Sweet Potato (Take Deux) Pasta

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I made mashed sweet potatoes and, as is the case with all mashed potatoes, there was so much more than we needed. I actually googled to find out more about freezing them. Most of my findings remarked about how inexpensive they are so what’s the point. What’s the point? The point is that I hate grocery shopping and recreating leftovers is a challenge I’ll gladly accept! Reusing leftovers is in my blood.
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This pasta was based on a pumpkin pasta I love and worked pretty well as my leftover re-do. I should have blended it for a smoother texture but it was pretty good. Carbs + carbs = yummy.

Ingredients

-Salt
-½  pound short pasta (farfalle)
-1 cloves garlic, chopped
-½ cup chicken broth
-1 cup canned pure pumpkin puree OR 1 cup mashed sweet potatoes
-½ cup heavy cream
-1 pinch ground cinnamon
-1 pinch nutmeg
-4 leaves fresh sage, thinly sliced


Directions

Cook pasta

While the pasta is in the water, in a medium skillet, heat 2 tbs olive oil olive oil and garlic until softened, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the chicken broth, pumpkin and cream. Add cinnamon and nutmeg; season with salt and pepper.

Lower the heat and simmer until thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in the sage.

Toss the pasta with the sauce.

Don’t Spare the Flatbread

Flatbread Company at Sacco’s Bowl HavenBowling and beer. What a great combo? Flatbread Company thought so for their newest location in Davis Square. This isn’t your average pizza and I was really impressed. Mr. J and I had a Sunday afternoon date and loved it! FYI, Sundays are QUITE busy. We reserved a lane and came back for our pizza before bowling time. We had been meaning to go for a while and our Groupon was just the motivation we needed.

The bar area was huge and since a large group was about to move into the dining area so we chose to sit at the bar. The bartenders were friendly and attentive.

We chose ½ and ½ from the specials menu. One half alfredo, chicken, and broccoli, the other half butternut squash, apple, ricotta, and dried cranberries. Wow. Delicious. The crust was crispy and had great doughy bubbles.

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The white side (contrary to the orange side) was definitely lacking in the chicken criteria. I loved the broccoli florets. The alfredo was creamy and the perfect amount.

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The orange side was my favorite. I was oooing and awwing so much I couldn’t bite as quickly as I wanted to. The butternut squash was sweet and nutty. I’m not sure, but I believe Flatbread Company made the ricotta. It was amazing, homemade or not. Apple slices rounded it out but our pizza was missing the dried cranberries.

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I’d definitely be back to Flatbread Company. These pizzas are delicious and worth it. I see a take-out flatbread in my future. I wish the server had mentioned that we’d pay a lot more to have half and half, but it was worth it.

On the way out of the bar we got a peek at the baked squash I had just enjoyed so much. Look how amazing they look!

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Bowling was fun but it was highly disorganized. Everyone’s games end at the same minute AND you have to keep score yourself. If you’re anything like me and have spent more bowling time tying laces on your friends funny shoes than learning the rules, then you too don’t know how to keep score. We just played until we had our fill and left our shoes to be sprayed.

The atmosphere is part old-school bowling ally, part stylish organic pizza. This is a genuine good time.

Likes: the specials are amazing, quality ingredients, comfortable vibe
Dislikes: 1/2 and 1/2 pizza costs more, bowling was disorganized

Mess Soup

I wasn’t feeling under the weather. I wasn’t feeling down. I just like soup…all the time. Sometimes it’s just time for soup, and that time usually lasts about six servings. My “recipe” is more of a method than than a recipe per se.I learned from my mum that every leftover there is can be transformed. Mum always makes soup that can’t be replicated…because the ingredients differ each time and she deserves all the credit of my soup.

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We freeze leftovers, all together. Everything is cooked first, spices for the soup comes from the spices when I cooked it the first time. My freezer container starts to have this cool layering affect from the many ingredients. I call it Mess Soup because that’s what it is.

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This batch included corn and white rice with cilantro from a Mexican meal. There were some caramelized red onions, lots of swiss chard, cous cous, and a surprisingly minimal quantity of chicken.I add a package of soup starter to pull it together. It cooks for about an hour and it’s great. Mess soup has great combinations and makes me feel warm and reminds me of the many meals that this came from.

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I like how thick it gets and much it needs to be stirred…I come from a long line of avid stirrers.

Adorable Betsy’s Diner

Betsy’s Diner – Falmouth, MAOn a family girls trip to Falmouth, MA we went to the legendary Betsy’s Diner. Sis, Mum and I had some great meals you’ll hear about later. We rounded out the weekend with a traditional diner breakfast.

I love diner food, especially breakfast. Betsy’s Diner was great. The inside was so adorable with  great vintage tables and accessories. There was a very cool, partly 3D mural that had some seasonal inserts. Santa was there now!

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Our server was prompt and kept the coffee coming. There were a few specials featured that day: some sort of chocolate chip pancake, eggs benedict, and a Portuguese eggs Benedict with linguica.

I chose my standard: sausage, egg, and cheese on a bagel. The bagel was grilled crispy and buttery. I love love love when I get to choose the cheese. My choice? Cheddar, obviously.

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Stuck on an island with only one meal I’d have sausage, egg, and cheese on a bagel or croissant. This one was delectable.

The hash browns weren’t the best. At such a charming spot I expected them to actually make their own hash browns…what a bummer. Ohh well, can’t win ‘em all.

Likes: endless supply of coffee, cheddar
Dislikes: hash browns could be better.

“Easy” Oreo Truffles

These no-bake cookies, excuse me, truffles, are by no means easier than baking a cookie. I’m not an avid baker but this turned out to be about the same amount of work. Mrs. E saw them in a magazine add so we gave ‘em a whirl. They were fun to eat, didn’t use many ingredients, but they were definitely more of a challenge than we anticipated.

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I think these “Easy Oreo Truffles” have been around for awhile but they seem to be a crowd pleaser. Kraft Foods included them in a recent magazine and the recipe is online everywhere!

Ingredients

-1 package Oreo Cookies, divided
-8 oz. Cream Cheese
-1 pkg. Baker’s Chocolate, melted

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Directions:

Set aside 6-8 cookies for the topping.
Crush cookies in food processor or in a sealed bag until finely chopped. Add cream cheese and blend.
Roll into 1″ balls with a mini melon baller or teaspoons.
Dip in chocolate, and sprinkle top with crushed cookies.
Refrigerate until chocolate hardens.

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These are extremely sticky. Mrs. E and I would advise figuring out a few tool options prior to getting your hands oreo-ified! Refrigerating the cream cheese mix and crushed oreo might have helped make it easier to form.

I also recommend melting chocolate chips instead of solid chocolate pieces. We used a double boiler allowing us to take our time to dip them. I first attempted toothpicks, to no avail…maybe it would have worked if the formed balls were frozen. I ended up dropping the formed balls into the melted chocolate on the double boiler and spooning them out.

What else could go inside? Maybe nuts would have been good for a varying texture. The recipe calls for 1” balls, we made them smaller but maybe bigger would have been better. My last thought was making them a cookie bar with a chocolate topping or making them into mini muffin tins with chocolate topping, of course.

Pasta with Home Baked Goodness

Miss L had me over for a delicious dinner. She made Baked Pasta as a deviation of Martha’s recipe. Ours didn’t include chicken sausage but Miss L has made it with it, or with chicken instead. The possibilities here are endless.

This was so good because of the strength of flavors but none were overpowering. Baked pasta warms the heart, especially in pink sauce with fontina. Yum!

Miss L was the perfect host by laying a premade dip (thanks to Trader Joe’s) and pita chips while dinner spent the last few minutes baking. Miss H poured the wine and the night began!

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Ingredients

Serves 8
-Coarse salt and ground pepper
-1 tablespoon olive oil
-1 medium red onion, chopped
-4 cloves garlic, minced
-1/4 cup vodka (optional)
-1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes with juice, lightly crushed with hands
-1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
-1/2 cup heavy cream
-1 pound rigatoni
-10 ounces baby spinach
-12 ounces smoked chicken sausage, halved lengthwise and sliced 1/4 inch thick
-6 ounces fontina cheese, 4 ounces cut into 1/2-inch cubes and 2 ounces coarsely grated
-1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

  1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion; cook until translucent, about 3 minutes. Stir in garlic. Remove from heat; add vodka, if desired. Return to heat; cook until almost evaporated, 1 minute.
  2. Stir in tomatoes and oregano; cook until tomatoes are falling apart, 10 to 15 minutes. Add cream; cook until warmed through, about 5 minutes. Season sauce with salt and pepper.
  3. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook pasta in the boiling water until al dente, according to package instructions. Add spinach, and cook just until wilted. Drain, and return contents to pot.
  4. Add tomato sauce, sausage, and cubed fontina to pot; toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper. Divide evenly between two shallow 1 1/2-quart baking dishes.
  5. Top with grated fontina and Parmesan. Bake until browned and edges are crisp, 20 to 30 minutes.

This dish reminded me I don’t eat enough rigatoni or enough pink sauce. Martha kindly reminds her readers this makes enough for two smaller pans (to freeze one). The noodles were cooked perfectly and they absorbed the right amount of sauce to keep the flavor throughout.

I really liked this dish and thought it would be a great one to share with friends because this dish actually enables the host to enjoy the guests while it does it’s thang. There’s nothing worse than missing your company because you’re stuck in the kitchen.

Post Thanksgiving Pumpkin Beer Taste-Off

My Thanksgiving Day was with family but my the day after was with friends. I hosted a Non-Thanksgiving Pot Luck with a pumpkin beer taste-off. It was great fun and amazing food. Here are some highlights.
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While it was a true potluck, it wasn’t until the day of that we knew who was bringing what. The challenge was to stay away from the foods we had all enjoyed the day before: no pumpkin or squash, no turkey, no cranberries.falfel_sliders_290_200
I made falafel sliders & black forest bread pudding. We also enjoyed: buffalo chicken dip, bruschetta, pizza, breadsticks, 7-layer mexican dip.

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I know, this is a lot of food for nine people.

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Dessert included: banana chocolate “ravioli”, black forest bread pudding; and turtle brownies.Our only nod to the previous day’s holiday was a pumpkin beer tasting. I seemed to track down the last pumpkin beer in all the liquor stores in Somerville, MA. Apparently it is a Halloween thing, not a fall thing. Noted for next year. Here’s how it worked.

We labeled the cups everyone could pour his/her sips from. We made a list to keep track of which was which. I thought about having everyone rank them but decided to keep it easy and just let our guests learn which were the favorites and drink the rest. Check out the variety of the beers!

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I see more taste-offs in my future. When I first had trouble finding pumpkin beer, I decided my second option was for a seasonal beer taste-off. Who knows, maybe that’ll be next!

Gobble Till You Wobble

The sides and day full of snacking is just as important as the turkey, in my opinion. Lots of my family’s dishes are years of practiced tradition. Was it already two years ago that my friends and I had a sides-only pre-thanksgiving meal? This year’s Turkey Day was a fulfilling day complete with food, family, football, and early-to-bed before Black Friday shopping.

The fam might not support both political parties, but they fully support the stuffing and cranberry parties: stuffing from the bird, or baked on the side; and jellied cranberries complete with can ripples, or real cranberries.

We had lots of choices but since my parents are empty-nesters they prefer not to have too many leftovers after filling the tupperware of those no longer under their roof. It’s such a great meal I’m tempted to have a mini turkey-day sometime later in the year…maybe just fewer sides.
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This year I cooked the turkey, well, I prepped it and put it into the oven. My mum was the one basting and taking it out at the PERFECT time. Since it didn’t have a white-pop-out-when-ready devise, Mum pulled it out at precisely the opportune time. I think it was the best turkey I’ve had in years. Yum. Dad was the carver, as per usual.

My sis and I were in charge of some mid-day snacks. We didn’t have a large group, so she made my Greek Dip (hummus, feta, veggies, and pita chips) but sorry, no photo. I make it a lot so I’m sure it’ll make an appearance later. I made puff pastry pinwheels. These are so easy and are great to make with whatever is on hand.

Puff Pastry Pinwheels
Ingredients:

-frozen puff pastry sheet, defrosted
-shredded cheddar cheese
-sliced turkey pepperoini
-1 egg, whisked

Directions:

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Lay puff pastry sheet out before layering with cheese & pepperoni. Roll up, jelly-roll style. Slice about ¼ inch thick. If making ahead of time, freeze entire roll to make for easy cutting later. Lay on greased cookie sheet and brush with egg.
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Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, or until golden brown.

I make this with whatever cheese and fillings I have. Other tried and true fillings include: pesto, mozzerella, and sundried tomato is a great filler; cheddar and bacon makes a delightful bruch addition; and feta, roasted red peppers is great too.

We had pumpkin cheesecake and blueberry bars were our dessert but since neither option was chocolate, I don’t have any photos.

Cuchi Cuchi – ooo la la!

Yay! A new fav!

I went to Cuchi Cuchi on a Thursday evening at 6 PM with one of my favorite people to eat with, Miss L. We were so enraptured by the decor, costumes, and cocktails we couldn’t even order when prompted.

Miss L and I have been meaning to try this home-y vintage hideout. Normally, we study menus and read reviews anywhere one of us has plans to go, even if we not both going! I should have studied the cocktail menu more closely before awkwardly not being ready each time our adorable waitress came over…at least we warmed her up for when we weren’t ready to order food either!

Cuchi Cuchi is small, with a bunch of small tables, a few couch & coffee table lounge areas, and a great looking bar. The employees wear amazing costumes. I distinctly remember us commenting on a white flapper-style dress we saw pass by. Our waitress was friendly and maybe Russian? She donned a black velvet hat with a birdcage veil. Don’t you just wish everyone wore them nowadays? She genuinely wanted us to like everything we ordered and she applauded our drink choices and her return was timely. I chose a hibiscus martini and Miss L had a blackberry cosmo. We found them sweet, a good strength, and well made. I was impressed.

Cuchi Cuchi describes the food as, “international, ‘straight up’ smaller plates to be paired or shared.” They seem concerned people will call it tapas, which also seems to be a big deal to them.  We shared and really loved it. Our charming waitress suggested we order four plates to share. Given the price and being unfamiliar with the size, we started with just two to share.

After much deliberation, we got the potato croquettes with tomato curry dipping sauce and warm brie dipping sauce. Yum! I preferred the tomato sauce since the potato croquettes were small & cheesy so they need something to balance it. We also got the chicken kiev. I have no idea how they formed it the way they did. Mushrooms and herbs were cupped within an incredibly thin chicken breast shaped into a bowl. Must recreate this at home! Ordering anothing plate might have been a good idea but we were leisurely enjoying our bites, drinks, and convo so it was fine.

I’ll definitely be back. Clearly the Cuchi Cuchi crowd shows up at a fashionable 8 PM or later so 6 PM is definitely the time to sit back, and take your time. I envision a great drink and a bite at the bar in my future too.

Likes: memorable experience, amazing drinks, really unique atmosphere, historical references for the cocktails
Dislikes: prices were a bit high for me to truly be a regular.

Photo courtesy of Jason Bagley via Creative Commons

Baked Blueberry French Toast

This recipe is from Giada De Laurentiis. I know her recipes are supposed to be amazing, but this one must have a mistake. There is wayyy too much liquid. I adapted it and then baked it a second time to help with the consistency. Baked french toast is definitely the way to go. It means everything is ready at the same time! I’ll probably give it another go, but guessing the liquid amounts is probably a better method.

Ingredients

-Butter, for greasing (I used non-stick spray)
-6 eggs (I used 3 eggs)
-3 cups whole milk (I used 1 cup soy milk & 1/2 cup heavy cream)
-3/4 cup maple syrup, plus extra for serving (I used 1/2 cup)
-2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, plus 1 tablespoon
-1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
-1 lemon, zested (I used 1/2 tsp lemon juice)
-3 (1-inch thick) slices (8 ounces) day-old challah or sourdough bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (I used about 6 slices of day old, oversized, French bread)
-2 cups (12 ounces) fresh or frozen, thawed, and drained blueberries
-3 tablespoons granulated sugar

Directions

Place an oven rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 by 13-inch baking dish. Set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs until
frothy. Add the milk, maple syrup, cinnamon, salt, and lemon zest. Add the bread cubes and mix until coated. Stir in the blueberries. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.
In a small bowl, mix together the remaining cinnamon and sugar. Sprinkle the
cinnamon sugar over the egg mixture in an even layer. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until the top is golden and the filling is set.

I baked for about 60-minutes and then let it cool/set. It definitely had too much liquid so we ate the crispy top parts. For round two, I baked it again in ramekins with another dusting of cinnamon sugar.