My March : Dining Out, Bangers & Stew

I have been such a bad, bad little food blogger. I deserve to be doomed to eat nothing but McDonalds French fries and burnt toast for the rest of my life… Ok, not really. I keep promising myself I’ll post more regularly, but this semester/past few months have just been insane. I’m trying to write a novel, edit the novel I wrote this fall, keep up with TWO classes, keep up with my 30 hour a week job AND cook more? Yowzers.


So here’s a little recap of what my past month has entailed:


>> I found a delicious restaurant in Newton that I LOVE called 51 Lincoln (http://www.51lincolnnewton.com). Highlights: house-made charcuteries (which were so very tasty!) and this awesome prix fixe option Mondays through Thursdays called the “Chef’s Whim.” Seriously, it’s his whim. For $35 he gives you an appetizer, an entrée (specify if you want veg, meat, or seafood) and a desert. Byron and I both ordered this. We got different appetizers (myself a salad, him a soup) and the same chicken entrée and different deserts (myself Italian donuts, him banana flan). INCREDIBLE. I can’t talk this place up enough. Definitely placing it on my “date night go-to” list.


>> I made bangers and mash the day before St. Patrick’s Day… look I was festive!

>> I pulled out my crockpot and made an incredibly delicious pork and tomatillo stew. I ALMOST erred in making it though (eeep misadventure!) I got everything into the crockpot and had it on cook when I realized that I forgot to add the hot peppers (the 6 seranos!) Whoops! So I stuck them into the oven and roasted them on their own and then used my handy little food processor to chop them up. They really made my kitchen smell like spicy goodness and I had to be super careful not to touch my fingers ANYWHERE NEAR MY EYE. Luckily, I escaped without tears.

tomatillos sort of look like mini apples

I was first introduced to tomatillos when I received them in my farm share last summer. They are awesome. I always wondered how green salsa was green but I guess I never wondered quite enough to look on the back of the bottle and read the ingredients to find out. Tomatillos are tasty.

Here they are all browned up from the broiler

The stew was so easy to make. I used a recipe from one of my cookbooks but you barely even need one. Here is my simplified HOW TO:


Step 1: Brown 2 lbs. of cubed stew pork then add to slow cooker
Step 2: Roast under broiler 2-3 lbs. of tomatillos, 1 onion, ½ clove of garlic, 5-7 serrano peppers (depending on preferred spiciness) until browned. Chop then add 2 cups of chicken stock and puree and add to slow cooker. You can add some tortillas to the pureeing if you want to thicken it up a bit.
Step 3: Cook for 6-8 hours on low heat.
Serve with shredded cheese and tortillas. Done!

Mmmmm cooking pork!

This stew had the perfect amount of spiciness and tang. YUM! I almost never cook with pork (I’m not sure why exactly, other than the fact that in the history of my cooking I just haven’t) and I was pleasantly surprised.

So that’s been my month of March. Hopefully April will bring me some extra time to cook, some extra time to post, some extra time to brew up a new batch of beer, and some extra time to dine out so I can share all of these wonderful things with you… my fabulous readers.


Cheers!