September | 2008 | strawberries in paris

Adam Roberts’ Roast Chicken with Potatoes

September 30, 2008 at 10:17 am | Posted in Dinner, Entertainment | 6 Comments

On Saturday (during the monsoon and after my 12 mile run!) I joined Julie and John for a book reading/cooking demonstration by Adam Roberts at the Baltimore Book Festival! He spoke of a chicken and potatoes recipe that was to die for, so I dutifully proceeded to gather the ingredients at Wegman’s!

Adam gave us a wonderful demonstration on how to make awesome homemade tomato sauce in the tent under the pouring rain! And we even got to ingest some of his tasty creations and chat with him for a bit! We gave him some local foodie stops to try for dinner, lunch and carousing. I picked up his book (which btw is highly entertaining) at the book festival and also decided I must try this recipe he spoke of so fondly during his demonstration!

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good eats at b bistro

September 29, 2008 at 3:36 pm | Posted in Dinner, Travels | 2 Comments

So Friday night was a bittersweet one…my bestest girl Becca was supposed to venture down to Bawlmer from New Haven, but car drama and other annoying rain situations made it fall through. 😦 We had dinner reservations at b bistro in bolton hill so instead of Becca, ECM was my date! Dinner turned out to be splendid even with the monsoon!

The atmosphere at b is so wonderful! There is hustle and bustle like a true bistro, but there is a relaxing component to it. Perfect for a nice romantic evening!

Check out the rest of our food choices below.

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Daring Baker’s Challenge: Crackers!

September 27, 2008 at 12:00 am | Posted in Daring Bakers | 3 Comments

This month’s daring baker’s challenge was a suprising one! What?? No sweets?? Crazy! So we made crackers! They are very pita chip reminiscent, and actually taste delicious! And I paired it with baba ghanoush (see critique of that below…)

Check out the recipe below and the rest of my lovely daring bakers!

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Home Bistro Chicago

September 25, 2008 at 10:14 am | Posted in Dinner, Travels | 1 Comment

Let me just say that the dinner experience at Home Bistro was the best in my life! We brought the party to this joint for sure and to top it off the food was AMAZING!! Check out my mussels which came with TRUFFLE fries!

April knew beforehand that it was BYOB (yay Chicago rocks!) so we brought a bottle of Pinot Grigio and as we stepped up to the restaurant we realized it probably would be advantageous to get another! Our table was not ready yet so the maitre d brought us four glasses to enjoy the Pinot and we asked if there was a good wine shop in the neighborhood and there was! The Kafka wine store was awesome! And they were playing Mika in the store! We picked up a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (my favorite type of white). We then scurried back (ever so gracefully in our fabulous garb) to the bistro and continued our pre-dinner happy hour at the maitre d station.

The chef, JonCarl greeted us and we started chatting it up. It turns out that he lived in Mt.Vernon for a couple of years and has family from Dundalk/Sparrows Point! He insisted on employing the “Hon” voice the rest of our stay!! LOVE IT!!

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Chicago Tour of Foooood

September 22, 2008 at 11:42 pm | Posted in Travels | 8 Comments

Yay! My 100th post! This past weekend my sister and I went to the amazing metropolis in the midwest- CHICAGO!! We ate, we partied and boy did we have fun!

Check out our eats below!

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Fazzini’s Italian Kitchen

September 15, 2008 at 11:29 pm | Posted in Dinner, Travels | 2 Comments

Sunday evening dinner was spent at Fazzini’s with the abuelitos (sweet grandparents for all you gringos) and little sista! They and my aunties LOVE fazzini’s! And there is good reason to! It is a low key reasonably priced joint to get some fantastic Italian food! Their lasagna is out of this world and a huge portion!

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21st Birthday Coconut Cake!

September 11, 2008 at 4:13 pm | Posted in Dessert, Entertainment | 4 Comments

So TODAY is my little (but very tall!) sister’s 21st birthday! She is my ultimate partner in culinary crime and I love her so much! She and abuelita are coconut fanatics and since I normally run our kitchen, that nasty ingredient is kept far far away! BUT, all that got put aside this week to make my sissy bear happy!

Even with my utter condemnation for coconut this cake does look incredibly delicious!

This recipe comes from (of course!) Ina Garten from her Barefoot at Home collection – Check it out below!

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Chocolate Chip Pancakes with Fresh Raspberries

September 9, 2008 at 7:53 pm | Posted in Dessert | 6 Comments

Our Sunday morning feast was a delightful and extremely tasty one!

Megan got this recipe from her beloved mama and I think we duplicated it very well!

For the recipe, see below!

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Detroit’s Edible Delights!

September 8, 2008 at 6:13 pm | Posted in Dessert, Travels | 1 Comment

My friend Kim and I went to visit our buddy Megan, an ex-Baltimoron, in Detroit this past weekend! We had some good eats for sure!

Saturday morning we ran (literally 😀 ) over to the farmer’s market near her apt in Royal Oak. Here is what we found!!!

A whole huge pint (qt?) of fresh fresh raspberries for $5! Four scrumptious pastries, some apple pumpkin mini muffins and some bartlett pears!

To check out the rest of our delicious food finds and my market report (inspiration from Meg), read below!

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a birthday Woodberry Kitchen visit

September 5, 2008 at 11:04 am | Posted in Dinner, Travels | 9 Comments

Well Mr.ECM is quite a fine birthday dinner companion! He spoiled me rotten with this dinner!

Woodberry Kitchen is quite the experience. The building is a renovated mill and is enormous! The outside grounds are so romantic and relaxing (there is a fire pit!) with lots of gravel. The inside is a deconstructed factory concrete kind of feel with beautiful wooden tables, etc. We got to sit upstairs overlooking the whole room. One random thing I noticed which I loved, was that all of the waitresses wear the cute half aprons that you would see in Anthropologie! The staff are really hip and make you feel very comfortable as if you were in someone’s kitchen!

Here is our appetizer, the Baked Stuffed Clams, with roasted green chile, bacon, and bread crumbs! Quite amazingly delicious!