foodies

We had visitors over the past week….my mother, my brother Bill, his daughter Calina and her husband Nathaniel. Bill and Nathaniel are serious foodies and we ate wonderful food for a few days while they were here. The list below is a summary of the meals we cooked together. Most of the vegetables came from either the Wilson Farm CSA or the Arlington Farmer’s Market. The other ingredients came from a variety of sources including the North End and COSTCO.

 

Dinners & Lunch:

Blue Ribbon Barbeque Pulled Pork, Spicy Sausage & Burnt Ends

Steamed Wax and Green Beans

Tomato Basil Salad

 

Cauliflower Fried in Garlic and Butter with Chives

Chard Sautéed with Mushrooms and Peppers

Tomato Basil & Fresh Mozzarella Caprese Salad

Fresh-picked Wilde Porcini Mushrooms Sautéed in Butter

Cheese Tortellini in Sage Brown Butter

 

Fresh-boiled Lobster Salad with Tarragon and Chive Mayonnaise on a Green Salad with Peppers and Mandarin Oranges

 

Fig, Basil, Guanciale, Fresh Mozzarella Bruschetta

Spinach Salad with Mandarins, Pine nuts, Craisins, and Farm-fresh Hard Boiled Eggs

Fettuccine with Eggplant and Mushroom Tomato Sauce

 

Tomato Basil Burrata Appetizers

Beer Batter Bread

Grilled Delicata and Acorn Squash

Grilled Poblano Peppers Stuffed with Gouda Cheese and Wrapped in Bacon

Grilled Chicken and Apple Sausages

Cole Slaw with Ginger, Apple, Mandarins, Walnuts and Sesame-Ginger Dressing

 

Breakfasts:

Whole Wheat Raisin Scones

Oatmeal Muffins

Beer Batter Pancakes with Mint Asian Pear Compote

 

Desserts:

Apple Crisp (from cousin Diana)

Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Brownies (Stephanie’s specialty)

muffins

every other weekend or so I bake muffins for breakfast. I often follow a recipe but occasionally I improvise. Here is this morning’s improvisation that turned out really good

Apricot-Lemon-Herb Muffins

3c white flour
1c whole wheat flour
2/3c sugar
2T baking powder
~1/2c chopped dried apricots
1/2t salt
~1T fresh lemon balm
~1T fresh rosemary
~1T fresh sage
~1T grated lemon rind
2c milk
4 eggs
1/2c melted butter

preheat oven at 375F

chop herbs finely
steep herbs and lemon in milk over low heat for about 10 min
thoroughly mix dry ingredients in a large bowl
beat eggs in separate bowl, slowly beat in melted butter
add all wet ingredients to dry, gently folding
spoon generously into greased muffin tins
makes 12-18 muffins

bake for 15-20 minutes

kakawa

An old friend of mine from high school has made a career for himself out of the study of historic chocolate. He has a great website that not only is very informative about historic chocolate consumption but he now has a great store where you can purchase some of his recreations of ancient (and some more modern) cacao elixirs. The spicy pepper and chili combination elixirs sound particularly intriguing to me. This may be just the place to pick up something for a significant person in your life for Valentine’s day (if you order something, make sure you tell him I sent you there 🙂 ). …and for the more adventurous he conducts annual tours of Southern Mexico focusing on Cacao and the ancient Maya…sounds like great educational fun!

lunch

Further proof that this blog is correct…

I had lunch at the Cambridge Brewing Company with some friends from my ADL days today (I had the spinach salad). It is always good to see George, Peter, and especially Allison. We chatted about the weather, Lego Mindstorms, atomic force microscopes, other old friends, upcoming vacations, artificial sweeteners, cryptic crosswords (guess who brough that up), cockney dialects, an intersting old science experiment I read about, preservation of old documents, Google (GooglePages in particular)…basic geek discussions over lunch….and now we are back to doing it monthly!