Boston Trip - Smorgasbord

I still have a ridiculous amount of pictures from vacation, I just can't post them all because I would still be writing about my trip for another 2 weeks. And it would get a little boring. So today I give you an assortment of the best ones, and tomorrow I will give you the grand finale. I've been saving the best post for last.

First night of the trip: pizza at Joe V's. Here's the "yoga pizza" which has prosciutto, arugula, parmesan, mushrooms, and truffle oil.




Did you know it's been scientifically proven that sandwiches taste better at the beach? It's true. This is a roast beef sammy with tomatoes, onions, and pickles from Maria's. And of course Cape Cod chips and a Whale's Tale.




Some beautiful fresh berries...



Which my aunt Linda turned into strawberry shortcake with sweetened sour cream.




Ahh, a thing of beauty. A grill full of chourico, and chourico meat.



I actually don't think I had ever had the meat, they're just little pork cutlets with the same spices as chourico. Cut up and dipped in some Dijon mustard...it didn't last long.




At Julie and Lou's wedding, they had a groom's cake at the rehearsal dinner. This one was done by Delicious Desserts in Falmouth, MA.




Back in Boston...more pizza. Shocking, I know. We picked up a few pizzas from Fig's on Charles Street in Beacon Hill. This one has prosciutto and fig balsamic.




And the last meal of the trip - Union, in the South End. Here's the gnocchi, which was a special that night.



And bucatini carbonara. You can never go wrong with carbonara.




So long, Boston. Until next time...

Boston Trip - Sweet Tooth

I don't know who to give credit for Sweet Tooth's first appearance in my life - one of my friends brought some treats from this bakery to a mini bridal shower for me last summer, and I've been craving it ever since. Sweet Tooth is a little off the beaten path from where I usually go in Boston (it's in Southie), but we made a special trip there to pick up an order for Amy's birthday last weekend...and I finally got to go inside.



So, what exactly is inside those cases?

Humongous cookies:



"Cakebites" - a lollipop of cake dipped in chocolate:



Mini pies: blueberry, and I believe that other one is coconut cream:




And of course regular-sized pies and cakes:



Last but not least, whoopie pies. The ones on the left are red velvet.



Here's the spread we got - red velvet cupcakes (the ones with red flowers), carrot cake cupcakes (pink flower), vanilla with lemon curd (pink seashell), chocolate and vanilla marble (with the fortune cookie on top), and a few cookies and red velvet whoopie pies.



We actually had to have a second small platter for a few more cupcakes that wouldn't fit on the big one. Ahh, nothing makes me happier than things that come in pink bakery boxes.



Sweet Tooth Boston
371 W. Broadway, Boston MA 02127

Blueberry Crisp

I still have a couple more posts about my Boston trip, but I haven't written anything about cooking in awhile! Blueberry desserts are high on my list of favorite things, and when I didn't eat any blueberry pie last week on vacation I knew I would need to remedy that as soon as I got back.



I bought some gorgeous blueberries from Nichols Farm at the farmers market, and started researching what I should make. I didn't want to make a pie because it's a bigger dessert than a household of two people needs, and I knew there were options that didn't involve pie crust. After looking through recipes for crumbles, crisps, buckles, and cobblers, I decided on a Good Housekeeping recipe for blueberry crisp. I actually cut the recipe down to a third instead of half, because I had just one pint of blueberries and a mini baking dish, but here's the full recipe:

1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3 pints blueberries
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut up, substitute margarine
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In large bowl, stir granulated sugar and cornstarch until blended. Add blueberries and lemon juice; stir to coat evenly. Spoon blueberry mixture into shallow 2-quart glass or ceramic baking dish; spread evenly.



In same bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. With fingers, mix until coarse crumbs form. Crumble over blueberry mixture.




Place sheet of foil underneath baking dish; crimp foil edges to form a rim to catch any drips during baking. Bake crisp 35 to 40 minutes or until top is browned and fruit is bubbly at edges. Cool on wire rack 1 hour to serve warm or cool completely to serve later. Reheat if desired.



I cannot stress enough how easy this was. I really think it's the easiest thing I've ever baked. Quick and very little mess - no mixer, no dough to roll or form cookies from, no multiple batches in the oven. Just one bowl and one baking dish. And there's lots of variations you could do with the crumble part - add chopped walnuts or pecans, nutmeg, vanilla sugar, or whatever else sounds good to you. And of course, serve with vanilla ice cream.



In the privacy of your home, it's perfectly acceptable to lick your plate. Which I did. I couldn't let any sugary blueberry juice go to waste!

Boston Trip - Harwich Port, Cape Cod

We stayed in Harwich Port for two nights at the end of the week for the wedding of Julie and Lou. I actually hadn't been to the Cape since college a "few" years ago, so I was very happy to return and even visit some of the same places.



The day of the wedding we had some free time and decided to get breakfast at Bonatt's. Most of us had been before on that trip in college, and we all remembered the melt-a-ways. What's a melt-a-way you ask?



If you click on that picture it should get big enough to read the whole story. In short, melt-a-ways are the specialty of Bonatt's and you get them as soon as you sit down to the table. It's basically a sticky bun that's croissant-like on the inside with glaze and some powdered sugar on top.



Now, I have to say that some members of the group didn't like them. It's hard to tell if they're different from when we were there last because it was so long ago, but some people detected an anise flavor, others said it was lemony. I'll admit there was a very, very slight bitter flavor to them. But I thought they were really good. And so did Tim because later that day he informed me what was in his hotel room:



For breakfast I got an egg and cheese sandwich with linguica. I don't pass up a chance to eat linguica.



I didn't get lunch that day, breakfast was pretty big and the wedding was at 4pm...but of course some of the boys needed a second feeding before the ceremony. We stopped at the Mason Jar after spending a couple hours at the beach.



I wanted to take a photo inside but it was pretty crowded and I felt like if I started snapping pictures in there I may as well have been a fanny pack-wearing tourist. But here you can see it looks like a cute little house.



So I didn't get anything, but I had some of Peter's ham and brie sandwich and clam chowder.



We never made it to Sundae School which I am still very sad about. We just didn't have a lot of time with all the wedding festivities. But I had to share this photo...one of the most genius wedding hors d'oeuvres I've ever seen. Grilled cheese and spicy tomato soup. Delicious.

Boston Trip - Barking Crab

I hadn't been to the Barking Crab since college about 6 or 7 years ago (was college really that long ago? Gross.) but when I was driving around Boston with my mom and dad trying to think of somewhere to get a great seafood lunch it was the first place I thought of. It's right on the water with lots of outdoor seating and every variety of New England seafood you could ever want.



4 kinds of crab? Check. Lobster? Obviously, check. Not sure about the whole 10 lb. lobster thing, but they apparently have it.



My mom and I shared some oysters to start. 2 Island Creek, and I forget the other two...but also from Massachusetts.



And my dad got clam chowder, which I sampled and it was very good.



And then, we were a little family of crab cakes. My dad got a crab cake sandwich with onion rings, and my mom and I had mixed green salads with two crab cakes on top. And my sister didn't get anything because she didn't come because I'm the favorite child.




I wish I could have ordered more...peel n eat shrimp, clam roll, lobster BLT, kind crab legs...I guess I'll just have to go back next time I'm in town!

Barking Crab
Fort Point Landing, 88 Sleeper St., Boston MA 02210

Boston Trip - Mike's Pastry

I already wrote about Mike's Pastry once, when my sister made a trip to Chicago and brought some pistachio cookies with her. But now I can do the official post since I went there last week.



So, not to repeat myself...but Mike's Pastry is a big deal in Boston's North End. It's first and foremost where you go to get cannolis, but they of course have lots of other goodies. And there's no "I'll just run in real quick and grab a couple cannolis". Yeah, you and 30 other people.



I mean this in the nicest way possible - the people that work there are not amused. It's not quite to a Soup Nazi level, but you better be ready by the time you get to the counter because there's no sweet little lady in an apron willing to entertain your 20 questions about how do you make cannolis and is there lobster inside a lobster tail pastry (the answer is no).



Ok, on to the treats. The famous cannolis:



The aforementioned lobster tails (a.k.a. sfogliatelle):



And my favorite, the pistachio macaroons:



We were buying for a big group - about 15 of us - and wouldn't be getting back to the house in Scituate for a few hours so we couldn't do cannolis. Instead we bought pistachio macaroons, and assorted cookies.




The pistachio macaroons are just so, so very good. They're crispy on the outside, and soft and doughy and bright green on the inside, with big pieces of pistachios. As I said in my last post - if you're not in Boston and don't plan to travel there, you can order these treats through their website.



Mike's Pastry
300 Hanover St., Boston MA 02113

Boston Trip - Lobster

I'm back home after a wonderful week in Massachusetts, and I have SO much to write about...I barely know where to start. I figure I may as well jump right in and start with a post about lobster because, well...you know, that's what you eat when you go to New England.

First lobster of the week was in Scituate, where we spent the better part of the week in a beach house with family. My uncle gets lobsters from his "guy", and I don't know who or where he is so I have no information to share about where they came from. But these lobsters were really big, and had a blue tone.



I believe the slight blue color comes from being in colder water, but please correct me if I'm wrong. These lobsters were also really big, they were probably all about 2 1/2 or 3 lbs. So, I've never actually cooked a lobster myself but I've seen it done plenty of times. Heat a big pot of water until it boils, put the lobsters in alive (very important. Dead lobster = no good), and cook until they're bright red. For a smaller lobster, about 8-10 minutes should be sufficient. I think we cooked these guys for closer to 15, also because we were cooking about 7 or 8 in the pot at a time.



Serve with a little bowl of clarified butter to dip the lobster meat into. I like the claws best, and these claws were gigantic. This wasn't even the biggest one of the bunch, but here's a sizable one next to Peter's hand.



The next lobster of the week came at the rehearsal dinner for my friends Julie and Lou's wedding on the Cape. The rehearsal dinner was held at the Dennis Inn and the food was done by Treats Catering. It was a traditional New England lobster boil/clam bake with all the trimmings - steamers and mussels, corn on the cob, potatoes, cornbread, and clam chowder.



Absolutely delicious. And wait, there's more. At the actual wedding the first course was lobster ravioli with lobster cream and more chunks of lobster on top. And that's spinach on the plate, too.



What a lucky girl I am, lobster three times in one week!