March Food

I'm become such a sloth when it comes to blogging lately! I won't even bother to say much about these photos except this kinda sums up the food I ate this past month.


I'm sad the picture of this pizza is so small. It's from Picco in the South End and it's one of my favorite places for pizza in the city. The crust is perfect...not too thick or thin and the perfect char on the bottom. I should have done an upskirt pic but I'm an amateur so you're left with this crappy photo. Trust me, the pizza is good stuff. The service is hit or miss. Sometimes I get nice people who are very attentive and other times I've had servers that I wanted to throw knives out. But go for the pizza and the home made ice cream!





For our anniversary, E made triple battered chicken for me. I love fried chicken and I tend to love a thick crust. She did a great job getting a thick crust. How she got all that crust to hang into that poor little drumstick is beyond me. It had good flavor and made sure the chicken was juicy but it was a little too thick, even for the likes of me! But A+++ for effort.

In keeping with my needs for Korean food, we went to a place in Chinatown that was eh. But sometimes when you crave something you just have to have it no matter what. But seriously, can someone come up with an amazing Korean place in Boston already?!?

Spicy

(More on this photo later!)

It's really no secret that I love spicy food. I also love pickled foods too but I'll save that for another entry entirely.

Luckily I'd dating someone who also likes her food spicy too. The first time we ever met, I introduced her to a little friend of mine, I like to call Green Papaya Salad. Yeah, I really like to put it out there when first meeting anyone...if you can't take the heat, well, we might not be well suited for each other. Thankfully, she was able to take the heat and then some; I kinda love her for it.

Another joy we've discovered is our ability to host small dinner parties and invite our friends over to dine with us. Lately, it's been mostly her friends (you guys need to represent already!). It's a great excuse for us to spend a leisurely day together. In the afternoon we try and get started on the dinner and sometime we fall really behind. I've had to learn to go with the flow more when I feel like we fall behind in our prep. She has to deal with another cook in the kitchen with her. And we manage. But more than managing we also have a really great time.

And this particular evening E wanted to make lasagna. I know she doesn't care much for ricotta so I asked what she was going to use instead. She replied, "well goat cheese, of course". Did I mention how much I love this woman?

E also decided she wanted to make the pasta yet again. Simple but time consuming indeed. I was actually worried we wouldn't have enough food. When I mentioned this concern, she reassured me that over 3lbs of beef, veal and lamb ground meat mixture would be enough. I let her do her thing and I did mine. I decided I wanted to make a Kentucky Derby pie. I had watched an episode of Martha Stewart and it was all about the Kentucky Derby and I watch her make this pie. I found a recipe on the front web page of Saveur and used that. I was delighted that it called for bourbon. I don't really drink a lot but I really do like the flavor that various liquors and distilled stuff impart on food.

When the guests arrive. We usually start with cocktails and cheese. And depending on how far along dinner is finished, we move into a meal. I'm a big believer in salad with dinner. I was raised with a mom who always served a fresh vegetable salad with every supper. It was just my family's way. So salad is always offered, along with bread and dessert (of course!).

And, of course, the star of the show:
It was mammoth. This picture really doesn't do it justice in terms of size (that pan was deep). But I think the picture does capture the general yumminess of the situation quite nicely. E had not only used goat cheese in place of ricotta but, instead of the usual chopped spinach, she used kale. And it was spicy too! I think that one of the things that lasagna always misses is a little punch of spice. It's nice and comforting with pasta layers and cheese and meat but a little zing would be nice. I love that E likes her food spiced well and spiced well kinda on the spicy side. The lasagna was kinda amazing. It was tangy, spicy and the kale gave it a different texture profile. The homemade pasta was a bit thicker than I would have liked but over the course of the week (there were ALOT of leftovers even though everyone who came was stuffed), the pasta really loosened up and picked up more of the flavors of the sauce. It made for crave worthy lunches and dinners for me for an entire week!

My pie was a lot more simple:

Well, partially because I cheated and bought a frozen pie crust (please don't revoke my Daring Baker badge!!!) due to our time constraints. But pie is basically a pecan and chocolate chip cookie in a pie crust. Ridiculously easy, it came together in a matter of 10 minutes. How'd it taste? It was okay. I really liked the bourbon flavor...maybe I was a wino in a former life? However, it wasn't really a show stopper which was okay because it wasn't like I toil forever over this pie. But the biggest surprise for me was how decent the crust was. I was shocked that a frozen pie crust was actually worth eating. It was adequately flaky (not super) and buttery. I liked the crust. But I've been dying to make my Mom's crust on a rhubarb pie but sadly, I've hardly seen any this season.

And as a random aside, I wanted to post this picture of friend Cris's shirt:
Her head is purposefully cut out because she didn't want her face in the picture (Cris is a really hot chick just a little FYI). Anyway, her shirt is a "peace of toast". Hahahaa, how awesome in that? Well, sorta keeping with the subject title on this entry, this picture was taken during lunch at Mary Chungs in Cambridge and let me tell you, their food is loaded with hot! I've always loved Mary Chungs and even now just writing about it is making me crave some dun dun noodles. Yum. I wrote a review of them on yelp so I won't repeat it here. If you feel like seeing it, go to yelp and type in Mary Chung for Boston as your city.

Karate Chop!

I'm having a friend over for dinner tonight and I'm making an old recipe and a new old. I started last night prepping everything because I knew I would be working right up until it was time for dinner. The recipes aren't hard. They are both very easy and I'm post them later when I write about the meal.

However, the one hassle with both of the recipes is the amount of chopping involved. And "cubing". Bah! Making things into 1 1/2 inch or 1 inch squares is so hard when you're dealing with objects that tend to be irregularly shaped. So a good portion of my evening was spent pretending I was a prep chef. I cubed sweet potatoes and butternut squash. I finely diced onion and sliced some red peppers too. All of this to figure out I'm perhaps the world's slowest prep chef ever. Not to mention one with bad size perception....I kept second guessing what an 1&1/2 inch cube was and what an 1 inch was as well. As a result my cubes are kinda if the surreal nature and all over the place in terms of width and height.

The one good thing was that last night Lost was on and I got to chop and watch. Yay....and can I just say holy forshizzle!!!!



What is Sayid doing working for Ben????? Omg, crazy. Why Sayid why? Does your dislike of John Locke run that deep? Are you back to your torturer ways? What the shizzle? Was that woman you killed on the island as well? Perhaps she's the spy that Ben planted on the boat. Holy crap and who was that guy on the golf course you shot in the chest???