We had a lot of leftovers, so that was dinner. We did have a fun lunch, though: we picked up a rice bowl from a new Korean deli in Sunderland, and some kielbasa with onions and peppers from the BBA Market and had a little picnic.
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| Yes, we also had a donut |
"Taco" pizza, with ground beef with janky taco seasoning (deliciously reminiscent of school lunch tacos), tomatoes, olives, jalapenos and cheddar. A little heavier than recent pizzas we have made. But not bad!
Falafel (from the freezer), fresh pita, yogurt-tahini sauce and the usual condiments . I ate mine salad style with spinach and pita on the side. We are going to be eating that Costco sheet cake until I retire, at least.
Rice noodles salad, with ground pork, daikon, carrots, cucumbers and a sort of Vietnamese dressing that I free-styled (fish sauce, lime, ginger, sugar, and . Really tasty even though I forgot peanuts to go on top, and that we didn't have any herbs. Ground pork comes through again.
Tofu with eggplant in an ersatz garlic sauce. I was a little concerned when I accidentally added some baking soda instead of corn starch (yes, they are clearly labeled) but it wasn't noticeable in the finished product. Served with rice. I think Jason liked this a bit more than I did (I wished I had roasted the tofu in the oven instead of pan-frying it) but it was as good a way as any to use up the last few tiny eggplants of the season.
A nice invitation from my dad and Liz meant BBQ at their place. Jason made (superfluous) bread and garlic flatbreads. It was nice to see everyone and I got to sit next to the baby AND Carter so I was pretty happy. Wildwood BBQ isn't, in my opinion, as good as the place in Millers but it would be churlish to complain.
Dinner with Jodi and Jay. We had a fun time, but it's not about the food: pasta with jarred sauce and onions and peppers. Jason did make a very nice loaf of bread, though.
Another health-packed meal: tater tots with cheese, salsa and guacamole. At least guacamole is a vegetable.
Pasta with pepperoni, from the NYT. To make it a one dish situation, I also added spinach and mushrooms. For just a few ingredients (pepperoni, tomato paste, fennel and crushed red pepper) this is very flavorful. I only use about half of the called for pepperoni, but it's plenty. Still working on the Costco cake.
Tortilla soup, that I made with the remaining rotisserie chicken and bones. I loosely followed a recipe from SK (I wasn't searching for extreme authenticity here) and added some zucchini for health. Served with queso fresco, avocados and some salsa verde that I made. Jason doesn't love eating soup but he was gracious about it. Plenty of leftovers for me!
I knew I would be exhausted after my first day back at work, so I was glad we had made arrangements to meet Jason's old work pal, Gabe, at Frontier. Somehow the three of us finished off a large cheese and a small special. How Jason and I managed to eat cake when we got home is a mystery.
I had the day off and an appointment in West Springfield, so we stopped at Costco and picked up a rotisserie chicken (no need to mention the cake, potato chips and Biscoff cookies). We used it as the base for a Monday night pizza: chicken in BBQ sauce, red onions, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and a little smoked gruyere. This was SO GOOD. It was a riff on a pizza my parents used to get at a now defunct place in Providence called Bob & Timmy's. Jason and I agreed it was one of our best ever. Dessert was some of the sheet cake (good but we didn't know it had a cheesecake layer in the middle. That's what you get for buying mystery cakes at Costco).
Carter kindly took us to the dining hall for a very late lunch; after having tofu, a salad, some homefries, a few french fries and a small piece of funfetti cake, I definitely didn't need dinner. I could have skipped the french fries but everything else was good.
Pizza night at Jen and John's. Jason and John are still working out the ins and outs of their pizza oven, but by pie #3 we had success (the first couple had soggy bottoms). The final pizza had apple and cinnamon and while I was dismissive, it was delicious. Like Jason needed more encouragement. Then board games and home late, late, late.
I took a a nice walk in the morning before checking out. The location of this rental was really hard to beat. We were delighted to find our car still at the Park and Ride (I don't think we had a plan in place for if it was stolen or vandalized...) so that worked out well. We stopped at IKEA to cheer me up with meatballs and a new bathmat (we are quite the shoppers). Then home. I made haluski for dinner (basically noodles, onions, cabbage and butter...could use some tweaking) along with some breaded chicken tenders from Aldi. It was a fun trip but I know Jason was happy to be home!
Our last full day! We took the bus over toward the Back Bay and had brunch at The Friendly Toast. This is a ridiculous place, so I ordered a ridiculous meal, chicken and waffles:
A fluffy Belgian waffle infused with bacon, fire roasted poblano corn & jalapeno jack cheese - layered with our rice crispy coated chicken breast & topped with hot honey, chipotle maple sour cream, pickled onions & scallions."
Yes, it was over the top but it actually all worked. Jason went more conventional, with a burger and fries, but he said they were excellent. My only sorrow was not being able to also eat the stuffed tater tots and the chiliquiles. Another time. Then onward to check out the Mary Baker Eddy Library which I was only somewhat enthused about but it turned out to be a really impressive complex with a lot of interesting buildings to look at. Also, very fancy bathrooms!:
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| Old Harbor at Sunset. Who knew Southie was so pretty? |
Started the day in Charlestown, where I demanded we look at the Bunker Hill Memorial for no good reason. Then I wanted to look at (but not pay to board) the USS Constitution, which we did. More interesting to me was the USS Cassin, a WWII destroyer that you could walk all over at will. I love being on a boat, even a stationary one. Then we walked back to the North End, which turned out to be a remarkably quick walk. Oops. Lunch was at Pizzeria Regina. Jason and I greedily ate an entire large cheese. No regrets.
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| OK, one regret: I burned the hell out of my mouth |
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| Waiting for the bus |
I had the bright (?) idea to take the T out to Porter Square and walk back. It was mostly successful: we ended up in Harvard Square for more time than I would think that two people who have no interest in Harvard would. Lunch was more dosa for me! There is a branch of Madras Dosa Co. in Harvard Square, so I went back for another. This branch was far superior: no loud music, friendlier staff, better chairs. Turns out I can easily eat a whole dosa by myself. Then we took Jason to a nearby place called Tasty Burger, because who can resist a $12 special of burger, fries and a beer? I didn't try the burger, but Jason reports it was excellent. Then we were fortified enough to hit the Harvard Art Museum, which was quite impressive. Walked back to South Station where we had to sprint (successfully!) for the bus.
Dinner was ramen, plus salad for me, another bun from the Chinese bakery and some coleslaw for Jason.
We took the train out to Cambridge, but Jason was dismayed to find that the MIT Museum is not free, as he believed. And the Harvard Museums ARE free, but were closed for the holiday. And Harvard Square was a zoo. But Shake Shack wasn't too crowded and was as good as ever:
I wanted to go to H Mart, which was cool! We picked up some assorted pajeon to go with dinner, a big bag of panko (very light, luckily) and some ramen. We then wandered around a bit aimlessly (I really don't know Boston) before heading back. Home by 3 or so to relax.
Dinner was the pancakes: the flavors seemed to be kimchee, surimi, scallion, some kind of fish and a mystery flavor. I also had a salad and Jason had a scallion bun and some tuna. We had stopped in a Chinese bakery yesterday and picked up a few different baked goods. The scallion bun looked good, but was filled with mayo! Needless to say, I let Jason have the rest. Of the others we tried, the cream bun was my favorite.
Coffee machine mastered and thus fortified we headed out for the day! Walked all over South Boston to the seaport area, where we had lunch at Madras Dosa Co. The bad news: VERY loud music in there, which may be why they missed part of our order. So we ended up with just one dosa (potato and paneer) and an aloo tikka masala. The dosa was, fortunately, enormous and delicious and served with a trio of condiments that we hadn't tried before. I didn't like the chaat as much as I hoped, but I would love to go back for another dosa.
We walked around the seaport area, checked out the Contemporary Art Institute and Chinatown and figured out the transit system enough to take a bus home. Dinner was more sandwiches, although I elected to take my fillings (salami, provolone, spinach, roasted zucchini and red peppers) and make them into a salad instead. I also baked a batch of cookies (some peanut butter and some oatmeal, both from standard SK recipes) from dough that I had made at home (sheesh). I even talked Jason into a little evening walk by the beach:
After getting a late start (that was uncharacteristically my fault) and a stop at a Trader Joe's, we finally arrived at our Boston Airbnb. It was already 5pm at that point, so we just sampled some of our TJ's cheap hooch and made sandwiches for dinner. Yes, against my wishes we brought a whole cooler full of food from home. Figuring out the TV situation was a struggle, as was finding the coasters (there are many, many rules for the apartment), but the couch is comfy and the location seems great.
Pizza night! I have been feeling the pressure to come up with new toppings. This week was puttanesca: olives, capers, garlic, crushed red pepper, and anchovies (on Jason's half). Light mozzarella and provolone, heavy on the sauce and a sprinkle of parm blend on top. Another success! I am going to have to start combing pizza menus for more inspiration...
Raucous night at Jen and John's with her mom, brother and SIL. Jason made a load of bread (of course) and John made a rice and butternut squash casserole. Somehow two vegans, one celiac and a few omnivores made it work. Maybe because liquor is vegan and gluten free?
I realized that if we are going away for a week, I better slow down on food production, so tonight's planned pasta was jettisoned in favor of leftovers. Those lentils and eggplant will never be gone, I don't think.
Another recipe from "I Dream of Dinner": smoky roasted cauliflower and white beans. Pretty simple: toss the beans and cauliflower with olive oil, tomato paste and smoked paprika, then top with herbs. I added feta cheese for some extra flavor. This was good the first night, but oddly enough even better for lunch the day. A funny thing is that we actually had a dinner guest! Our friend Laurie stopped by to drop something off as I was putting dinner on the table, and lord knows I always make too much. I think she liked it....it's weird serving food to people when you were only cooking for yourself. I didn't feel as confident.
I made a big pot of lentils with eggplant over the weekend so we had that with rice and pita. It looked prettier in the recipe from the Times, because they used red lentils and I only had brown. So it was pretty drab looking and also benefited from some hot sauce. I was happy that the last eggplant of the season didn't go bad.
Dinner with Jay and Jodi: Jason made corn tortillas, I made caramel popcorn (https://divascancook.com/caramel-popcorn-recipe-caramel-corn/)---the only change is we use slightly more popcorn. It is still very very sweet and very hard to stop eating. Jay and Jodi made a kind of bean salad and that was our taco filling.
Big lunch at Priya , no dinner. I prepared myself mentally so I wouldn't feel disappointed but it helped that I was genuinely not hungry. It was a LOT of lunch.
Very decadent dinner of spicy pasta alfredo and tiramisu. The pasta recipe is from the NYT: I could have doubled the spinach but honestly, no complaints. My only regret is that Jason ate the leftovers.
Just leftovers, since they were piling up in a big way. I also made a tiramisu (from the NYT) while I was home for lunch so at least dessert was fun and new.