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!

Dinner Out : Tasca

Last Saturday a pipe broken outside of Boston causing all drinking water to be undrinkable. Left with the option of purchasing bottled water or boiling water in a pan (which I have since heard gave a very unpleasant tin/pan taste to the water) I opted out of drinking water for the day, in favor of sangria. Same went for cooking/doing dishes, so I chose to eat out. We went out to dinner in Brighton at a Spanish tapas place called Tasca. 
 
I was quite famished after an afternoon of walking around in the intense heat and humidity so six tapas were selected: 
-- Calamari  
-- Brie and apples  
-- Garlic bread toasts with anchovies 
-- Sliced ham with cheese (pictured above) 
-- Empanada (I think) 
-- Mussels

I really enjoy Tasca, this is the second time I’ve been. I love the idea of tapas because I always have a really hard time selecting a restaurant for dinner and selecting only one item off of a menu because I always want to try a bit of everything -- which obviously makes tapas the perfect solution.

And as a result of the water ban, we also had a pitcher of tutti-frutti sangria – delish! 

Overall score : 9 out of 10.

Dining Out

I love going to restaurants. Maybe it's because I spend so much time laboriously preparing my own meals sometimes that it's a nice chance of pace to have a meal prepared for me and arrive in front of my all hot and steamy from the kitchen. Since summer is approaching there are a few things I want to do to explore Boston a bit more. While one of them is to find some great farmers' markets and whip up some meals using wonderful, fresh, local ingredients, the other goal is to hit up some more restaurants. Especially since there are a lot that boast nice patios and bustling street views that are ideal for summer people watching. So with that said, while I originally intended this blog just to be about my own cooking, I'm going to start writing a bit about what I eat out at restaurants (and hopefully documenting via picture as well, assuming I can remember to tote along my camera).


Cheers!