go to for approval with these deserts because she will be the first to identify something as "healthy tasting"...she loved these! They were similar texture to banana bread but a bit heartier! I enjoyed mine for desert that night with a scoop of frozen vanilla yogurt. YUM.

Working backwards, while the bars were cooking, I set out to use some of this:

Since you can't smell this picture I will leave you to imagine what an amazing aroma fresh basil brings to a small apartment! I love this smell and it was just screaming to be made into some guilt free pesto! I say guilt free because back in my weight watchers days I stumbled upon a "point friendly" pesto recipe. A typical pesto uses olive oil as the liquid, (which is heart healthy in doses!) but to save point WW's substituted fat free chicken stock. Genius!

I just combine all the listed ingredients in my trusty (yet old and needs to be replaced) food processor and voila!

I have made this many times before and it can be frozen, used over pasta, as a sandwich spread....or in my favorite use: Pizza!

It's so simple because no matter how large, or small, a group you have everyone can make their own pizzas with their own toppings! <---Erin stays pretty simple with pesto/cheese and artichoke hearts...where as I load up on veggies and skip the cheese-->. Her's always looks better :).

Operation Cod (not the fish)

2009-08-31T13:27:00.007-04:00

On a recent trip to cape cod with our friends terra and scott we rented a great little cottage on a cove and set out for some fun in the sun....Fun we found, sun not so much. But that didn't stop us from having another great food weekend!

After some interesting kayaking and canoeing (lets just say erin was a great captain with a not so helpful, hungry crew (me) she wanted to get some snacks into me right away! All we had to say was the word and Terra and Scott whipped out some tasty dips that they had made from Real Simple! There were four different options:

Spicy Black Bean and avocado (with jalapenos from their garden)!

Corn, Cucumber and Goat Cheese (you cannot go wrong with goat cheese)

Asian Shrimp (so light and delicious)

and a mix of the leftovers!!!

all served with tostidos! HOLY YUM. these were delectable. Each had their own flavors and were so fresh tasting! Erin and I were very impressed and I can't wait to make these for our next party!!

After the angry hunger had been taken care of we moved on to dinner plans. Since we were on the cape we wanted to take advantage of the fresh seafood...we all decided to make our own fish tacos!

Quick trip to the store we came back with:

-cod fish

-limes

-cilantro

-garlic

-mangos

-avocados

-mango salsa (newman's own!)

-salsa verde

-red cabbage

-tortillas

We decided to marinate the fish in: garlic, cilantro and lime juice and Terra suggested that we also make our own fruit salsa for a garnish. We combined fresh mango, avocado and cilantro and let all the flavors come together in the fridge as the fish marinated. Scott did a great job of grilling it up and taco making commenced.

I had mine with some crunchy red cabbage, homemade mango salsa and a bit of salsa verde for spice. the textures and flavors were great! we also enjoyed some great wine that Scott brought from a winery that Erin and I actually got to visit on our trip to CA: Darioush.

good friends, good wine, good food.

OPERATION COD = SUCCESSFUL

WCC, DD and TPG

2009-08-10T12:14:00.019-04:00

Anything but mediocre...that's what sums up my eats in good old Watertown! typically we tend to cook alot and eat alot of snacks when we visit my parents...but this time around we had quite a bit of visiting and eating out to do! Not that I am complaining in the least :).

So I thought I would take the time to highlight some of my favorite eats/spots in Watertown.

I should start by mentioning that my Dad is a big golfer so in the summertime he spends quite a bit of time at the local Watertown Golf Club! Instead of fighting him on it we decided to join him for dinner post golf game. We may or may not have gotten there early to partake in some pre-dinner cocktails!

Also important to note that we don't typically eat at the golf club because...well we weren't that impressed with the food. UNTIL NOW...one of erin's (and my) favorite people in Watertown is now the chef at Watertown Country Club and boy oh boy can you tell. David Boucher (gotta give him a name shout out) does an amazing job with the food. You know the restaurant is good when even the side salad before dinner is impressive. His amazing wife, Alice Jean, makes all of the deserts...and of course we took advantage of that as well. Let's just say...the picture does not do his cooking justice!

Another tradition when visiting Watertown is having breakfast at a local favorite and past employer of mine: Tin Pan Galley They have the most amazing breakfast ever and the line around the block on the weekends speaks for it's self. YUM. I always get the same thing: Eggs Rosalie , but this trip I decided to go with their Breakfast Wrap which is basically eggs rosalie in a wrap! So good. They offer about five different types of homemade toast, the home fries are crispy and fresh and they always have delicious fresh fruit too! We try to hit Tin Pan up during the week because the crowds are far more manageable! They are probably most famous for their stuffed french toast, and they always have amazing specials. Everything seems so gourmet...especially for breakfast! Foodies Paradise. They have a great patio and it has a beautiful stone bar and live music on Friday nights. Its pretty much perfect.

Finally after a week filled with eats and fun I have to mention this amazing Cake that my Uncle Danny made erin and I (and my dad) to congratulate us on our engagement. His cakes are incredible. The frosting is delicious (i think its almond flavored) and he always has the best decorations! I have a feeling he will be getting a call from the wedding planner (aka me) in the near future.

Thanks Uncle Dan!!

Sucessful Salmon Burgers

2009-08-10T12:14:00.016-04:00

On to cooking with my dad who I think makes just about anything taste good (he's even had me liking venison before...awhile ago that is :).
I love to cook with him. Although I love me some veggies and he is definitely a meat guy...he also is the first one to try just about anything, loves interesting and exotic foods just as much as I do and indulges me in my crazy healthy substitutions . not without comment however :).

He also knows my culinary taste pretty well so when he mentioned that he wanted to attempt homemade salmon burgers...well you can just imagine my excitement! I quickly consulted my go-to-site (eatingwell.com) and found this gem of a recipe:
Salmon Burgers with Green Goddess Sauce

Let me just say that there are a ton of salmon burger recipes out there. So many in fact that it got a bit overwhelming. I choose this one because I thought it was a good simple recipe with ingredients i was familiar with and production that seemed just as simple.

We started by opting to get fresh salmon from the Lobster Man in our town (basically a truck with fresh seafood...YUM). After consulting my dad he thought we should add both the onion and scallion option so I went to work. My dad took the skin off the salmon and honestly the most intimidating part was chopping it up. The first thing on the recipe clearly states "The key to perfect salmon burgers is to handle the fish delicately: don't overseason, overhandle or overcook it. " Since i was in charge of the first two I was just a bit nervous...

After successfully completing the chopping I set to make the burgers. My sister Jenny (also a GREAT cook!) helped me scour the burgers (or separate into equal parts) and thankfully supervised the patty making process (ie told me when the patties were good looking). again, I didn't want to "overhandle" the salmon. After all patties were made and safely in the fridge we hit our first snag....I FORGOT TO ADD THE CILANTRO. Now if you haven't cooked with cilantro you may not know that its quite a potent flavor. So if a recipe calls for it chances are it a large flavor profile in the dish...what to do? My mom suggested just putting a bit on top of the burgers and pushing it in, but these burgers were on the delicate side. Jenny voted for reforming the patties...we went with Jenny's idea and good thing because the cilantro was great! (by the way if you aren't a cilantro fan feel free to leave this out...we just all love it!)
We prepped the burgers so far in advance that they had plenty of time to sit together in the fridge before the grill master (dad) came home. i think this helped the flavors come together as well as the patties!

The final step was out of my hands, thank goodness, when dad came to grill them up. I still haven't really attempted using a grill (thanks to living in an apartment my whole adult life) so i left that up to him. He did a great job! (not that we were ever worried).
I also threw together the Green Goddess Sauce

On to the critics reviews:
Erin - also had the option to have a beef burger...one bit of the salmon and she was hooked! She LOVE it and claims this was one of her favorites i have EVER MADE!!!!!
Mom - does not eat salmon. i repeat does not eat salmon....LOVE IT TOO!!!!!!
co chef Jenny and Dad loved theirs as well! We had actually made beef burgers because we weren't sure of success of these and no on touched them! We actually had to split the last salmon burger amongst ourselves.
These burgers were so flavorful, perfectly cooked and incredibly fresh tasting!
erin and i loved the green goddess sauce but my dad has a strong aversion to Fat free mayo :) so he wasn't the biggest fan...

Honestly these are a must make for anyone and everyone! I would typically say "if you like salmon/fish" but my mom hates is and she actually ate half a burger!
They took a bit more time and care then some of my recipes but they were well worth the worry!

Blueberry tart! and homemade goodness

2009-08-10T12:13:00.007-04:00

I love being home. I love what i eat when I come home. Most of all I love cooking with both my mom and dad when I am home. growing up both my parents cooked and my mom can certainly bake with the best of them. While planning meals for the masses we opted to throw in a few deserts along the way. As we all know blueberries are ridiculously amazing in the summer time (both in price AND taste) and my mom makes homemade blueberry squares that are simply a.maze.ing. They are basically homemade cake with fresh blueberries tossed in.

Bringing my own style to the kitchen I wanted to try Eatingwell's Blueberry Tart with Walnut Crust!

Tart's have always somewhat intimidated me but with my mom's help I figured i couldn't go wrong. As I began to read the recipe i realized just how easy this seemed. I had all the necessary ingredients and I set to work!
I did not have a "tart pan", but a pie pan worked perfectly fine. In fact this was...easy as pie!
Super super simple and delicious I might add! The blueberries were a perfect pairing with the creamy filling and the drizzle of fresh maple syrup on the top added the perfect amount of sweetness to the dish. YUM!

Alongside both the dishes we wanted to make fresh ice cream with their ice cream maker (fancy right?!)...so why not try the low fat version as well? um....not so great. The picture looks good and this is in face what the real ice cream turned out to look like as well. But the taste...not so much. Honestly it tasted like cold, frozen, plain yogurt...hmmm. My sister did say that this could be tasty as a breakfast with some fruit or granola! I definitely agree, just not sweet enough to satisfy a desert craving.

I think everyone tried a bit of each...except my picking eater of a brother who just tried...MINE. and he loved it! Thanks Will for the vote of confidence :). I will make you dessert anytime!

ENGAGED!!!

2009-07-27T13:34:00.008-04:00

Yes, yes the blog title (and picture) I'm sure gave it away...WE ARE ENGAGED.

Although that has nothing to do with food it's my blog. I did in fact eat and drink that day...so why not document it :)!!! I'm sure you (and by you I mean my two followers and the random people that might stop on by) won't mind. It's rather romantic.

The day started off with a morning run and upon returning erin informed me that we would be going to the Tower Hill Botanic Garden. sounded good to me. It was actually super close to our apartment. We drove in and it was absolutely beautiful. They have a ton of trails that you can take as well as well as gardens, orchards and an amazing view of Mt.Wachusett. Erin had said she wanted to walk around the grounds and then maybe get a bite to eat in their cafe...or a drink perhaps. she mentioned that on Sunday's they have live piano music on the patio so it sounded good to me! After taking in the grounds we spotted an amazing swing hanging from a huge tree in the middle of a field...all i can say is I am SO glad that I made the somewhat muddy trek to the swing!

A proposal ensued and so did alot of smiles!

After an ample amount of time taking pictures of my amazing ring!!!! we decided to in fact take in the piano music and have a celebratory drink on the patio! They serve their own "tower hill label wine" and offered an amazingly fresh menu. Erin picked a veggie wrap with hummus and fresh fruit (see why i said yes??!!!) and I opted for the fresh blueberry soup.

Check out that presentation:

After a great meal we didn't want the celebrating to end so we decided to head to one of our favorite spots...Nashoba Valley Winery. We have actually discussed getting married here, it's so beautiful, so why not open a bottle of Pinot Gris (a new addition to their line-up!) and show off my new ring! (there was alot of this ring sneaking into fingers this day....;) The weather was perfect to enjoy a bottle on the patio. And make some phone calls to inform some friends and family of our news!

Still not wanting the fun to end we headed home where we opened our bottle of Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs...we had of course been saving this for a "special occasion"!

Garnished with strawberries we toasted to the day...can't wait for a million more!

Steamed Mussels and Banana Ice Cream...YUM

2009-07-20T12:05:00.002-04:00

Okay so these are two SEPARATE dishes, don't worry! and sadly they were so delicious that the camera ate the photos...erin just said that means we have to make it again!

I'll start with the mussels. I was craving something light and summery yet yummy and satisfying. My mind immediately went to fish but after perusing the fish counter at the local supermarket I decided to challenge myself to make mussels. A favorite for both erin and I! We usually always order mussels out at a restaurant because lets face it...anything that comes in a shell is a bit intimidating to cook! something I may have failed to mention is that although erin is quite willing to try just about anything I attempt, she is rather suspicious of anything that needs to be cooked a certain way in order to avoid a certain food poisoning issue! So I was hoping she would trust my culinary (or googling) abilities with this one and dig in.
I asked the seafood lady how many mussels we would need for two and she recommended a pound! skipping to the end we totally didn't need that much but the bags were already filled so I think she gave me the smallest one.
After jetting home with the smell of the ocean in my car I threw the mussels in the fridge and began googling. Of course there were numerous mussel recipes to choose from but alot of them had similar preparations and techniques.
All of the recipes I found stated to: Always wash the mussels! They actually have brushes that you can buy (they wash clams, oysters etc.) but you can also just use the rough side of a sponge.
I had a bottle of white wine open in the fridge and wanted to use that to steam the mussels in. due to my love of ordering the mussel dish on the menu I opted to throw in some sauteed garlic, shallots and parsley to season the wine. research told me to let the mussels cook/steam in the broth for about 8 to 10 minutes or until they had opened up. (if they don't open up...they are NOT good!)
I prepped everything and then when erin came home I turned the heat on and let them pop (well not literally pop...but open up in the pan)

I served them along with some french bread and white wine! YUM. they were light, easy and delicious. Perfect for a hot summer night.

We of course had to have something sweet a bit later, and that's where the banana ice cream comes in! I am not a huge fan of ice cream, I would rather eat cake...or chocolate. But erin LOVES ice cream, and in the summer is the perfect ice cream weather. I had seen this "change your life" blog post and knew it was a must try!! READ THIS POST...seriously what could be easier? freeze two bananas...put them in a food processor...hit start...watch it spin for five minutes. ENJOY!
Now something to note, that many other "attempters" have as well, the bananas go through stages from frozen to shredded to finally creamy. Be patient. it will work.
The results. good. now I am not freaking out because again I am not a HUGE ice cream lover, and my huge ice cream lover said it was good, but had a "strange" aftertaste. We aren't quite sure if it has anything to do with my 1950 style food processor though :). I think we will be trying it again soon!

Latin Quinoa Dinner

2009-07-07T13:07:00.004-04:00

My poor erin is now officially a grad student. I say "poor" because her lack of a social life is now in full bloom! I decided to take this opportunity to make myself useful by resorting to a 50's housewife and promptly return from work with groceries and dinner fixins.

The star ingredient on tonight's menu: Quinoa!

I have been waiting to try this "grain" for quite sometime and I had an inkling that erin would be a fan as well. Quinoa looks almost like couscous and seemed to be utilized in recipes quite similarly. It is also a great source of protein for vegetarian diets, which I happen to sorta follow. I did some research and found a recipe on Eatingwell that look simple and scrumptious!

I give you: Quinoa with Latin Flavors

Of course changes were made, all in effort to enhance the dish. I decided to add shrimp to make this more of a "main dish" and left out the peptias because I just didn't have any on hand. I also cut the recipe in half because we didn't need portions for 6! No oil, as normal...and I cooked the quinoa in fat free chicken broth. Other than that it was pretty straightforward...unfortunately my camera did not corporate! The pictures were pretty and colorful, but lost :(.

The flavor of the cilantro and lime really came through in this dish and the quinoa has such an amazing texture, much more interesting than rice or pasta! I can't wait to use this grain in so much more.
Check these out!

Gimmie SMORE!

2009-07-01T10:20:00.004-04:00

So if you live in Boston, have visited the area or just love the weather channel you will know that our summer around here has been anything but beachy weather. With that said, what is a girl to do in the mid-summer, stuck inside, while it's raining...with a gas stove?

Make Smores!

While we were luck enough to be at the beach...we were not able to spend much time spent outside, but we refused to let the summer traditions just melt away. So Erin, Molly and I opted to try our hand at stove made Smores. I must say, they turned out great...here is our recipe for success:

Step 1: assemble fixins. open bag of marshmallows. unwrap the six pack of chocolate bars that of course you needed to purchase even though just 3 of you are making these and unwrap the low-fat graham crackers. I also recommend placing the desired chocolate amount on the graham cracker.

Step 2: find kabob skewers that will make for "indoor branches" to use over your open oven flame.

Step 3: turn stove on to desire heat. Isn't this great? you can turn it up if you are a lover of burnt marshmallows, or keep it on "blue flames" to really brown it up.

Step 4: cook marshmallow

Step 5: place marshmallow on one half of cracker over the chocolate. place other cracker on top of marshmallow and pull the skewer out.

Step 6: EAT AND REPEAT!

Costal Weekend

2009-06-30T15:28:00.011-04:00

Erin and I took an impromptu "tour of the coast" a few weekends back. We were offered a free cottage on the beach in Salisbury, MA (thanks kara) and although the gloomy summer weather may not scream beach to most, erin and i were up for it! We opted to check out nearby Newburyport since it was a rainy drizzled filled day. The town was literally five minutes from the cottage and it was a quaint as we imagined. We walked around for a bit in and out of fun little shops. It reminded us alot of a smaller downtown Portsmouth. Quickly our hunger (and thirst) took over and a sign for "$1 oysters" drew me into Ten Center Street Restaurant & Wine Bar. If it weren't for the sign I think we would have passed right by, but I am glad we didn't. This place is off the main street and doesn't really strike you as anything special from the outside. That changes the minute you make it past the host stand.

The bar was so warm and welcoming. It's two floors with brick walls and two fireplaces on the lower level! Perfect for a rainy day. They also have a great selection of specialty beer and wine, as well as a full bar. The food looked delicious too. Erin tried there Lobster Chowder (super fresh and creamy) and of course I went with the Oyster special!

I enjoyed my beer by the fireplace at one point and we had to take a picture of the great beer glass erin used: (it reads: nice beer: if you can get it)
This was the perfect space to enjoy the summer/rainy weather. We checked out the upstairs bar too and saw that they have live music at night. I would highly recommend this place to anyone in the area!

Our travels then took us to the Cape to visit erin's moms friend from high school, Diane! She has a beautiful house that she opens up to us every summer to come visit. Its so nice to be able to head to the cape, yet stay away from the super tourist areas! Erin had been craving "fried seafood" (this is a smell that pretty much begins the minute you are within five miles of a beach town in New England) so Diane recommended we try out a local joint: Spanky Clam Shack. This place was right on the water and had a great patio to dine on. Erin got her fried scallops, while I enjoyed some mussels!

Finally I must mention another amazing dish I had while beaching it...we went over to Clay and Paul's gorgeous new house (Paul is Diane's son) and they had out a great spread of fresh veggies/hummus/fruit and of course cocktails! Then they cooked up some fresh kabobs and a homemade rice. SO DELISH.
After some Wii and laughter Clay whipped up this incredible desert. He started by toasting his own pecans with some liquor of sorts. Then he grilled up some fresh pineapple and served it all together with some Haagen- Dazs Pineapple -Coconut ice cream. HOLY YUM. It was the perfect portion/flavor combo of deliciousness. Thanks again guys!

Some other eats that I didn't take pictures of :(, but HIGHLY enjoyed were: Diane's homemade blueberry pancakes, Mark's famous hot wings and of course erin's margaritas...I guess we will just have to head back soon so I can get pictures this time!

Green Monkey

2009-06-22T12:54:00.012-04:00

This resturant was amazing! I just thought it was appropriate to start with that because that pretty much says it all...(but since this is a blog I will elborate a bit ;)

Erin and I recently headed to Portsmouth, NH to have dinner with our friends Nick and Molly. They had been to the Green Monkey once before for after dinner drinks and Nick (who does NOT drink martini's) was able to knock down a good amount of their Blood Orange Martini's quite easily. We had also taken Molly to their sister resturant Brazo for her bachlorette party and the food/drink/service was stellar! So we decided it was a must go, and a must try for the food as well!

It was a Saturday night and Portsmouth is a coastal town so the summer's can tend to be pretty busy downtown and we hadn't made a reservation. No worries! We walked in around 8ish and the host quickly looked into getting us a table. Within two minutes we were seated with their amazing drink and food menu. We jumped right into the drink list and quickly saw why they won "best martini" from a couple of NH magazines. Molly and I decided on "The Wild Blueberry lemonade: Stoli blueberi Vodka, wild blueberry puree and fresh squeezed lemon juice". THIS WAS GREAT! I love when a martini has all fresh ingrediants! Erin decided upon the "Ginger Pear Martini: Absolut Pear vodka, ginger syrup and sour mix"...also A.MAZE.ING. And of course Nick revisited the Blood Orange Martini which isn't listed on their website but Nick will totally vouch for it's delisiousness. Each drink also came with a little monkey on the glass. All the monkey's fell down at the end.

Next came the food options...

We were all pretty hungry so we decided to get two appetizers to share. We pick the LEMONGRASS STEAMED MUSSELS (sauteed in a coconut milk, lemongrass and green curry broth) and the PAN SEARED ROCK CRAB CAKE (parsley and caper aioli, fresh citrus salsa)> both great! They served the table fresh, warm bread with some sort of orange butter...we didn't know what it was but it was great.

They had a special entree that night that I easily ordered as soon as I heard the description. From what i can remember is was something like this: "seared Yellowfin Tuna served with a coconut basmati rice and a carrot and pepper salad". YES PLEASE. Here was the rest of their menu.

Erin went for the Mahi Mahi, Molly tried the Pad Thai, and Nick went with the Duck. Each one was so colorful and more importantly tasted fresh and Delicious. We were in food heaven.

Now you wouldn't know from looking at her but our friend molly had a small pouch in her stomach just used for desert! I happily looked over the menu with her, and boy am i glad i did. Honestly this is one of my most favorite deserts EVER. Seriously. ever.

Behold the: Marinated Fig Tart served with cinnamon crisp ice cream and local raw honey. the crisps in the ice cream almost tasted like cookies...honestly i think erin took a little sample and i inhaled the rest. incredible.

This restaurant was by far one of my favorites! The service was great. The drinks were inventive and yummy and the food knocked it out of the park.

Oh and the company was the best part!

Boston Beer

2009-06-22T12:52:00.011-04:00

I know that I mention my love of wine alot on this blog...but did you know that I drink beer too?! (i'm sure if you are reading this you know that already). So when our friends Clare and Adam invited us to attend American Craft Beerfest we gladly accepted.

It's a pretty simple concept. You pay for a ticket, get a 2oz tasting glass, and taste away!

Erin and I invited our friends Nick and Molly to join us and the six of us had a blast!

Erin and I arrived first and waited in a line that oddly reminded us of a Disney World ride. It was a theme park line for "adults only". When the seaport opened they quickly got us in and handed us a glass and a program. Since we had beat our other two couple friends to the start...we sampled a few beers before they got in. Erin and I looked over the map and quickly decided we just wanted to try everything!

We found some old favorites: (this is for Rob and Allison) and sampled plenty of new brews. The varietes were endless! I loved trying watertmelon beer with fresh slices of melon from 21st Amendment, and I even sampled sour tasting beer: (it definielty puckered my taste buds). We also had a great coffee stout that literally tasted like you were drinking an iced coffee (nick was in heaven!)

As you can see below i tried to use my "wine tasting skills" on beer. Many of the brews have quite distinctive smells. Especially all the fruit brews.

I then switched to using Clare and Adam's method of tasting ---------->

Seeing how many of us were already consumers of these local breweries we opted to sample from tables that we had never heard of or seen before...that lasted for a little bit and then we broke down and tried what we wanted. I had a lofty idea of keeping track of all of my samples and their ratings...but that quickly went out the window as well :).

They did have "dump buckets" throughout the venue as well as water jugs to rinse your glass between pours. Molly definietly took advantage of the dump buckets (due to her DD status!)...i will admit I joined her on a few (i wanted to have longevity).

There were so many different "personalities" there and each brewery had its own unique and fun staff as well. Nick helped me obtain a souvenir from one of them and all i had to do was tell a joke (cannot be mentioned or explained on the blog:)...I think Nick was proud of me.

I was really impressed that we barely waited in any line over 2minutes (and yes that includes the bathroom ladies!).

I think you can tell by the smiles that we were both content with our tastes!

Ligers love Salmon...just not cinnamon

2009-06-15T12:41:00.006-04:00

Our amazing friends scott and terra hosted a going away South African themed weekend party (for Scott who is headed to South Africa for a month!) that we were lucky enough to attend. Because they live a few hours from us they hosted us for the whole weekend! Now I have somehow managed (maybe paid) to get Scott and Terra to read my blog so they are quite aware of my love of healthy eating and fish and therefore decided to treat us to an amazing Salmon meal! (they are so thoughtful)

Scott is quite the Grill Master and we have spent many a weekend being treated to his cooking while Terra cooks up all the side dishes and treats(she makes a mean sugar cookie is all i can say!). This meal was no exception. Terra said she simply googled "salmon recipes" and found that this one had the highest rating on allrecipes.com. The fish was flaky, flavorful and fantastic! We all commented that it was as tasty as any restaurant fish. YUM. The leftovers were quickly devoured over the weekend!

Terra marinated the salmon for a few hours and then Scott wrapped the fillets in foil to throw on the grill. Ten minutes later they were perfectly flaky. For the record Scott grilled himself up a nice big steak! Terra made a delicious potato dish (they tasted like a baked potato in a pan!) with low fat ingredients. seriously, they are great.

Little did Terra know that my costume for the upcoming weekend would be a Liger...and everyone knows liger's love salmon!!!

Rocky Road Brownies

2009-06-15T12:40:00.006-04:00

As many of my numerous blog followers may know (okay Scott, terra and erin), erin is currently teaching and loving it! Soon she will experience yet another perk of her new found career...summer vacation! In preparation for this perk of teaching many teachers partake in end of the year parties. Erin was no exception. Although I am unable to attend these perks in person I choose to support in the only way I know how...baking!

Alot of erin's co-workers are familiar with my "healthified" cooking attempts so I wanted to send erin in with something deceptively delicious. I saw this new HG recipe for Rocky Road Brownies and it looked simply straightforward and scrumptious.

I do have some all important notes for this one as well!

First off an ingredient note: HG list to use the Betty Crocker Family Brownies Mix (18.3 oz). I actually looked around at other brownie mixes and they really do have a variety of oz measurements listed on each box. With that said I think it's important to use the amount called for. Also the grocery store was out of the one other item I needed (canned pumpkin) so I picked up canned squash assuming that any canned root veggie would do! It seemed to work out well. You don't add the marshmallows and almonds until about 10 mins before cooking time is over. I used that opportunity to capture of layers of this treat.

These cooked up nicely and I made sure to let them sit for several hours in the fridge to solidify before slicing. The next morning I cubed them up and sample a moist little bite. These were good! They not only tasted fudge like but kept alot of moisture and texture as well.

Coincidentally erin told me that one of the other teachers cooked the EXACT same recipe.

That HG really gets around!

Smooth and Zinful!

2009-06-10T12:54:00.008-04:00

It was a gloomy Tuesday. What are a couple of wine lovers to do?...open another bottle from CA! erin and i have both been quite tentative on opening our bottles of wine for a couple of reasons:

1. we love all our wines and might be sad when they are gone.

2. we rarely have weekends so the option to finish off a bottle in one sitting is slim. (not sure how long it will take to finish it)

BUT, thankfully our membership to Imagery has made us more willing to drink bottles that we didn't actually buy on our trip, but rather got as a club member.

Tonight we decided to uncork our 2005 Zinfandel. I couldn't even find this wine on their website which is one of the perks of being members. Not sure if I have already mentioned this but Imagery does not distribute to stores/rest/etc, So being a member definitely has it's perks. How can you not feel special when you get a bottle of wine that no one around you can purchase. Jealous? we share! This is how they describe the wine in our information brochure that came with the shipment:

Taylor Zinfandel 2006 (Dry Creek Valley)

Tasting notes: (from the pamphlet not my impressive palate)

full-bodied, yet silky smooth Zinfandel with dark fruit flavors and slight spice.

On to the tasting...We LOVED this wine. erin and i both though it was very smooth with no tannis (yeah!). It went down very nicely (maybe too nicely on a Tuesday night :) and would pair great with a nice BBQ meal, yes even in the summer. I think people tend to keep reds for the winter or to drink with red meat (which I don't eat) or heavy meals and then partake in white in the summer months. Although sometimes I do find a heavy red not as appealing on a hot summer day, i say drink what you like...when you like! And just for the record this is how we like to drink:

(erin's is stemless and I am not!)

Wonder what bottle will be next?!

can of chickpeas

2009-06-02T10:12:00.007-04:00

This is just a quick little post about a quick little snack. I really like nuts (that's what she said) but have seriously limited willpower when it comes to facing down a bowl of trail mix or chips or smartfood (thanks terra!)...so coming up with new (healthier) snack is always a challenge. Now I will pause to say that nuts are very nutrious! Just not MY typical helping :).

I had seen many a recipe for baked chickpeas and one snacky afternoon I thought I would give it a go. I loosely used this recipe for Roasted Chickpeas. Now by loosely I mean I took the temp. suggested and the time they were to roast...other than that I went on my own.

1.I drained a can of chickpeas.

2.sprayed generously with cooking spray.

3.seasoned with various favorite spices (garlic salt, cumin, chipotle).

4.tossed them in the oven for the allotted time (approx. 45 mins)

I liked them! Some did burn a bit, but nothing i couldn't handle! Some were also a bit dry but i think that might have been due to the fact that I omitted the called for oil (big surprise i know!)...but I honestly don't think it was THAT necessary.

Also just want to note that I am now obsessed with wasabi peas as well. (I just thought this would be a good post to mention that)

Mollydooker party at Molly's!

2009-05-27T13:08:00.009-04:00

As promised in my last wine country post i will be blogging about our many wine opening/tastings. perhaps i should change my blog name to "finding my inner foodie with a buzz"...hmmmm...that would make my parents proud :).
This "wine tasting" was actually with our friends Molly and Nick and although we sampled some of their Napa Wine (they joined Mumm while on their honeymoon last year!) We also opened our first California wine this night. We have been itching to get together and drink all our MollyDooker wines! (they were all Shiraz) and erin isn't a big red fan...so she choose to open our first Imagery wine: it was a White Burgundy. I was jealous at first because this was one of my favorite whites on the trip. BUT since we are members of this wine club we actually received a bottle in the mail. So we had duplicates. Oh, and I may have taken a few sips from erin as well....

Nick had looked up what food goes well with Shiraz and luckily for us it was Mexican! This was as close as he would come to posing for the food blog :). (he's cooking up the chicken fajitas and shrimp for me!).

Of course I wanted to contribute something and I decided on this fresh "Mexican flavored" veggie Salad.

Ingredients:
-fresh green beans (steamed)
-bag of frozen corn (defrosted)
-small purple onion
-pint of grape tomatoes
-small avocado
-lime juice
-cumin (a few shakes)
-diced cilantro
-Tbl. of Olive Oil
I literally just diced everything up and combined. I seasoned with Mexican spices (cumin, fresh cilantro, chili, s+P). It tasted light and fresh! The avocado paired with the lime juice and oil created a light creamy texture. Molly and I agreed that perhaps it needed just a bit more lime juice, but all in all it was a success!

Nick and Molly introduced us to this wine and I instantly LOVED it. I then recommended it to the owner of the restaurant I work at and he liked it as well. As a thank you he gave me two bottles of Mollydooker Shiraz (a 2006 and the other was their Blue Eyed Boy release). Molly and Nick contributed their 2005 Shiraz. We officially had a tasting :). We didn't end up opening our 2006 Shiraz, but instead did a tasting with the Blue Eyed Boy and the 2005. Molly and Nick didn't want the Shiraz to sit much longer. They were amazing as expected!

We've all learned alot about tasting on our respective wine trips, so it was fun to put our knowledge to use. We could really tell the difference between the 2005 and the Blue Eyed Boy. The Blue Eyed Boy was actually a bit more surupy (as Nick put it) then the 2005. I loved them both and went back and forth between my favorite. We also tested each other's palates by doing a blind tasting and having to pick the correct Shiraz...
I actually got it right! Erin did too...after a few tries haha. Hey, she drank that white all alone so her palate was, off :).

Since we didn't break into the 2006 Shiraz we have an excuse to have yet another Mollydooker party...at Molly's. that was too easy!

Cinco de Drinko

2009-05-06T18:35:00.011-04:00

In honor of Cinco de Mayo we of course had to celebrate with one of our favorite repeat dishes, shrimp fajitas...YUM. They were delectable as always! I wasn't sure if there was anything blog worthy of this night and then I thought I can't believe that i haven't talked about one of my favorite adult beverages...margaritas!

I am a tequila lover. cheap, expensive, i can pretty much throw it back with the best of them. With that said ordering a Margarita at a bar typically means getting tequila, sweet mix (this has such a wide range even though most menus read "fresh lime juice" right...), frozen or rocks. I NEVER order a margarita at a restaurant anymore. Honestly the few times I have tried...erin gets an extra drink. Instead I order: tequila on the rocks with a splash of couintreau and a bunch of fresh limes for squeezing. Sip away! With that said that's a pretty potent drink and I acknowledge sometimes (and some people) you need a healthy substitute for something that is closer to your "normal" margarita.

Back when I discovered HG they sent out emails not only about food, but cocktails as well. The margarita seemed worth a try and with my love of tequila i thought...what is there to lose?! Ironically, three years later, I received another email about their drinks and HG says that the Low-Cal Margarita is the most viewed cocktail ever!!

Erin is in charge of this one! She was always the bartender at our gatherings so I gave her free range with this one. She did not disappoint! There are so many changes she makes and she can either do a whole pitcher of these bad boys or a single serving (for school nights :). As you can see in the link you can also changed up the flavors by using alternative diet/sugar free mixins...really, how can you go wrong with Tequila?!

Happy Cinco de Drinko (that's what it should be called come on!)

San Fran Sushi

2009-05-01T13:19:00.018-04:00

Our last day in California started out much like the rest...i went for a run (taking in the beautiful scenery one last time) and by the time i got back erin had plotted out the day! We had purposely booked an overnight flight so we would get another full day of vacation. Going into the trip we didn't know if we would be wined out by the time this day rolled around, or if we would want to squeeze in a couple more wineries...we went with the latter! The two wineries we hit up were right near downtown Sonoma, and only a few miles apart so it was a good last day! We went to a really laid back breakfast spot to sip on a great latte and plan our day. (the latte was grrrreat!)

We decided to stop one last time at the Sonoma Cheese Factory to load up with supplies so that we could picinc at the SF bridge (more to come). Next we headed up the hill to Ravenswood. I actually drink Ravenswood Zin so I was excited to see all the different vintages and wines they offered. We even got a complimentary glass for this tasting. Then we moved onto one of erin's favorite Gundlach Bundschu! (picture does not do it justice) She had done some reading about this one and really wanted to try it. She actually had her favorite wine of the trip here (we purchases a red and white!!). What a great way to end our tasting extravaganza. They are also known for their picnic spots so we hiked up a little hill to take in Sonoma one last time...

Then we were on our way to San Fransisco. We decided ahead of time to stop before crossing the bridge to have a picnic and take in the view. We drove up a very steep and winding road, but the views did not disappoint:

Our original plan was to picnic outside...however the wind won that war and we were happy to eat in our nice warm rental car!

We had plans to meet up with some friends that live in SF but we had some time to kill so we thought we would do the touristy thing and visit Pier 39. Of course we saw Alcatraz from afar and took in the sea lion's bathing in the sun. I have to say after living in NYC for eight years it reminded me alot of the South Street Seaport. I didn't care for the hustle and bustle, but I think I was spoiled by the calmness of wine country.

We drove around a bit and Erin forced me to drive down Lombard Street! When they say crooked they aren't kidding!!!! (the sun was not helpful in erin's photo ops up hill)
Finally I got to have my west coast sushi! Our friends had picked this cute sushi place that was suppose to be really good...but they were all booked up when we arrived (on a thursday night!). So we walked a few blocks and stumbled upon Yuzu. They actually had a great Happy Hour special (which erin and I miss living in MA now...it's against the law!). The specialty cocktails were only $4 and they offered their apps. list at a discount as well. We all shared some of those while we drooled over their amazing menu! Of course I can't remember which rolls we shared, and they aren't listed on their site...but they were unbelievable. Can't you just see how happy we all are?!!

After this it was off to the airport. This is where the pictures stopped and reality began...okay that was dramatic :). We were just so exhausted at this point and so happy with our vacation. The overnight flight was a nice way to get back to east coast time and we couldn't wait to get our hands/taste buds on all our new wine!! (WARNING: many wine tasting posts in the future)

Day three and four

2009-04-30T10:34:00.027-04:00

We had already crammed so much into our first two days in Sonoma and the next too were packed as well! We had made reservations to take the Playtpus Bus Tour prior to our trip after hearing raving reviews from Caitlin! We decided to plan this for Day Three, right in the middle of our trip.

We had stopped at the Market the night before and picked up some Pineapple and grapes to add to the fruit from our basket to make a great fruit salad for breakfast before our tour. I did some chopping and erin did some photographing. we took this out to a little patio in the middle of the cottages that overlooks the stream and enjoyed it with coffee and some muffins (also in the basket). It was yet another gorgeous day.

The Tour was awesome! The bus picked us up right in front of our cottage and the fun ensued. We started with a winery right around the corner from us: Benzinger. They gave a quick and informative tour through their vineyards on a tram and ended with a tasting in their tasting room. They do bio-dynamic farming (which is basically a step further than organic) and it was quite interesting. We moved on next to their sister winery (owned by one of the brothers) Imagery. WE LOVED THIS PLACE. we actually joined their wine club! They have artist do pictures for each of their wine releases, and they had a great mix of red and white which is perfect for erin and I! They actually had an art gallery right in their tasting room with some of the past wine labels. We also had a gourmet picnic lunch here and enjoyed a bottle of their Pinot Gris with the rest of the tour group. From here we moved on to our next winery, Loxton. we were hoping to meet the wine maker Chris but he wasn't in that day.

I will also mention that it was around this time that we broke into the cheese tray the tour had assembled for us. It was great and just what we needed to nibble on!!! Then our tour guide threw in a little Olive Oil tasting to our tour. FUN!! erin and I had actually been eyeing this place everytime we passed so it was fun to get to try it out. I also sampled their balsamic vinegars...fig infused YUM! They way they sampled was just sipping the oil/vinegar...that was a bit harsh for me so I used some of the above crackers.

Our final winery was right across the street from where we were staying, Audelssa. This was actually a tasting room, not an actually winery as their vineyards are all over the valley. They gave us some bread and homemade olive oil with the tasting as well!

After all that tasting we were ready to unwind and relax in our room. We also lined up all our wine purchases so far...YOWZER! (we figured out that we bought a bottle of wine at almost every winery we visited! memories)

We had decided to try a local Indian restaurant for dinner but wanted to stop in and have a beer at the Jack London Bar first. A bit of trivia about this bar is that they filmed the movie "Bottleshock"here (well all the bar scenes). Although this movie actually took place in Napa, the movie producers were from Sonoma and fell in love with this bar! It was a laid back local bar and right up our alley. i can't remember what beer erin had but I tried a Flat Tire it was local west coast beer and a welcoming change from wine! erin also found a friend that night....(awwwwww).

Indian was next! Yeti was delicious and we even saw the guy that did our tasting at Audelssa dining there so we knew it was authentically local! We shared a bottle of Ravenswood Chardonnay with our dinner and got all our favorite Indian picks! (roti, steamed veggie samosas, veg. biryani and shrimp curry) We stuffed ourselves full of some amazing food! Oh but we found room for those brownies from Cyrus when we got back to the room.

(side note about the wine...we love Ravenswood Zin, which is what they are known for, but the Chard. was good too!)

Day four we were back on our own with a few pre-planned stops. We headed across the street to a cute breakfast spot for some latte's before crossing the infamous windy road on our way to Napa for our first winery (pre planned) Quintessa. This was MY FAVORITE. It was beautiful and the wine was amazing and after our personal tour!!! we sat with our tour guide, who we LOVED, and talked about wine and life and had these amazing tapas!!! erin and i dropped a pretty penny on a bottle of their wine but it was totally worth it. We spent the longest at this winery and enjoyed every moment. After that we didn't really have a plan in mind so we were driving down the street and turned into Mumm which our friends Molly and Nick are members of (they joined while visiting on their honeymoon and their rave of wine country totally pushed us to visit!). We had another appointment at Burgess so after tasting some great sparkling at Mumm we head up the hill. Burgess by far had the best views!! (see the picture below...it honestly looks like a postcard!) We had planned on picnicking here but we were told it was a no-no due to some laws so we ate our grapes in the car and moved along. next we decided to try a winery that our host at Quintessa recommended due to the interesting architecture. Darioush is owned by a man that come Iran. It was an interesting winery...but a bit on the snobby side for us. Finally we made our way back to downtown Sonoma and got to taste a few wines at some tasting rooms (Highway 12 and Charles Creek) We actually bought our one and only Port at the latter tasting room. It was a chocolate rasp. port..YUM.

We then made our way across the plaza to have a "end of the day" drink at what the locals call "the bistro". I actually stuck with a glass of Ravenswood Chard. and erin went for the fat tire beer!

We talked to some of the locals and they recommended that we try out a Portuguese Restaurant called LaSalette. Off we went...it did not disappoint!

Erin started with a Portuguese white wine flight: (the pours were quite large!). I opted to get a 1/2 bottle of sparkling Gloria-Ferrer. I love me some sparkling wine!! (we didn't get to visit this winery but I read alot about it).

We decided to start with some tapas: CHEESE and CHARCUTERIE PLATES. we got: WHITE ANCHOVIES, Boquerones from Spain; SERRA de ESTRELA, sheep’s-milk, semisoft, pungent and CHOURIÇO, dry Portuguese pork and garlic sausage. It was perfect because erin didn't want the cheese and i didn't want the pork! we were both brave and tried the anchovies...I thought the saltiness of the fish was great with the cheese!For our entree's I got NEW ZEALAND BLUE NOSE SEA BASS wood oven roasted, on a bed of grilled yellow corn with collard greens and molho cru which was really good! Erin choose the ARROZ á VALENCIANA Paella-like Portuguese classic with sautéed linguiça, chicken, shellfish and saffron rice which was also incredible. We took awhile making our decision because everything looked so interesting and tasty. I wish we could go back!

We were beyond full at the end of the meal and slowly made our way back to our cottage to digest and reflect...(we may or may not have stopped at whole foods for desert and coffee..i just don't recall :)!

California Day two

2009-04-29T12:55:00.023-04:00

Since this is a food blog I am going to blog mainly about our eats while we were travelling but I linked the wineries that we visited as well because they are well worth checking out!

I should mention that the first day we got there i was hankering to do at least one tasting (most of the wineries close between 4:30 and 5 and we arrived in Glen Ellen around 4 eeeekkk!). We literally drove down the street about 1/2 a mile from our cottage and pulled into Eric Ross tasting room. They had some great wines and a wonderful couple that gave us so many great suggestions for visits and eats!

So back to day two. After a lovely run (with my new GARMIN RUNNING WATCH! helping me map the way), erin and i set out to explore wine country and try some wines.

The day started with a quick walk around downtown Sonoma. Its such a cute, laid back town definitely our style. We stopped into a great bakery for lattes and picked up some picnic supplies at Sonoma Cheese Factory . This place is a foodie heaven. So much to choose from AND they let you sample all their cheeses. Erin had to drag me out of there. But wine awaited!

This day we visited: Kaz, Elizabeth Spencer, Schramsburg (this one we had planned in advance because it was a sparkling winery...my favorite kind :), Bremer (at this winery we did the tasting right at picnic tables...to which we brought our lovely picnic lunch --->)

AND finally a quick flight tasting at Domaine Carneros. The last one was definitely more "commerical napa" but they were open until 6, did sparkling wine and we had time to kill before our fancy dinner. Why not stop?

On to the main event of the day...well at least for this blog....CYRUS.

Now this was our one splurge of the trip and Kath highly recommended it as well as numerous others that we consulted.

We had a reservation at 8:30 and we made it just on time! (let's just say the maps for the area aren't always to scale but erin did great as a navigator! :)

We started with a cocktail at the bar while waiting for our table. I got a drink that was similar to a mojito but contained rhubarb and mint...a.maz.ing. It even came with a metal straw so that the drink stayed cold the entire sipping experience....WHAT?!!!! Erin got a martini with infused vodka and ginger/lemongrass essence?! she loved it as well. (their online menu still lists the winter cocktails and I don't recall the exact ingredients in either :(. We were escorted to our table and given the champagne/caviar list upon sitting. We passed on these because frankly we just didn't know enough about caviar and knew that the eight course tasting would be plenty satisfying!

Then came the main menu. They over two options. 8 course chef tasting, with a vegetarian menu as well. OR you can do a 5 course menu. Um...we are on vacation. 8 courses!! Now here comes a shocker...originally we had checked out the menu and i knew I wanted to do the vegetarian. I just don't eat meat hardly EVER and we figured that would give us 16 different things to try. But, when we got there you have an option of pairing your tasting with a wine pairing...which is really unique and interesting. And we just didn't know if we would find a bottle of wine that would compliment both menus and all the dishes. So after debating I went with the normal menu! erin was very proud AND they let us share the wine tasting. HOW AMAZING!

Here was our menu: (which they present to you typed out at the end of your meal!)As you can see there were a few course where you had an option...we opted to get one of each!

Canapes (already impressive! although I cannot remember what any of them were!)

Amuse Bouche

Thai Marinated Lobster with Avocado, mango and hearts of Palm (wine: Kerner, Italy 2007)

erin: Foie Gras "Torchon" with Tamarind and Dates (wine: Riesling, Germany 2007) How fancy does that Foie look?!

me:gnocchi with Morels and Snap Peas (wine: gruner Veltliner, Austria 2007) (the picture also shows...baked potato foam!!! it tasted just like a baked potato!)

Seared Scallops with Chorizo and Clams (wine: Savennieres, France 2005) I think this was erin's favorite dish!!

Poussin with Green garlic and Rye Berries, Caraway jus (wine: Pinto Noir, CA! 2007)

erin: Wagyu Beef with Burdock and Shiso, Oxtail umeshu Consomme (wine: Syrah, CA! 2007)

me: Lamb Roulade with Melange of Spring Vegetables (same wine)

Artisanal and Farmhouse Cheese Presented tableside...This was my favorite part of the meal! they brought a huge cart of cheese over and a gentlemen asked what sort of cheeses we liked. My response: EVERYTHING! So he went through a "journey of cheeses" that he picked for us and then served it along side some candied nuts, croustines and date/nut bread. IT WAS DIVINE. He also mentioned that they offer different drink pairings for this course. There is the typical red wine pairing but he suggested going with a beer which both erin and I thought was quite fun and unique. Erin is not a lover of cheeses but she was a good sport and tried a nibble of each. The last one was quite...pungent and I had to capture her tasting that one. I actually liked them all!!! (as you can see below our reactions were quite different haha!(beer: Bear Republic Brewing Co. "Pete's Brown Tribute Ale," Heldsburg CA)

Verjus Sorbet, Blood Orange Riesling Soup with Crystallized Picholine Olives (wine: Elio Perrone, italy 2006)

erin: Tiramisu, Cappuccino "spoon", Caramelized Fennel and Espresso Gelato (wine: Bual Madeira, Portugal 15 years old!)

me: Caramelized Walnut Carrot Cake with Yuzu - Carrot Sorbet (wine: Scheurebe Auslese, Germandy 2007) All of those "bubbles" were filled with tasty liquid that just enhanced the desert. I felt like such a foodie!!

Mignardises! I looked up that word to make sure it meant what I thought it did. This was incredible. after all the food they come around with a desert cart and basically let you choose as many little bites as you would like. We picked (or more accurately, i picked) alot and just had nibbles of each. They also sent you home with homemade Walnut Brownies (we devoured these the next night for a late night desert...HOLY COW they were great!).

I don't know if I will ever have a fancier, more impressive dinner. This is definitely one for the record books (or blog in this case :)and an experience not to be missed for those of your out there who are foodies.

Truly unique.

California Cuisine Day One

2009-04-29T10:27:00.013-04:00

Our trip to Sonoma/Napa was simply stated: incredible! We drank so many great wines and had some amazing food as well. I know I haven't posted in awhile (between work and April festivities) so i thought i would take the chance to blog about my trip and share some great eats!

Erin and i actually stayed at a great little place called Glen Ellen Secret Cottages which is directly behind The Glen Ellen Oyster Grill and Martini Bar! When we researched the trip we thought that after a six hour flight walking to a restaurant ten feet away would be nice. It was definitely the right choice. To start they brought us two glasses of champagne upon arrival AND there was a fresh fruit and muffin basket in our room (this was replenished every morning!).

One of the things I loved most about this place is that they had an extensive martini list...EXTENSIVE! Also you could either get a regular size or an Itsy Bitsy Tenny Weeny Martini, which is a 1/2 size...that way you can try more than one (at least that's what I took it to mean!). Erin decided upon the Forget-Me-Not Martini: with ginsing & apricot liquor and I choose the Mango-tini Tropical : Mango liquor, Smirnoff Vodka. We probably could have kept going with these all night...but of course we were in wine country and wanted to move on to wine.

We started with their Calamari appetizer to share:(Ginger Tempura Calamari with grilled pineapple salsa, lemon aioli.) It was really good. Light breading with a great lemony sauce. Our waitress was really good at suggesting items and wasn't at all pushy for us to have our own. She totally understood that we wanted to share everything.

She also helped us choose a bottle of white wine from their numerous local and well priced wine list! We went with a Savuingon Blanc (erin's fav.) from Matanzas Creek, which just happened to be located right around the bend from our cottage! fun.

On to dinner...I really wanted to try the "Steamed Mussels with pancetta in saffron broth, with garlic croutons" so I got that as my Main course and erin picked a fish entree that isn't listed on their menu right now (it was Salmon with fresh local veggies and a couscous). They were both great. Nice and light and perfect for our first night in California!

Of course we had to sample a desert. erin was so cute and totally picked one that she knew I would LOVE, but she ended up loving it too. We got the "Warm Pecan Spice Bread Pudding w/chocolate lava center, brandy sauce & espresso ice cream". I think we ate this puppy in like two minutes flat.

After a long walk home (haha) we settled in to plan the rest of our trip. what an amazing first night.

Baking for Bunnies

2009-04-13T15:43:00.006-04:00

Easter Trivia: What do the Easter bunny and I have in common: our love of carrots! Sure the bunny may prefer the raw, cold kind, where I prefer the warm baked kind. It's all the same to me. SO...I had to try yet another desert out of the new HG book and the Easter Bunny couldn't agree more. (or so I think)

I picked 14-carat Cupcakes (clever name right?!). per usual these were super simple to make. I had alot of ingredients but since I was making these at erin's house I packed everything up to go! I had a minor incident with the dry ingredients (BE SURE TO ONLY ADD 1 CUP OF THE CAKE MIX...not the whole thing :(...but erin assured me it would be fine and I just took some dry mix out. Next time I will be a bit more careful.

I thought the mix looked so colorful on it's own! i also picked up some cute Easter cupcake papers to add to the festivities

After cooling for about an hour I threw some frosting on these and they were ready for tasting...they were a hit. In my opinion one of the stars of the cupcake was the pineapple. It made it really moist and added a sweetness. erin's sister really thought the frosting was incredible as well. What can I say Greek yogurt is amazing!

I also wanted to mentioned the GREAT Easter basket an amazingly thoughtful someone left me this year! It was filled to the brim with all the things I love. A great mix of health and fun! Someone knows me pretty well.
it had:

-clif bars

-skittles

-wheatberries

-wasabi peas (LOVE LOVE LOVE)

-an apple pear... never heard of these but it was delish!

-and some cadbury cream eggs...my favorite easter candy!

Hope the bunny was as good to you as (she) was to me!!!

Local Wine Tasting

2009-04-10T13:21:00.008-04:00

I know I have mentioned the amazing winery (Nashoba) dangerously close to erin and I that we will be frequenting this summer for tastings and picnics. Prior to our big trip to Wine Country we thought we ought to take advantage of an event they were holding and also hone in our "wine tasting skills" (or lack there of haha).

The theme was Caribbean Tapas and Wine, and since the weather in the Boston area has been anything but tropical it was a perfect feux getaway.

We had never been to an event here. we have done the tour and eaten at their amazing J's Restaurant (brunch is great!), so we felt pretty confident it would be great. We were right!

They opened up the tour area as the event arena and they had different stations throughout with the three wine and tapas offerings.

Whole Roasted Mahi Mahi (later switch to Artic Char both delicious) in banana leaves Wine pairing: Chardonnay.
I really like their Chardonnay and Erin and I bought a bottle of this at the end of the event!

Cuban Style Roast Pork with garlic mojo; Wine pairing: Cherry. Now this one was erin's favorite! We aren't big "sweet wine" drinkers but paired with the Pork it was excellent she said! I didn't try this one and instead went back for 2nds of the fish!

Gulf Shrimp with tropical citrus salsa; Wine pairing: Riesling . I was really looking forward to this dish but sadly the shrimp were a bit undercooked so we didn't finish this one. They did a great job, but trying to cook the shrimp on-site I think they felt a bit rushed. We actually saw a women return her's and I think it freaked erin and I out. we are such wimps!

This was such a nice event. You received three tickets (one for each course) so it was up to you where you want to begin making it quite laid back and relaxing! Also, as I mentioned before, it was great for me because the course i didn't want to try allowed me to sample another one twice.

Support your local wineries!! (oh you also got to keep the glass...we are getting quite a collection)

Wheatberries ARE wonderful!

2009-03-24T13:47:00.005-04:00

I finally found them...in STOP N SHOP. I have been looking in all the fun grocery stores that I frequent constantly, when i should have looked right under my nose in stop n shop! As many of your bloggers know oatmeal is pretty much a food group for many of us. So many different mix-ins, ways of cooking, types of oatmeal are used in the numerous post i read. One of the mix-ins that I have been dying to try is wheat berries.

Here are some fun facts about Wheat berries! They are also very easy to cook, yet take a little time so keep that in mind. I just used the directions on the back of the bag to cook mine, but you can also find them here: cooking and storing. Many people tend to follow the advice of cooking in large batches and freezing due to the fact that the cooking time if over an hour. Well worth it!

Here are my berries ready to boil up!

I did in fact only cook mine for the allotted time because I tend to like my grains al dente.(they look a bit like popcorn kernels...maybe that's why i love them :) These were so chewy and had such an amazing texture that my mind began to wander toward all the different ways you could use them...first up...OATMEAL. Yes!!!! so delish and chewy, and they are a great source of protein. Next up...i'm thinking a grain salad perhaps! Also this could be a great substitute for brown rice in a dish.

It's official. i'm a fan!

First Day of Spring Friday Fling

2009-03-21T12:19:00.015-04:00

My AMAZING friend terra was able to snag me a pre-copy of "200 under 200", the new HG cookbook!! I couldn't wait to make something out of it and i had the perfect opportunity when erin had some fellow teachers over for a First day of Spring Friday Fling! (i made that up we didn't really call it that :).

I decided to do the typical spread of cheese/crackers, veggies, hummus, chips, salsa...but decided to throw in two hot dips to round out the table! My first pick was a Crazy-Creamy Spinach Artichoke Dip out of the new book. Now she has another spin-artichoke dip from her previous book but this one has some minor changes. I was worried about sharing the recipe before the book came out...but i found it already on her site (it's linked above). Erin was impressed with my photography of this one coming together:

This was super simple, super delisious and super low cal (seriously you can eat an 1/8th of this recipes for 91 calories! and there were more than 8 of us and we had dip leftover!) I didn't add the water chestnuts and I opted to serve mine hot! It was a hit...YEAH! (erin and I had leftovers that weekend...still good :)

The Next dip ended up being another winner: Buffalo Chicken Hot Wing Dip Okay so the minute i got this email I knew it was a "must try" for erin. She loves hot stuff and although not a huge fan of "wings" she loves the boneless! Again this could not have been easier to assemble and it baked at the same tempature as the other dip...perfect! I loved the color that the Frank's hot sauce turned everything!

I love trying new recipes out and was really glad that everyone enjoyed. We had some additions from all our wonderful guests as well: Cranberry goat cheese (thanks Michelle!) and pretzel crackers from joan, the best!

The food was great...but the company was better.

Happy spring!

Ms. MixALot

2009-03-19T17:20:00.007-04:00

Unreal. That is how i would like to start this posting regarding the folks over at MixMyGranola! I have been seeing their company/product all over the food blog world. Tons of giveaways and talk about how great it is to be able to mix your own granola. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to try it out. I emailed them right away requesting an opportunity to get their product and review and they were more than happy to oblige. How great is that?!?! In this economy I think it really shows a strong customer care when a company is willing to let their products be reviewed will no strings attached!

I quickly clicked over to their site and began my mix!

The first step is picking your granola base (they have four options). I went for 100% Organic Muesli
this includes organic raisins, walnuts, dates and almonds. You can also click on all the options to see their nutritional value.

Then you move on to ingredients.(the fun, yet difficult part!) The list starts with numerous dried fruits, next catagory is nuts and seeds and finally extras (this includes unique items from gummy bears to chocolate espresso beans :)! They mentioned that each amount give you an oz. but if you want more than that just click the add in more than once.

Super Simple!

After reading just about everything...My mix included:

-dried strawberries

-Goji Berries (the new thing they say !)

-Organic Flax seeds

-honey smacks

I didn't want to add alot because the muesli already had items in it as well.

Honestly the possibilities are endless. Its so tough to make decisions. I didn't want to add alot of extras not knowing how everything would taste together, but if you are a granola fan you could really go CRAZY here! The add-ins range in price but are really affordable.

Lastly you get to name your mix. how cool! I called mine "kate's kornucopia". I'm sure if erin had been around i would have been a bit more clever but i was in a hurry to get it ordered and shipped. (oh and shipping was free!).

The mix comes in this cool tube and it is rather large! They also list all the nutritional information on the tube so you know exactly what you are eating. I added some on fruit right away. yum. then some on my oatmeal. yum. and also i have been sampling right out of the tube. also yum.

I would HIGHLY recommend this site. Often times the boxed granola is high in sugar, or contains an ingredient that you pick around...or just doesn't have enough things in it. With this site you customize to your own liking and the price is reasonable. I think we all need to support more business that cater to us health minded customers. I will definitely be a return mixer!

Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

2009-03-17T10:11:00.005-04:00

I am a bad food blogger. Do you know it's been almost a month since my last post...which also translates into the fact that I haven't tried a new recipe in that long...SO SAD. In my defense I have been working a wee bit more (nice Irish touch there) than normal. AND i have been cooking...just nothing new.

Hold the excitement. I had every intention of cooking up an Irish meal last night in preparation for this glorious holiday. But Monday's are rough and all my lofty recipe plans went out the window. I am still searching for them along with with a leprechaun and a pot of gold.
While I continue my search (i think i may check out a local pub tonight to see if they are lurking there) I thought I would share some Irish inspired recipes and links!

Enjoy!

I did in fact make this a couple years ago because erin is a huge corn beef fan! She and I both really enjoyed it and I highly recommend some strong spicy mustard along side: Corned Beef and Cabbage Strudel !

Here are some fun links as well:

Beer and Running
Leprechauns!
How to Pour a Perfect Pint of Guinness (this is especially for erin who partakes in a Guinness each and every st.patty's day)
and finally....in keeping with my healthy blog and giving away my plans for the holiday:
The Pub Grub Guide

Sláinte!

Baking Bonanza (with bananas and oats!)

2009-02-24T10:44:00.012-05:00

I know that everyone hates Monday's. Its the day that feels like the beginning of the end. So in an attempt to refocus my manic monday mood i decided to NOT give into the looming dread and do some baking last night. It was also a great way to use up those brown bananas in my freezer, try out some easy/fun recipes that have been gathering magnet dust on my fridge AND feel productive on a cold monday! turn on that oven!

In my reading of daily food blogs I came along a great baking post from Bobbi at N Her Shoes ! She made Low-fat Banana Donuts. Now I love donuts, and always have bananas hanging around and after reading the ingredients I had everything required! They seemed simple and looked delicious...they did not disappoint! I would be amiss if I didn't mention that this recipe originally came from Angela! She comments that she would sub. 1/2 a cup of oats for 1/2 a cup of the white flour next time...so I tried that out. Honestly I think oats should be in everything!!! (okay that's a bit dramatic haha). I also used unsweetened applesauce for the little oil called for.

I baked half on my baking stone, and the other half on a cookie sheet so I could spray them (see this post to see why, im just not sure if the stone has lost it's power!). I also had to put one tray on the bottom of the oven and one on the top...yup burned the bottoms on the bottom tray (rookie mistake)! Instead of throwing 1/2 away i simply peeled the burned bottoms off and enjoyed. (um...i also set off the fire alarm in our apartment...to which erin said "well at least we know the alarm works!").

They were hearty and gooey and perfect! Obviously you can add frosting to these, powdered sugar, but my smarty-pants girl added...PEANUT BUTTER (which I knew would be a huge hit in foodblog land!).

After cracking some windows... I moved on to these Oatmeal Softies. I love oatmeal cookies. I love them with chocolate in them. I love them with raisins in them. I love them with craisins in them..which is what I tried in this one. I also made 12 small cookies as oppose to the 6 large ones the recipe calls for (then you can have two for the price of one). Other than that I followed everything else to the T! LOVED THEM :). and didn't burn these either. erin said these were definitely healthier tasting but still good.

Now we have baked goods for the week, and what a way to start out a Monday!

Foodbuzz Friends!

2009-02-20T10:53:00.007-05:00

I got another package today in the mail!!!!! YEAHHHHH. Seriously I don't think I will ever get sick of mail and packages.
(as you can tell I ripped right into this envelope!)

Foodbuzz has been so nice to send me tasting goodies and in this little envelope....

BUSINESS CARDS for my blog!!!!! They are so cute with pictures of fresh produce on the back and my url on the front. erin's been urging me to get some of these made, so apparently foodbuzz beat me to the punch! Okay I know its a great way to advertise the company that made them as well because hopefully I run out of these quickly and re-order through Moo.

It was great timing too because we had some friends over that night and i quickly passed out the goods.

Thanks foodbuzz. here's to sending the buzz along for my blog!

Hello, lava...cakes!!!!

2009-02-13T11:39:00.012-05:00

Valentines day came early this year for me! One of the downfalls of working in the restaurant business is that you pretty much work any "major dating holiday!" So Erin and I decided to celebrate our day on Thursday. She was in charge of snacks/dinner and I took over desert duties!

She came up with an amazing spread of my faves:

-kashi crackers with hummus

-guiltless gourmet chips with salsa

-goat cheese (YUUUUMMMMM)

-trail mix

-fresh fruit

-champagne!

I think I had it much easier in my selection of desert because as well all must agree:Valentine's Day = Chocolate Goodness
When I received an email titled "hello lava" I knew it was talking right to me. (well as much as emails can actually talk to you...okay moving on). These Lava cakes are really simple. I will tell you up front...erin gave these a 10!!!!! I mean usually there is something to improve on, but on this one she was really impressed. YEAH!

The other nice thing is the recipe calls for parts of ingredients so when you purchase the fixins you have enough to do this one again! That might be a dangerous thing in our house :).

I started by prepping the liquid filling (that's actually solid of course when you make it) and placing those in the freezer for the alloted 25 mins. I thought about going through the process on the blog for this one...but it's much easier to just follow her directions, to a T! I got to use these great silicone ramkins that my friend Molly's Mom, who works at the amazing King Arthur Flour, picked up for me. I have been wanting to use these forever! The only potential heads up needed is that when they have baked in the oven for 15 mins. they don't look completely done like a normal cake. Due to the lava center they look shiny and almost under baked. I let them sit for about 15 mins out of the oven and they quickly looked done on their own!!!

We flipped these babies into a bowl and topped them with some Fat Free Whip Cream...HEAVEN. These were AMAZING. They were so light and moist with an amazing chocolate center. I also think this one has great potential for options. If you are a peanut butter fan, substitute peanut butter chips, butterscotch? white chocolate? the possibilities are endless!!!

I have to say if you are looking for love... you should start with this dish...DELISH!

Spicy Shrimp Stir fry

2009-02-11T11:20:00.005-05:00

My meal of the week ended up taking a few weeks to prepare. Now don't let that steer you wrong, it was super simple and easy...but I had stumbled upon this recipe and little by little the ingredients were purchased!

The recipe was Sichuan-Style Shrimp, but I just dubbed it Spicy Shrimp Stir-fry!

I started by making the Sichuan Sauce (recipe follows)

Sauce: (although i halved the other parts below I did NOT half this part because we always love the extra sauce!)

3 tablespoons reduced-sodium chicken broth (i used a bit more to thin it out because of the amount of veggies!)

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 teaspoons Chinkiang vinegar (see Ingredient Note) or balsamic vinegar (i used the balsamic)

1 teaspoon sugar (sub. splenda)

1 teaspoon reduced-sodium soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1/4 teaspoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper, or to taste

This was spicy, but good! I threw in some tofu noodles as well to really make it a stir fry. It sort of had a sweet/spicy taste to it. erin commented that the sauce was a bit thin...perhaps a bit more cornstarch?

I did half the recipe below: (with my changes)

1 pound raw shrimp (21-25 per pound), peeled and deveined

2 tablespoons canola oil, divided (just used cooking spray!)

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
1 large green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch dice (erin isn't a big pepper fan so I substitute a bag of stir fry veggies)

1/4 teaspoon salt

You cook the shrimp in the spray, garlic and ginger for about five mins. or until the shrimp is pink. Then add in the veggies and sichuan sauce!

Start to finish this baby took all of ten mins. a must make, fast, delish dinner!

Saturday/Sunday Surprise!!! (early valentine's day post...)

2009-02-09T13:36:00.007-05:00

I got home late Saturday night (from a long night waitressing) to a lovely note from my local post office letting me know that I had a package to retrieve....what could it be.....
MY SECRET BLOGGER VALENTINE PACKAGE!
First off what is better than a brown paper package...so many possibilities. While i love emails, nothing beat getting something in the mail.

The lovely Jenni over at jenniisst.wordpress.com sent this thought full package! and I think my valentine did a great artistic job of capturing all the goodies she sent:

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU JENNI!

Superbowl Snack Time

2009-02-02T14:30:00.021-05:00

Of course I had to make healthy snacks for the Superbowl :)...and erin pointed out that ironically this is the first year that we are in Boston for the Superbowl...and the Pats aren't even in it :(. OH well we figured why not indulge anyway!! Erin opted to root for the Cards and I went with the Steelers, just in the spirit of rivalry.

We had planned to have some people over and so began the planning of my spread...

I have really wanted to try some snack recipes for awhile so this was the perfect opportunity. I opted to make: HG Jalapenos Swappers, HG Pig in a blanket, and mish-mosh of HG ATE-layer dip and Eating Well's Southwestern Layered Bean Dip AND finally Oven Fried Zucchini stick french fries!
These were all super simple to make.

I have made the Pigs in a Blanket before and even had the leftover Veggie-dogs in the freezer. Yummy as always. This swap out really tastes exactly the same as the full fat version...give it a try!!!

Having such great results with HG's snack food I tried the jalapenos poppers next. Now erin is a HUGE fan of these snacks so I was anxious to see if she liked them. The process of making them was a bit messy but oh so worth it. I took a picture of them stuffed and ready to be breaded and then post cooking. You can prep these ahead of time and that way all you have to do is pop them in the oven when your guest arrive are ready! She seriously FLIPPED over these. A must make again!!

Moving on to the Mexican Dip I had mentioned before that I made a mish-mosh of two different recipes but erin isn't a fan of some of the ingredients in the HG dip (Soy Crumbles specifically) however I was really intrigued at her use of Butternut Squash for the refried beans...so I definitely wanted to try that. The Eating Well dip was more along the lines of what we were looking for.

Best of both worlds Mexican Dip:

-bag of frozen butternut squash (of course you can use fresh...but to save time:), defrost in the microwave or on the stove and mash up to desired consistency.
-can of black beans
-1/2 cup salsa
-chopped cilantro to taste
-tsp of cumin and tsp of chili powder
-1/2 chopped red onion
-six diced jalapenos (and by six i mean six slices out of a jar NOT six whole jalapenos!!)
Combine all of the above items in a microwaveable dish. Sprinkle with cheese (I used Fat Free cheddar but of course you could use Mexican...any kind you like!). Microwave for 3-5 mins or until cheese is fully melted. This takes longer if the cheese is fat free!

Next I topped the hot concoction with:
-Fat Free Sour Cream (spread out)
-can of diced tomatoes (these were flavored with green chiles)
-shredded lettuce
-diced onions
-one diced avocado

This was SOOOO good. erin tried to capture the layers of the dip...but it didn't last long! we ended up scooping our portions onto a plate to get all the taste together:

The last addition to the spread were the Oven Fried Zucchini sticks. They were fairly straightforward to make came together fast. NOW, I cook on a "stone" and you never spray it or use foil because it is non-stick! Obviously the recipe says to spray these...but I didn't because I couldn't on my bake ware. Needless to say...they did not turn out great. As instructed I went to flip them half way through cooking and they would not budge! The ones I could get up totally lost all their "crunchy skin". I just popped them back in for a few more mins to continue to crisp up but they never really got there. Also I found the flavor of the coating to be rather lack luster :(. Ah well you can't win them all. I'm sure I will attempt these again but i plan on using a regular cookie sheet (so i can spray the heck out of them) AND adding something to the coating...we shall see! (these were the sticks prior to being cooked...but they looked pretty similar after being cooked haha :).

All in all the spread was delish. Erin and I nibbled away as we watched the game.
I think perhaps we had just enough food to feed one of those large football players!

Sipping Shardonnay in Sonoma

2009-01-30T10:10:00.003-05:00

Okay okay I KNOW that Chardonnay is spelled with a C and not the above S...but I just couldn't resist the alliteration title or the urge to tell everyone in the blogshpere that erin and i officially booked our trip to SONOMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited and have been doing research about wine country forever. I kept telling myself to wait for a special occasion or when i have all the money saved...but frankly I feel like there is always a reason NOT to go and really you only live once. So i jumped in with both feet, or shall i say both hands, and purchased the flight tickets last night! Now we know there is no going back on that!

I have already picked the brains of Kath and Caitlin about their amazing experiences in Wine Country. Please send me any info that you think would be helpful.

Early Valentines Day

2009-01-29T13:46:00.003-05:00

I wanted to pass along this link :
http://philabundanceoflife.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/blogger-valentines-day-exchange/t
for a great valentines day exchange.
Head on over and sign up...
who doesn't like getting mail?
on valentines day?
from a foodie?

Granola bar goodies

2009-01-28T16:36:00.006-05:00

I had been seeing that the blog world has been receiving their tastemaker's Quaker True Delights...and I was getting quite jealous. UNTIL...i arrived home from the gym to a nice little package myself (it looks like my zip code was wrong!). I tore open the envelope and found six samples of the delightful delights! They sent three flavors: Honey Roasted Cashew Mixed Berry, Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia Nut and most intriguing to me was Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond.

Of course I sampled the Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond one first! The first thing I noticed was the WHOLE almonds and bits of both chocolate and dried raspberry. It was definitely on the chewy side and was alot sweeter than I thought it would be. I think i would opt to have this more as a dessert. Same goes for the Cashew flavor which I nibbled on my way to the gym this morning. I only ate half because it was a bit too sweet for a morning taste test!

Sadly I have read, and must note myself, that the ingredients aren't as "natural" as say Larabars...As Caitlin put it "if i can't pronounce it I probably shouldn't be eating it..."

These were quite tasty and would definitely hit the spot if you are looking for something somewhat wholesome and still sweet!

Gingersnap Larabars

2009-01-22T13:24:00.005-05:00

okay so in all fairness to the flavor...I was exhausted this morning AND on my way to the gym AND it was freezing but I wanted a bit of sustenance before hittin the treadmill (most mornings i really don't like to have anything before working out other than coffee). I remembered that I had stashed a Gingersnap Larabar in my glove compartment for just this occasion. I knew that I didn't want the whole bar but decided to break off a piece to sample....
I gotta say...
Not my favorite flavor! I actually LOVE ginger too, i eat it raw with sushi, but I just didn't enjoy as much in this form. It definitely tasted like a gingersnap cookie but was a bit dry with the taste then some of the other flavors. After reading the ingrediants I honestly think it was the cloves...

Now I wouldn't completely rule this flavor out, but perhaps it would pair better with a strong cup of coffee or tea...

anyone else a huge fan of this one???

Oh and for the record I still LOVE larabars...i just don't think every flavor is for everyone.

Wine Tasting 101

2009-01-22T13:23:00.011-05:00

So I have worked in restaurants for awhile now and Erin and I celebrated her 22nd birthday with a wine tour of the Long Island Region (yes they have wineries!), so we like to say we know a thing or two about wines...but there is ALWAYS more to learn. Sometimes learning about wines can feel a bit overwhelming because there are so many different kinds of grapes and regions and years and colors...AHHHHH. But i will just keep sipping one kind at a time :).

Erin's cousin, who is currently writing a book about wines!, gave me some great advice about learning. He told me that the thing to do is read about a wine while you sample it. So say you love Chardonnays...pick up a book about them and some different bottles and then taste and read, taste and read. Just make sure you stop reading after a few tastings haha!

As previous mentioned our friend Molly had spent her honeymoon in Napa and she was more than willing to tell us all she learned. We had planned a girls weekend so while we were out and about we picked up a few bottles of wine to sample. In total we had: a chardonnay, a Pinot Noir, a Temparillno, a sparkling white chardonnay, Lambrusco and a Chianti!! HOLY MOLY.

So the first thing we learned is you should taste it twice. Once right out of the bottle and the 2nd time after swirling it around in the glass to let it "breath". We tried the Tempranillo/Cab mix. I had tried this type of wine before at a Spanish tapas bar that erin and I loved so we picked one up. Everyone loved it! There was a HUGE difference between our first and 2nd taste. Molly and Nick also bought a cool device called a "Rabbit" that you can pour wine through to help it breath right away. Alot of times people will decant wine for this exact reason.Lesson two was that you never rinse your wine glass with water after a taste as this will dilute the flavor of the next wine! We moved onto the sparkling white after this one. The wine was a sparkling from Barefoot. It was tasty. I am also a huge fan of Yellowtail Sparkling! Both of these wineries are really affordable yet good quality (at least coming from my young palate).

The next wine was the Chianti. We were all a bit confused on whether Chianti was a grape or region...so we looked it up in Molly's Wine Bible!! I, like most, associate Chianti with cheap Italian restaurants, not that I have a problem with that. We all like this one as well. (okay something to note...we liked pretty much everything we tried haha).

Our final wine tasting of the night was Lambrusco. I had recommended this to Molly because she mentioned how much she loved sparkling wine and red wine...and well Lambrusco is both! My parents introduced me to this one and since I also love red and sparkling wines I thought I would pass along the wine. Now, i must not have had this for awhile because this was alot sweeter than I had remembered. I may also have had a different variety of this grape. Molly said she didn't mind it but I passed my glass for a nice tall glass of WATER....boy was I all wined out.

Erin and I have been wanting to take a trip to Wine Country for awhile now. I think this was just the weekend we needed to kick off the planning. Now that we are pros and everything....haha.

Let me know if you have any suggestions about travelling to wine country!

Gourmet Chocolate Goat Cheese

2009-01-20T15:56:00.011-05:00

Erin and I headed to Portsmouth, NH this weekend to visit our best friend Molly and got to hear all about her honeymoon to Napa Valley! Of course we knew there would be plenty of wine knowledge to absorb and thought we would absorb the wine as well!

After a snowy Sat. night we woke up to some snowy streets and hungry stomachs. We all decided that we would make up some snack trays and hold out for dinner to eat a full meal. We ventured out in the snow to Fresh Market which was this great supermarket that reminded me alot of Whole Foods! As soon as you walked in the smell of homemade food hits you. There is a quaint coffee shop in the corner and the store opens up into the fresh produce and prepared foods. Now i have a love for grocery stores that sometimes even erin feels threatened by...okay not really ;), but lets just say she knows what she's in for when we head to the store! This store also has a great wine and beer selection and hosts wine tastings as well. We walked around ooooing and ahhhing over the homemade hummus, various spreads and cheeses!! Molly and I are both fans of goat cheese so when we saw this treat we had to pick it up at try it!

It was soooo good. we had put it in the fridge when we got home so it was too solid at first, but the longer it sat the better the consistancy was. It definitely had the texture of goat cheese but the coco flavor came through far more than your typical goat cheese flavor. even erin liked it...and she is SO not a cheese person! It paired nicely with the strawberries as well! Although there are numerous varieties of goat cheese, it is all rather low calorie on the cheese spectrum. Low cal but not low in flavor!

Our snacks for the day included: Lime tostidos (one of my HUGE loves and vices), grapes/strawberries and cheese, broc/carrots and my homemade black bean dip (this recipe is really making its rounds :). Everything was delish and of course we had room for Chinese food later on in the evening.

Hold on to your stemware for the next post about a proper wine tasting...!

Monday night mexican fiesta!

2009-01-13T14:29:00.014-05:00

Who says you can't start the week off with a party? I had a hankering to cook AND we badly needed groceries for the week. We also had a six pack of Corona light in the fridge that i really didn't want to go bad...(nice how I refer to the corona as a produce item that could possibly go bad right? and in full disclosure we bought it on Sunday! no chance of it going bad that quickly :).

So it was an Easy pick: Mexican Ole!

We did in fact have two avocados that were on their way out and i love making homemade guac so that pairs perfect with Shrimp Fajitas! Surprising, or not so surprisingly if you follow my blog, i have made this meal before! I don't typically blog about repeat recipes but this one is so simple and it was almost a year ago that I made these (although i'm sure i have made them since and just not documented it with pictures and blog entries).

When I got home from the grocery store it was only 5:30 and erin and I typically eat around 7 so i had plenty of time to prep while she played some Wii bowling. (both of us starting Monday off with the things we love :). Okay I should be fair, she first juiced me about three limes that i needed for the marinade, which when you are a teacher with various paper cuts on your hands :( that task can be quite a feat!

I made the guac so it could sit in all the great flavors for an hour, cut up the peppers and onions and started the shrimp marinating (the need to sit for about 15 mins)! I realized that I was all out of chili powder ;(, so I threw in a little bit of red pepper flakes. Just added a little kick.

Then I joined erin for a Corona light and a round of bowling.

The peppers and onions took about five mins to soften up, then you move them into another pan while you sautee up the shrimp (marinated and all) for about 3-4 mins. then combine all to warm. It smelled and looked soooo good. I love all the different colors with the orange peppers, pink shrimp, green cilantro and peppers, purple onion...l it was like a little rainbow of flavor! They do say you eat with your eyes first.

We had some Joesph's flax and oat bran wraps on hand to use for our shells. A side note: these wraps are really tasty and have great fiber and are quite filling! I used one and cut it in half because I really wanted to fill up on the fajita filling. The whole wrap has only 70 cals, 1.5 fat grams and 6 grams of fiber! Did I mention it taste great and they make pitas and flat bread. Definitely give them a try!!

We paired the fajitas with the guac, fat free sour cream, salsa, chips and Corona Light. Erin loves this picture on the right...just look at that steaming bowl of yumminess!

There was definitely a fiesta that night...in our bellies!!

Snowed in with spinach wraps and snacks!

2009-01-07T17:28:00.008-05:00

This morning we woke up to yet another nasty weather day in New England...what does that mean? Snow days for teachers (and erin just happens to be a teacher). So I opted to work from home and join her! We both were enjoying our morning coffee and working on our respective laptops when hungry hit. we were about to reach for oatmeal/cereal and toast when I suggested making our own breakfast wraps. when we lived in brooklyn we used to order take-out from a diner that knew my order by heart "a spinach and egg white wrap with one slice of american cheese" YUM. I really miss that place :(.

Back on task: we had made homemade quesadillas the night before so we had left over wraps, cheese and i usually always have spinach and egg whites on hand. erin went to work on cooking the spinach (which she wanted me to note really cooks down alot so make sure you add enough). Also another tip from the chef: make sure to let the egg whites sit in the pan with a top on it for a little bit. Due to all the water in spinach it causes the egg whites to take a lot longer to cook than normal.

These were great. A bit of furit salad and ketchup on the side!

Next I headed to the gym and thought i was on my way to work at night...but surprise surprise got the night off! I headed home where erin and i were hungry yet again!!(hey it had been at least four hours :)

Erin suggested that we make our own pizzas and since dinner was still a few hours away we tied our stomachs over with a nice fruit/hummus/melba toast plate. YUM.

We tried star fruit for the first time...not a big fan. Doesn't have much of a flavor to me. Maybe it wasn't ripe enough?

Oh and just to be complete my wine is on the left, erin's beer on the right!

I love snow days!!!

New Year...New Flavor

2009-01-01T21:39:00.004-05:00

We still have sooo many flavors to try, not that i'm complaining! Sampling seemed to take the back burner around the holidays.

Today we decided tried Cinnamon Roll Larabar. Now i love cinnamon. I add it to my oatmeal. every.single.day. seriously! I also love to add it to my coffee. I just think its a nice spice to add some subtle flavor.
i guess everyone is not AS MUCH of a fan as I am...erin specifically.
Again she enjoyed the textures and flavors of this one, but she thought the cinnamon was a bit overpowering. I however LOVED it. It completely tasted like the center of the cinnamon roll that everyone waits until the last moment to eat :). YUM.

I would place this as my top flavor thus far.

Splitting town with Split Pea Soup

2008-12-29T20:57:00.003-05:00

Mmmm Mmm Good! I love soup. It's so comforting and filling, not to mention the fact that there are about a million and one kinds of different soups out there...a flavor for every tast. I am a big fan of the progressive soups that have ZERO WW points, but I also love their low fat lentil soup.

I mentioned that we had ham for Christmas dinner and of course inside every ham is a ham bone. I remember growing up how much my dad hated peas!! But somehow he loves pea soup (his own of course). So we both agreed that a batch of homemade pea soup was a must make.

We started out with two bags of yellow peas (he prefers the yellow over the green), and set that to boil in about 12 cups of water. Later my dad mentioned that his intention was to use homemade turkey stock in lieu of water but i jumped the gun and started the peas while he was a church! opps. No worries. He also mentioned that he would have put the ham bone and rest of the add ins right into the water with the peas (I waited no knowing the plan). So, as soon as they got home from church we quickly added in diced onions, celery, garlic, two bay leaves and the star: Ham bone. The peas had probably already been in the pot for about two hours. (again you can start with everything in the pot at once!). I probably would have added carrots as well but not everyone at home is a fan of them. You can really add just about anything you wish. it's your soup!!

Since we were headed to another Christmas get together that night we put the soup outside (natures fridge) and planned on warming it the next day. This really let all the flavors stew in one another. The next day it was reheated and yummy. We each had a bowl along with some of my grandma's leftover rolls.

I forgot to take a picture before eating so this is the leftovers that erin and I are taking as we hit the road tomorrow morning.

There is nothing like soup after a long week of feasting!!

Christmas Hangovers....

2008-12-27T09:10:00.004-05:00

Are you ever surprised at how much you can eat and drink over the holiday's? Each morning i would wake up thinking this would be a "lighter" day eating wise...and by the end of of the day...not so much. There are just so many traditions to hold and food to eat. I really tried to let myself indulge a bit and hit up the gym everyday to keep myself feeling healthy!

We used to get together with family for Christmas dinner but the older everyone gets the more obligations they have on that day so this year my Aunt Gina and Uncle Pat hosted a dinner on the 26th. My Aunt Gina is Italian and a great cook which equals Lasagna and Meatballs. We all brought something to pass. I made my black bean dip and threw it on a plate with veggies (I tried to go with something healthy).
My mom was asked to make her homemade Egg-Nog. Now I must say this is one of those Christmas traditions that I speak about, BUT it is really really rich. I'm taking whole eggs, half and half, evaporated milk, ice cream...it's all in there. She serves it in little punch cups and everyone raves about it. Everything in moderation!

I have blogged about my HG egg nog before so I thought I would try HG Pumpkin Nog as another egg nog option at the party. It turned out great. I made a batch of original and a batch of the pumpkin. The pumpkin won over the crowd. Although my mom's was definitely the best I was glad that people tried mine!!

I think I am on holiday food overload...and i'm only half-way through vacation :)

Christmas Traditions

2008-12-25T16:36:00.013-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS! I love Christmas. I love the whole day and I also love eating the whole day! We have very specific things that we make on Christmas and frankly it just wouldn't be Christmas morning with the breakfast casserole baking in the oven!

This year was erin's first year experiencing Christmas at my house and we didn't want to disappoint :). We start off opening presents under our "santa" tree (that's right folks we have two trees: one for santa and one for the family) and drinking morning coffee. My mom always picks up all the holiday creamers: eggnog, gingerbread, bailey's (opps how did that get in there at 9am in the morning dad?!). This year we took a mini break from presents to throw the breakfast casserole together along with orange cinn. rolls. YUM. This year my mom also picked up fruit to make a great fruit salad, so I was in charge of that.
Look how amazing this breakfast looks!

As mentioned in my prepping post we also have mimosas and bloody mary's as well. We start the morning quite "spirited!!!".

After the craziness of the santa tree we all enjoy looking at our new gifts and usually watching a new movie...or two...or four!

We weren't planning dinner until around 6:30 because we were waiting for my Sister and Brother in law to come! Plenty of time to make all our dishes. I started with the Asiago, Potato and Bacon Gratin.

I had prepped the potatoes and had to saute up the shallots and cook the bacon. I also needed bacon for the Brussels Sprouts so I put my dad on bacon cooking duty. I combined all the dry ingredients and threw the casserole together...1, 2, 3. Simple! I didn't take alot of pictures this day :(, but did get the casserole before it was completely gone! It was a hit.

I didn't take any pictures of my Butternut Squash Casserole because It went the same as Thanksgiving...simple and delicious. I will say that I would recommend steaming the squash on the stove if possible. The microwave took awhile with that much squash! I just prefer my steamer basket.
I helped my mom with my Grandma's rolls as well. These are so great. They look almost like biscuits but have a sweet flavor to them. I grew up having these only at Christmas time and they are something that I will always make around the holiday. These are pretty messy to make, just use ALOT of flour:). Here they are awaiting their 20 min bake time.

Finally on to the Brussels Sprouts with Bacon-Horseradish Cream! Now doesn't that even sound amazing...I had already cut up the sprouts the night before and my dad took care of cookin up the bacon so all that was left was the "sauce". These came together really quickly right after the turkey came out. Honestly I don't think I could have a Brussels Sprout dish without loving it.

After dinner we moved on to our Family tree. I just love giving gifts to all my family members :). I just love Christmas. We had my mom's famous pies for dessert and my sister and brother brought over a raspberry cheesecake (i stuck with the pies).

My stomach was full.
and my heart was fuller!

Prep Work

2008-12-25T16:35:00.017-05:00

So remember my crazy thanksgiving post? Yeah well, we tend to eat similarly for Christmas. What can I say i come from a family of eaters! We have so many traditions at Christmas, but since this is a food blog I will try to stick to our "foodie traditions".

Going in chronological order we normally spend Christmas Eve at my grandparents house having Venison Cacciatore and eating all my grandma's baked goods. While growing up my grandpa and dad both used to go hunting so we always had venison in the freezer. I was never a huge fan...a bit gamey for my taste. There are many cuts of venison (deer meat) and some are more gamey than others, and when you put the meat in cacciatore it really gets rid of the gaminess. This dish has been passed down from my grandpa to my dad and now my cousin Josh makes it. This year we didn't have the dish until the day after Christmas (we also enjoyed a great Italian feast at my Uncle pats and Aunt Gina's)...but I couldn't talk about Christmas food traditions without mentioning that one

Of course the first thing i discussed with my mom when I woke up on Christmas Eve was Christmas dinner! As mentioned before we tend to have the same food for Christmas that we have for Thanksgiving. Alot of our dishes make a reappearance. Even though my Mom was hosting I of course wanted to contribute some dishes as well. My mom had planned both Turkey and Ham for meats so i choose to make a Scallop Potato dish from Cooking Light (per erin's request), a Brussels Sprout recipe from Weight Watchers and my HG Squashtastic dish from Thanksgiving! I also told my mom I would handle making my grandma's rolls.

I really wanted to enjoy Christmas day so I prepped some of my ingredients for the dishes the night before. As much as I love to cook sometimes the prep work is not so much fun! I ended up doing alot of the "cutting" the night before:

-Brussels sprouts

-peel and cut the butternut squash (with the help of my dad...thanks dad!)

Christmas morning I used my NEW KNIVES (thanks Santa) to prep the rest of the ingredients for the dishes so that when dinner came all I needed to do was throw them in the oven.

My mom and I also worked on my grandma's rolls because they have to sit for about three hours before popping them in the oven for twenty mins.

We sipped Pomegranate Mimosas and finished the prep work....all ready for dinner :)!

Beer Sample #2...

2008-12-22T09:31:00.006-05:00

I told you I would have plenty of time to catch up on my winter beer tasting. Our next pick was Wachusett Winter.
The Wachusett Brewery is probably only about 1/2 an hour from where we live so not only did we want to support a local business but the bottle was festive and fun!

I liked this one. It reminded me alot of Winter Warmer (by Harpoon and currently my favorite winter brew). It was an amber colored beer and although it had the flavors of the season (hints of cinnamon and nutmeg I think) it didn't overpower the beer. Definitely better than the last but I still think 2nd to the Winter Warmer.

I head upstate tonight for Christmas with my family. It will be the first time erin and i actually get to spend Christmas together...that beats ANY winter brew :).