I Wanted the Chicken Pot Pie, So I Got A Salad Instead

Deep Dish Skillet Pizza - My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

My cute mini skillet deep dish pizza

     I can't believe I've never thought of doing this before. I'm a huge fan of cast iron, and cooking a deep dish pizza in it is just genius. I stumbled upon this idea on a blog called Minimalist Baker and was intrigued. Truthfully, only basic instructions are necessary. You're totally free to create any type of pizza in any size that you desire. I used my mini cast iron skillet and some pre-made whole wheat crust from Trader Joes, but I'm sure making your own crust would be fabulous. For the toppings, I roasted some of my favorite veggies, cut up an Italian chicken sausage.

Deep Dish Skillet Pizza

1/2 pizza dough recipe (or 1 store-bought crust)
1/4 cup pizza sauce
1/2 cup mixed veggies of your choice (I used onions, red pepper, brussel sprouts, and mushrooms)
1/4 cup Mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup Monterey jack cheese

1) If roasting veggies, preheat oven to broil, toss veggies in olive oil on a baking sheet, and broil for 4-6 minutes on the top rack, tossing once for even cooking. Remove from oven and set aside.
2) Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
3) Coat a cast iron pan with olive oil and press your dough down into the pan and up around the sides about 1 to 1.5 inches. Let rest for a few minutes while preparing the rest of your toppings.
4) Sprinkle in a portion of your cheese, then add veggies and then sauce. Top with remaining mozzarella cheese, italian seasonings (dried basil, oregano, thyme, red pepper, etc.). Definitely do a base layer of cheese, but I'd say you can add the sauce before the veggies if you want.
5) Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and the cheese and sauce are bubbly. Let rest for 5-10 minutes before cutting. 

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Chocolate Hazelnut Larabars - My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

Chocolate Hazelnut Larabar ingredients (+cocoa powder)

Again... I was sick of paying money for bars when I knew I could make them for much cheaper. If you recall, I've made the Key Lime Pie and Blueberry Muffin Larabars before and they were stellar (well... the Key Lime ones were). After the struggles I went through making the Blueberry Muffin ones, I learned that you shouldn't throw everything in your food processor at once. It will sound like it's drowning. Pulse the nuts first, pour them out, and then pulse the dates. My little food processor still struggles with the dates because they're so thick and sticky, but as long as you get them mostly broken up and into a ball of mush, then you should be all good. Then at the end I mix all the ingredients together by hand and shape them into whatever I'm feeling. I found this recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Larabars on a blog called Naturally Ella. These are super easy, have simple ingredients and are a great pre-workout snack!

Chocolate Hazelnut Larabars

2½ cups medjool dates, pitted
¾ cup almonds, toasted
¾ cups hazelnuts, toasted
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
¼ cup dark chocolate, finely chopped 

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Emmet's Irish Pub and Restaurant- Boston, MA
http://emmetsirishpubandrestaurant.com/

Steamed Mussels and Garlic Bread

     Per Dave's suggestion, Meagan, Dave, Karl and I headed over to Emmet's after a chilly evening ice skating on the Boston Common Frog Pong. With wooden decor and stained glass windows, this place is your standard Irish pub with the most delicious sounding Irish fare. The Shephard's Pie, Bangers and Mash, and Chicken Pot Pie were sweetly calling my name, but I had to remember I'm a lightweight. Instead, I opted for the Steamed Mussels. These were native New England mussels that had been sauteed in a succulent butter, garlic and white wine broth. They were a tad bit saltier than I would've preferred, but they were perfectly tender and had such a rich flavor (ahhh thank you butter). They were also served with their homemade garlic bread. I believe the bread was actually French bread, but in addition to garlic I think they added another red spice that I really liked. Paprika perhaps? I'm not sure. I couldn't place it. Maybe someday when I'm not trying to be 130 pounds I'll come back for the chicken pot pie with the mile-high, buttery pillowing crust.

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Towne - Boston, MA
http://towneboston.com/

   

The bartender's interpretation of
a Blue Lagoon

     Please just go to Towne's website (shown above). Look at how beautiful it is. Just look. As I walked into this place and the hostess directed me to my friends, I said to her, "IIIIII don't make enough money to be in here right now." She assured me I was fine and took me to meet Cheryl, Kate and Emma. These lovely ladies were a couple friends I made on an Ecuador trip back in 2007. Emma was in town from the University of Edinburgh in the UK for a conference that was taking place at Hynes Convention Center. Since Cheryl, Kate and I all live here, it was a great kick in the pants to get us all together again. It was such a fabulous night of reminiscing and story telling.
     To start off, Cheryl asked our waitress if their bartender knew how to make a Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon was a drink we probably had one too many of in a surf town called Montañita on the coast of Ecuador. They held a very special place in our hearts. The bartender hadn't heard of such a drink, but she gave it her best shot and boy was it tasty. Definitely more delicious than the cheap ones we got along the unpaved streets of Montañita.
     We were quickly served a beautiful bread basket with great hunks of a soft and chewy bread. 99% of the time when restaurants served a bread basket, I want it to be warm. Cold bread is much less appealing. However, Towne served it cold, and I really liked it because the inside retained its moisture, and it was chewy. They also had these super long, pencil sized, hard, and garlicy breadsticks. They were salty and delicious, especially when dipped in either one of their spreads. I should've asked what they were, but I was distracted. I'm pretty sure one was a sort of sweet potato spread, but I'm unsure about the other. It was also orange. A mystery.

     Two days before a weigh in, I knew I was ordering a salad. I decided on their roasted kale salad with bay scallops, shallots, pepperoncini peppers, and a creamy soy dressing. As a whole, the salad was tasty, but it didn't seem much of a salad. Let me explain. The roasted kale was... just that... roasted and salted kale. I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, but it didn't give me the fresh and healthy flavor I was looking for. Delicious... yes... just different. The "salad" idea was debatable also because I'm not sure I saw any shallots and only saw one super thin sliver of a pepperoncini pepper. True, I wasn't paying my normal amount of attention to my food because things were happening, so I may have just missed some of the elements of the salad. The scallops were also very tiny. Like the size of slightly larger marble. However, the way one side of each scallop had crisped up from how they'd been cooked completely made up for their lack in size. Their overall flavor was great, the crispy part was excellent, they were cooked perfectly and weren't chewy. The soy dressing was probably my second favorite part. I believe the dressing had been poured on the bottom of the plate as opposed to poured overtop the entire salad. I can't say I've ever seen that before, and I really liked it because it added just a slight soy/gingery flavor to each bite without feeling like the salad was doused in dressing.
     I can never go anywhere without trying other people's food... which is great. I'm not complaining at all. Cheryl shared her roasted cauliflower and broccoli which was amaaaaazing but I'm sure it was no longer healthy. The veggies had been doused in quite a bit of olive oil for roasting (probably too much), were fairly salted and covered in parmesan cheese. I love salt. I love cheese... especially when it crisps up. So this dish was delicious, but I couldn't eat too much because it was all so salty and rich.
     Emma also let me try her Duck Confit pizza. This, my friends, was a masterpiece. It was a flatbread square pizza with duck confit (duck cooked in fat), caramelized onions, figs, triple cream blue cheese and reduced balsamic vinegar. First of all, the duck was super succulent and tender. The cheese was so smooth and creamy, and, truth be told, I didn't even know it was blue cheese at the time. I didn't get the standard bite you get from blue cheese. I also didn't notice the figs. The sweetness I did notice was from what I believe was reduced balsamic vinegar. It was a thick, brown goo drizzled over-top the whole thing. It doesn't list this on the menu, but I'm sure it was on there. It's an unmistakable flavor, and it had such an great sweetness. If I do anything in life, I hope it's to learn how to reduce balsamic vinegar like that. The combining flavors from the duck, cheeses, onions and vinegar gave the pizza so many dimensions. Genius.

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Daedalus - Cambridge, MA
http://stagingpad.com/daedalus/

     I often wish I had more brunch in my life. It's such a great idea, and it's rare that one is disappointed with brunch. Mary was in town, and after not getting anything at Sunset Cantina on Friday night (I don't ever recommend watching people eat delicious Mexican food. It's absolute torture) and ordering a plain Greek salad that was very ho-hum from a place called Clarke's in Faneuil, I was really hungry and just wanted something tasty. We originally intended to go to The Boathouse for brunch, but apparently they're closed on a Sunday morning at 10:45... even though they have a brunch menu. Whatever. So we went right next door to Daedalus. Daedalus is a converted 2 story greenhouse with two bars and a rooftop dining area. Unfortunately it was too cold to sit outside, but we'll definitely have to come back sometime in the summer to try out the roof. The inside was very crisp and clean with cushiony leather booths, strange artwork resembling a swamp, funky incandescent light bulbs, standard jazz-y hold music echoing throughout the room and beautifully stained wooden tables. This place was very chic. I'm not sure if I know exactly what that word means, but I think that it fits.

Veggie Fritatta

      I still tried to stay smart healthy and ordered their brunch special Fritatta. I have to admit, I wasn't really sure what the definition of a fritatta was. I thought it was kind of like an egg-bake, but turns out it's a flat, Italian style omelette that's cooked in a cast iron skillet. Basically it's like an open faced omelette. This one was topped with roasted cauliflower, brussel sprouts, roasted red peppers and goat cheese. The eggs were truthfully just a medium onto which the roasted veggies were placed. They were the all-stars of the dish, in combination with the goat cheese. I feel like red peppers take on such a different flavor when they're roasted and Daedalus knew how to do it. It was almost like they were a completely different vegetable all together. The hunks of goat cheese were warmed up perfectly and became so soft and melty. It added such a rich flavor to an otherwise simple dish (not that that's a bad thing).
    At first I was happy that my omelette was served with a small side salad, because that meant I wouldn't be temped to eat a ton of their home fries (which generally always mean delicious things). But, as I should've expected, Meagan got full quickly... resulting in me finishing off her roasted potatoes and a little bit of her eggs benedict with lox. I always think about being adventurous and trying eggs benedict with lox, but I realized today that salmon in the morning just isn't for me. Regardless, the potatoes were perfectly roasted with just a slightly crisp outer layer and soft on the inside. They've got quite a few other things on this menu I'd love to come back and try for brunch... or lunch... or dinner.

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Chickpea, Feta and Parsley Salad - My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

     I was a huge fan of this super fresh salad I found on a blog called Simply Provisions. The reason I was so
in love was also simple. This salad took me back to my Syrian roots. The chickpeas and garlic provided flavors like that of hummus, while the parsley and the lemon provided flavors similar to tabouli. Hummus and tabouli (in a pita) is one of the most delicious combinations on the planet, so it was no wonder that this salad recipe was stellar. The feta gave it a light creamy sauce, and the lemon juice a light freshness. It's worth noting that this salad was the best served immediately. I ate it throughout the week for lunches and it seemed as though the flavors weakened as time went on, so eat up!

Chickpea, Feta and Parsley Salad 

1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tbs olive oil
Pinch red chili flakes
2 400g (14oz) tins of chickpeas
4 spring onions (scallions), green part only, chopped
1 cup chopped parsley
Juice of one lemon
150g (5 ounces) feta
Salt and pepper

1) Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and cook the red onion till lightly golden. Add garlic and chili and cook till the garlic is fragrant. Set aside to cool so it doesn’t melt the feta when you mix it in.
2) Drain the chickpeas, rinse and place in the salad bowl. Add crumbled feta, spring onion, parsley and lemon juice, season with salt and pepper. Add the cooled onion and garlic mixture and remaining oil and mix well.

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Royal Pastry Shop - Somerville, MA

http://www.royalpastryshop.com/index.htm

Carrot Cake from Royal Pastry Shop

     My coworkers are just too sweet. Literally. Nearly everytime they go to the store, they come back with a sweet treat for some. Oftentimes it's more than one treat because they couldn't decide. One day Melanie came back from running and errand and walked in with 2 big huge cake boxes. I knew they were cake boxes. There's no mistaking those. My eyes got super wide and she said "They're cakes for a birthday party after work, but don't worry... there's something for you on your desk." What a dear. She brought me back this precious little carrot cake. We had been talking about desserts the day before, and she remembered I had said I loved carrot cake. This little nugget was from a bakery on Cambridge St called Royal Pastry Shop. I'll have to go back on my own someday to take an inventory, but their carrot cake was stellar. I normally like the cake part of my carrot cake to have large pieces of shredded carrot and big walnuts, but the cake mix in this one was relatively fine. It was still delicious, however, just no visible chunks. The cream cheese frosting was out of this world. It was dense and not airy like some cream cheese frostings. I really liked this one because it was less sweet and more cream cheesy. Great cheese to sugar ratios happening here. I was so grateful for the midday treat. 

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Red Lantern - Boston, MA
http://www.redlanternboston.com/index.html

Meagan's great Instagramming skills make up for my lack of skills. 

     For Malcolm's birthday, he wanted to go to an Asian place called Red Lantern downtown. I had never been, but I heard you might drop a pretty penny or two if you chose to eat and drink there. I ate dinner before going, but was not opposed to sampling when I got there. Inside the huge wooden doors was an enormous dining area and bar. The tall ceilings were draped with sea shells and hundreds of hanging red lanterns. The whole restaurant had a very sophisticated and luxurious feel with all deep red hues and dark furniture. With the flicker of fire from their open kitchen, exposed brick walls and the rugged Asian art on the walls, I felt like I was in sophisticated urban China.

Lobster Rangoons

     Being the generous guy he is (even on his own birthday), Malcolm ordered some lobster rangoons for the table that were, hands-down, the best rangoons I've ever had. The insides were perfectly warm and had an awesome rich lobster flavor. It all just melted further in your mouth. Served with scallions and a sweet soy sauce, the rangoons had such a beautiful blend of succulent flavors from the cream cheese and lobster, contrasting textures of the crisp wonton shell and the creamy insides, and a hint of salt and sweet from the soy. Absolutely amazing.
     While there, I also sampled a piece of Malcolm's White Mountain Roll, some of the Duck Buns and had a sip of a Mai Tai. All of these things were amazing, but I don't feel as though I had enough sensory experience to give them the review they deserve. Aside from the fire alarm going off during the meal (which was rather hilarious), it was a great night out and super fun to experience a dining environment I'd wouldn't normally catch myself in by my own personal choice.

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Peanut Butter and Jelly Skillet Monkey Bread - My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

PB&J Skillet Monkey Bread

     PB&J might literally be one of my favorite things to eat on this planet. No joke. I suppose it's the peanut butter really that gets me. I could sit for hours eating it out of the jar with a spoon. Sometimes I like to take a spoon of pb and then a spoon of jelly and let them mix in my mouth, and I'm not ashamed to admit that. It's a delicious combination. I originally found this recipe for PB&J Skillet Monkey Bread on a blog called Picky Palate. I really really like the idea, but I didn't want to use all the ingredients she used. I wanted it to be kind of like pb&j on toast rather than the super sweet treat she made it into. Plus, adding butter, heavy cream, and sugar to a recipe that's basically already loaded with sugar and fat doesn't quite seem like a good idea if I'm trying to stay in the same sized pants. So... I just took her idea of breaking up hunks of bread dough, throwing them in a lightly buttered pan, drizzling on some peanut butter and dropping on a few spoonfulls of jelly. Then I just baked it for 15-18 minutes or so. Poof! Perfection! Warm peanut butter is just the best.

     

But Now I Only Have Two Meats...

S&S Restaurant – Cambridge, MA

http://www.sandsrestaurant.com/

3 cuties

Griffin told me about S&S a long time ago when I asked him what his favorite brunch places were. After reviewing the menus of all the places he named, this one topped my list of places I wanted to go for brunch. It was my destination of choice after my weigh in for HOCR. After Meagan’s race, Karl, Kevin, Meagan and I drove up to S&S in Inman Square. Finally. This place is huge! When you walk in, there is an enormous bakery counter with everything and anything I’d ever want to eat. Then they have at least 4 huge rooms with tons of seating. It was packed and there were a ton of families and old people. I know it’s weird to say, but it was kind of refreshing. I feel like I live in an area with a ton of younger people, so it’s nice to see old couples out to brunch on a Saturday.

Parisian French toast and Corned beef hash

Anyway, their menu is absolutely outrageous. Every dish seems so intricately designed. Like the sushi of the brunch world. Their egg dishes sounded so good with things like salmon, cucumber, and canadian bacon, but I had my heart set on their stuffed French toasts. I finally went with the Parisian French toast. Oh my goodness. This was thick cut bread stuffed with warm, gooey brie and fig preserves, and sprinkled with a little powdered sugar. The subtly of the soft brie and the super flavorful and sweet fig preserves was amazing. The combination of the different textures was fabulous too. Crispy edges on the French toast, the gooey cheese, and the soft bread. At first I wished there was more, but once I started eating it, I knew it was going to be plenty because it was all so rich. The little fruit salad it was served with was the perfect way to cleanse the palette.

I kept seeing multiple people being served this bowl looking thing that was overflowing with some meaty concoction and knew I needed it. Turns out it was their corned beef hash and it was superb. I love corned beef, and I had truthfully never really corned beef hash in my life…at least I don’t think I had. I'm sure it had 4 years worth of fat in it, but it was so worth it.

Chocolate Lava Divine

I was so pleased with everything. THEN we had to go and get the Chocolate Lava Divine that I eyed on the way in. Had to. Such a great choice. It was a chocolate cake filled with dark chocolate truffle lava and topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. The warm gooey chocolate lava that poured in when you cut into it. Definitely not the first time I’ve had it, but it was incredible and gone in seconds.

The Neighborhood Restaurant – Somerville, MA

http://www.theneighborhoodrestaurant.com/

Eggs, homefries, grilled banana and linguica

When Jim and Audrey were in town, they raved about this one place they went to called the Neighborhood Restaurant up in Somerville. I had heard about this place before and they supposedly served up some great Portuguese food, including blood sausage. That was my goal. I wanted the blood sausage. The morning after the Charles party (I think) Jimmy, Meagan and I decided to check it out. It’s a very simple place. They have a nice open outdoor seating area, but it was too cold so we just sat inside. It was very small inside, the tables were simple, the chairs plastic, and the “art” hung on the walls was pretty standard for a rural hometown diner run my grandma and grandpa. It didn’t really look Portuguese, and only a few items on the menu looked Portuguese. Unfortunately they didn’t have any blood sausage that day. Apparently it’s one of those secret-not-on-the-menu things. I was real bummed. Guess I’ll have to go back. Anyway… I got the #15 which came with 3 eggs, half of a big grilled banana, awesome homefries, and a couple slices of this really good Portuguese sausage called Linguica. It was way different than any standard sausage we’re used to. It was very coarsely ground. You could see all the different hunks of things (the meat, fat, and who knows what else). Either way, it had a great almost smoky flavor. They also served a small fruit salad, a plate with toast and corn bread and a glass of OJ with your meal, which was an added bonus. Generosity. I like it.

Quebrada Bakery – Arlington, MA

http://www.quebradabakingco.com/

Bran muffin

So there’s this bakery in Arlington that Nina loves. She has brought in banana bread, cookies, croissants, and other pastries from this place and they have all been exceptional. I decided to get a birthday cake from there in my final days at Bluetrain, and it was a standard chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. It had these awesome fudgy layers in between each layer of cake and the frosting was a sweet buttercream. BUT… I’m not here to talk about the cake. I’m here to talk about the miniature bran muffin I got for myself while I was there. I absolutely couldn’t walk away without something. I love bran muffins. I love that I feel like I’m eating Earth and that it’s semi-healthy. This muffin was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Perfect lightweight size. I loved how coarse the bran pieces were and the raisins inside were plump. Sometimes bakeries really screw up bran muffins and they’re too dry, but not Quebrada.

Spanish Chickpea Salad – My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

So one of our recent SSC meetings had a Spanish theme, so I stuck with my own personal theme of making the salad for the evening. I found this awesome authentic Spanish salad recipe on the Spanish food section of About.com that was delicious, refreshing, and a great way to finish off the meal after some of Nonna’s fabulous paella. This salad was very simple. Cucumbers, pomegranate seeds, chic peas, red wine vinegar and salt and pepper. I cut everything up pretty small so that it was uniform in shape. It was super crunchy and so refreshing. I already said that… but it was. Totally something you could make on the weekend and eat all week.

Spanish Chickpea Salad

2 pomegranates
2 large cucumbers
1 1/2 - 2 cans (15 oz each) of garbanzo beans
2 Large cloves garlic
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
Red wine vinegar for dressing
Extra virgin  olive oil for dressing

1) Peel the cucumbers and cut into small pieces. Remove the seeds from the pomegranate. 

Nonna's Paella

2) Drain the garbanzo beans and add to the bowl. 

3) Peel and finely chop the two cloves of garlic and place in bowl with vegetables. Remove stems from basil leaves and chop basil. Add to the bowl of vegetables and mix.
4) Sprinkle red wine vinegar over the chopped vegetables. Drizzle extra virgin olive oil. Mix thoroughly. Generally, use 1 part vinegar to 2 parts oil. Taste and adjust vinegar and oil.

Blueberry Flan Pie – My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

In addition to my chickpea salad, Meagan and I collaborated on a blueberry flan pie for SSC - Spanish edition. I was pretty excited to find this recipe on this random website called Amazing Mexican Recipes. Even though the picture looks kind of funky, it turned out pretty good. It was a little sweet for me and I doubt I’d make it again, but everyone loved it. I’d say the insides were kind of a mesh between a custard and a blueberry pie.

Blueberry Flan Pie

5 cups blueberries (use fresh if possible, frozen if not)
1 tbsp lemon zest
Juice of 2 lemons
1 ½ cups plain yogurt
3 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
½ cup sugar
1 pie crust (premade or your own recipe)

1) Mix the blueberries with lemon juice and sugar in a large bowl and mash with a potato masher until about ½ of the blueberries are mashed. In another bowl, beat the eggs, and then beat in the condensed milk, lemon zest, and yogurt, followed by the mashed blueberries.

2) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees while you get your crust ready and in your pie pan. Pour in the flan mixture and bake for about an hour and fifteen minutes or until the flan is set and the crust is crisp and golden brown – you can check for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of the pie. Allow the pie to cool and chill for a few hours. Serve cold.

Parmesan and Prosciutto Asparagus – My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

I’m a super big fan of this cheesy asparagus dish I made for our Italian themed dinner. I struggled to

find an interesting Italian salad, so I took a base recipe I discovered on the Food and Wine website and tweaked it a little to make it my own. The original recipe called for raw, ribboned asparagus tossed in zesty sauce made with coarsely shredded parmesan cheese, lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. I made a similar cheese sauce except I used finely grated parmesan romano cheese, half of the olive oil, and omitted the salt. I felt as though the cheese provided enough salt. Also, using a vegetable peeler to turn 2 pounds of asparagus into a ton of ribbons was WAY too labor intensive for my tastes. These asparagus went through multiple phases. First I tried shredding them. Then I decided I didn’t want them raw, so I steamed them whole. Then I thought that with all the other things that I was going to add, eating a whole asparagus could be difficult, so I chopped them up into smaller pieces. Some weren’t fully cooked enough, so I had to sort through them and re-steam some. It sure was a process. ANYWAY… I definitely recommend cutting them up into 1-2 inch long pieces and then steaming them.

At this point, I threw together the cheese sauce, cut up some dried apricots, and threw in some smaller pieces of thinly sliced procioutto. The combination of all these things was incredible. Woah. The cheese sauce had a zesty, lemony flavor, the apricots provided a burst of sweetness, and the procioutto added some saltyness. Great flavors all around.

The second big dilemma of the evening was whether to serve it hot or cold. It sure was delicious warm, but the original recipe said cold. Meagan and I decided to go cold, and it was a great choice because it served as a refreshing veggie dish after Jimmy’s hot soup. Good contrast. Very proud of that whole thing.

Parmesan and Prosciutto Asparagus

2 pounds large asparagus
1 cup coarsely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (3 ounces)
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons warm water
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

1) Cut up/cook asparagus however you wish. Whole, raw, shredded, chopped, whatever. 
2) In a small bowl, mix the Parmigiano-Reggiano with the lemon juice, water and olive oil. Add to the asparagus and toss to coat. Season the salad with salt and pepper and serve at once.

Cinnamon Roll Waffles – Mary’s Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

There’s a photo floating around Pinterest that I’m sure everyone and their mother has pinned. Cinnamon Roll waffles. It’s simple. Open up a can of the premade cinnamon rolls, stick them in a waffle maker, cook as you would a normal waffle, drizzle icing on top and enjoy. Mary and decided to make these one day after a Saturday workout and it was one of the best choices of my life. We used the Immaculate brand of cinnamon rolls from Whole Foods. It was interesting because they didn’t really taste like cinnamon rolls, but they didn’t taste like waffles. It was a beautiful beautiful blend of the two. The outside was slightly crisp and the inside was soft and moist. We tried them with syrup, but they were best with the icing.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies – My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

I had a period of time a while back where I went a little nuts with all the Pinterest recipes. I wanted

to try making these cookies I found on Averie Cooks that had very few ingredients: peanut butter, brown sugar, an egg, vanilla, baking soda and chocolate chips. I didn’t realize it at the time, but they’re a gluten free recipe. I was so skeptical because they had NO flour or butter. That’s basically not even a cookie. However, they were absolutely exceptional! They split and formed cracks kind of like a cheesecake or those chocolate crinkle cookies. Fresh from the oven, the chocolate was perfectly melty and the cookie itself had a hard time staying together. I was fine with that. Meagan was fine with that. We had an epiphany. Since we couldn’t hold them and dunk them in milk, we put parts of them onto a spoon and dipped them in milk. I must say… we thought we were geniuses.

Once they cooled they were just as delicious, but in a different way. I felt as though I got more of the peanut butter flavor when they were cool, and more chocolate when they were warm. Either way, they were just superb. I totally recommend trying to make them if you’re interested in gluten free recipes or just a different kind of cookie.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies 

1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
6 ounces semi-sweet, dark, or bittersweet chocolate, chopped (1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips may be substituted)

Peanut butter cookie overloaded with chocolate chips

1) Combine peanut butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-combined and the sugar is fully incorporated. Add the baking soda and beat to incorporate. Add the chocolate and beat slightly to mix. 

2) Form two-tablespoon mounds of dough, place on a large plate or cookie sheet, flatten slightly and refridgerate at least 2 hours. If chocolate is falling out of dough since there is an abundance, roll ball between palms to encourage it to stay in the dough.
3) Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or spray with cooking spray. Place mounds on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart and bake for 8 to 10 minutes, or until edges are set and tops are barely set, even if slightly underbaked in the center. Do not bake them longer than 10 minutes, as the cookies firm up as they cool.
4) Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 to 10 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling. 

Pumpkin Granola - My Kitchen, Cambridge, MA

Pumpkin granola

Yea... another Pinterest recipe. I had been meaning to make some granola for a while, and since it was fall, pumpkin granola sounded like a real winner. Normally I try to avoid things like oil and extra sugar in granola, and as a result, it has never turned out all that great. But this time I just wanted to follow a recipe almost exactly. I did not care about calorie content. I found this recipe for pumpkin granola on a blog called Foodess and was so so so pleased. This granola had achieved both the crispness, the chunkiness and the sweetness that I have been striving for in my last couple batches of granola. It was perfect, and you could really taste the pumpkin in it. Not to mention, it made the apartment smell delectable. I'm going to share her recipe, but I halved the recipe and it worked out fine. I get too scared of screwing up and I don't want to have a million trays of wasted granola. As far as the nuts/seeds/berries go, I used cashews, cranberries, and chocolate chips. 

Pumpkin Granola 

1 cup pumpkin puree
1½ tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger (I didn't use this because I couldn't find mine)
⅓ cup vegetable oil
½ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
5 cups old fashioned large flake oats
2 cups raw cashews

3/4 cup chocolate chips
2 cups dried cranberries

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2) In a mixing bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, oil, brown sugar, maple syrup and vanilla extract. Stir in the oats and cashews.
3) Divide mixture between two large baking sheets and bake 45-60 minutes, stirring occasionally and checking frequently, until the cashews are golden and toasty and the granola is dry.
4) Let cool completely on baking sheets if larger clumps are preferred. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in cranberries and chocolate chips. Transfer to airtight containers.

Fedora Café – Lawrenceville, NJ
http://fedoracafe.webs.com/

I HAVE to write about Fedora Café. Princeton never ceases to impress, with PJ’s Pancakes, Hoagie Haven and now Fedora Café. Leigh recommended we go to Fedora Café for dinner on Saturday after our erg piece at Speed Order. THANK YOU LEIGH! Fedora Café is this cute little café. I’d say it’s my ideal café. Everything about it is unique. The art, the furniture, the tapestries hanging on the wall, and the dishes. No two things were the same. Leigh originally brought us because they offer an endless pasta bowl. You pick your noodle, sauce, and any toppings you want. If you finish your first bowl, they’ll refill it for free. It was so … much… pasta. I could’ve done it, but my shrunken stomach knew that I’d regret it, especially with a race the next day. I refrained, but OH MAN. It was some of the best pasta I’ve ever had at a restaurant. I got bow ties, blush sauce (a mix of marinara and a cream sauce I believe), portobella mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, peas, broccoli, spinach, artichoke hearts, peppers, and onions. The deal sealer was the sun dried tomatoes. The flavor of sun dried tomatoes is so powerful. I love it. The mushrooms were key in this dish too. They were big and thickly sliced. I loved how the broccoli soaked up a bunch of the sauce in the bushy part of each piece. There was just so much going on. So many delicious things. The sauce brought it all together in sweet harmony.  

The Ginger Exchange – Cambridge, MA

http://www.gingerexchange.com/cambridge/index.html

Prettiest little crab rangoons

I swear we’ve been talking about sushi for months. And I mean months and months and months. We’ll do it after trials! We’ll do it after the Charles! We’ll do it after Speed Order! Yea… whatever. So finally… we did it. After some pretty intense research, Mary, Meagan, Brandon and I headed to The Ginger Exchange up in Inman Square. I love going to Inman Square because there are so many interesting places there that I want to eat. It’s like traveling to another country. I had spotted crab rangoons on the menu during our research… and well… you can’t just not get crab rangoons. They were amazing. They came piping hot to our table like pretty little flowers arranged around the dipping sauce. The cream cheese and crab mix inside wasn’t too crabby or overly airy. Sometimes I think they whip up the mix that they put inside and it’s all airy, like whipped cream cheese you buy at the store. Know what I mean? Well… it wasn’t like that. It was much better. It was warm and creamy and smooth and had this great sweet dipping sauce (that Mary and I hoarded to dip other things in later in the evening).

Bo Bos

Mary also wanted to get the Bo Bo’s. Yea, I had never heard of them before, but they were described as some sort of dumpling stuffed with hunks of meat. We chose the beef. Three of them came to the table looking like tacos (as Meldrim put it) but I thought they looked like clams. A big puffy white dumpling was split in half and filled with the shredded beef. The flavor of the beef was amazing. It was kind of like an asian version of bbq if I had to guess. With hints of ginger and soy. So great. These came with French fries which, at the time, were like god’s gift to humanity. First fried food I had eaten in FOREVER and it was incredible. I mean… the fries were good, but I’m guessing they wouldn’t be super exceptional to the average person. Mary and I just thought they were like cake.

I was so happy with our choice in rolls. The Christmas was delicious. My optimal choice. It had shrimp tempura, tempura flakes, tuna, avocado, spicy mayo and eel sauce. We also chose the Mt. Fuji (spicy scallop, tobiko, crab stick, avocado, cucumber), Spider (soft shell crab tempura, avocado, cucumber, tobiko, eel sauce), Serendipity (seared scallops, tempura flakes, crab stick, spicy mayo, secret sauce, seared homachi, black tobiko) and the Farmer's Market (avocado, cucumber, yamagobo, sweet tofu, dried seaweed). The Mt. Fuji came piled high with this delicious shredded crab on top in some sort of mildly spicy sauce. The dried seaweed draped over top of the Farmer's Market was something new for me but I really liked it. The seared homachi (a type of fish) on top of the Serendipity had a really unique smoky flavor that I surprisingly liked. They all had something unique about them and that was really cool. 

Christina’s – Cambridge, MA

http://christinasicecream.com/

Peanut butter cup and cookie dough ice cream

As we polished off our last couple pieces of sushi at The Ginger Exchange, I asked if we wanted to order more. We all made the great decision that instead of ordering more, we would go get ice cream instead. We had passed Christina’s on the way in, and we had all heard at one point that it was apparently as good as Toscanini’s. We had to test it out. I’ll say, they had a decent number of flavors, but they weren’t as unique as Toscanini’s Browned Butter Pumpkin Sage or the B cubed. However, Christina’s had some incredible ice cream. Woah, so I got the peanut butter cup (duh) and the cookie dough. I love cookie dough. This was probably the best cookie dough I’ve ever had because not only were there delicious hunks of dough in the ice cream, but the ice cream itself tasted like cookie dough. Somehow they had infused the cookie dough flavor into the creamy part and ohhhh was it creamy. The peanut butter cup was delicious too. Sometimes peanut butter ice creams can have too much peanut butter, and it can be overwhelming, but this was far from. It was the perfect creamy balance of chocolate and peanut butter bliss. This is tough. Real tough. I’d still say Toscanini’s has the #1 spot, but Christina’s is definitely a close second.

Tatté – Cambridge, MA

http://tattebakery.com/

Beautiful Hazelnut Rose

After an unsuccessful attempt to sell clothing at Garment District, Meagan and I decided to slip into Tatté across the street. I had never seen this little café before, but I definitely loved the feel inside. It was very rustic feeling. It was very small and there was one long, battered, antique wooden table running through the middle. People sat munching on the most delicious looking breakfast sandwiches bursting with fresh greens. They had a BEAUTIFUL assortment of pastries and tarts. I opted for the Hazelnut Rose, which was sort of like a cinnamon roll with a great hazelnut flavor. It was tall, wrapped in paper, and split into two rolls at the top. Each one displayed on the platter was unique and had risen and grown in the oven in their own different direction. It was a bit more dry than your standard cinnamon roll (which was ok), and the cinnamon-y substance wrapped between each layer had what I think may have been ground up hazelnuts along with hunks of hazelnuts. It  was delicious. I ate it in the car, but I can only imagine how amazing it would be fresh from the oven.