Archive for the ‘Cooking & Food’ Category

Ice Cream Marathon

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

On Saturday August 14, 2010 the long planned Wednesday Night Dinner Ice Cream Marathon occurred from 1pm until 7:30pm. We followed and approximately 7 mile route from Boston’s North End to Harvard Square in Cambridge following this route:


View Ice Cream Marathon in a larger map

We stopped at each place marked in green. We skipped over duplicate stores, chains, and stores we didn’t know existed. We carried score cards. Here is the digital representation of mine:

Location Time Flavor Size Score (1-10)
1. Gelateria 1:20pm Hazelnut / Vanilla Small 5 / 8
2. Sprinkles 2:00pm Butter Pecan Child 7
3. Emack
& Bolio’s		 2:45pm Cake Batter1 One Scoop 3
4. Picco’s 3:25pm Cinnamon2 One Size 93
5. Bon Bon 4:25pm Pineapple Sorbet One Size 2
6. J. P. Licks 4:55pm Cake Batter Not Available4 0
7. Toscanini’s 5:55pm Cake Batter Kiddie 9
8. Christina’s 6:30pm Corn5 Small 4
9. Lizzy’s 7:30pm Vanilla Cookie Dough Kiddie 6

1Like most flavors at Emack and Bolio’s this cake batter is infused with chocolate. This is not an acceptable thing to do and still call it cake batter, but that is what they do.
2Also bread and water were provided at no cost at Picco’s.
3The flavor of the Cinnamon (and they Honey flavor that I tired) were so intense as to deserve top honors. However, we were unable to finish these flavors due to their intensity.
4J. P. Licks has suddenly, and without warning discontinued the cake batter flavor at all of their locations. This is not acceptable as it was the best cake batter flavor available in the city and my favorite ice cream overall. Until such a time as cake batter is returned to the menu I am forced to boycott J. P. Licks. I did get in line and ask for cake batter, only to be told they they don’t have it, to which I responded, “Ah, never mind then.”
5Bacon flavor was also available and I tried a spoonful of it. Someone got bacon flavor and was unable to finish the salty delicious treat. I had tired corn flavor earlier in the week and thought it quite good, but I was unable to finish my small size of it either.

The clear winner was Picco’s. Picco’s is a sit down pizza restaurant that also hand makes ice cream for their desert menu. They were great sports and sat a table for 13 who intended only to have ice cream. They also provided bread and water at no charge, which was most appreciated. Surprisingly appreciated was the bread! The flavors at Picco’s are intense, rich, and wonderful. I could taste the gainyness of the cinnamon in my ice cream! Everyone agreed this was the best place.

Clear runner up in my book Toscanini’s. Toscanini’s, since inciting me into their store for the first time in years with their ROFLCon inspired “Internet” Flavor (vanilla + grape nerds) has become my favorite ice cream parlor. The fact that J. P. Licks has recently committed seppuku has only help them reach the top. Other excellent recent flavors include Fig Newton, Ginger, and the best remaining cake batter flavor in town! Enough said!

Posted in Around Town, Cooking & Food, Fun, Maps, Wednesday Night Dinner | 1 Comment »

Shiner Bock

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Shiner Bock is probably my favorite beer, which says a lot considering I am not a huge fan of beer in general. It is not a great beer, but it is easy to drink without cringing, which is a tough test to pass with me. It was the best part about all that traveling to New Mexico. It is a Texas brew, and I was introduced to it when I lived in Austin in the summer of 2006. As Sam Adams is to Boston so Shiner Bock is to Austin, with the exception that Shiner is not brewed in Austin. Of course, most Sam isn’t either so its not a big difference. I mean to say that it is the default beer in Austin, and everywhere has it on tap. The same can be said for the non-chain non-portifino restaurants in Roswell and Alamogordo. On each of my first two trips back from Roswell I brought home a six pack. On my last trip I brought home two six packs in my checked luggage. In all 24 bottles, and only 1 broke in transit. Sadly the pictured bottle is the last one. Shiner Bock is sold in 41 states, but none of them are in New England, so the supply will not be replenished soon. Although, I may spend part of July back out there again, the beer is the only reason to look forward to that, and remember I don’t really like beer.

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King Cake

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

I made a King Cake for Mardi Gras with my friend Sarah’s help. It turned out much better than I ever expected, and I would totally make another one if it didn’t take so long. I followed this great King Cake recipe I found on www.mardigrasday.com:

King Cake: Traditional New Orleans Recipe

Ingredients
1/2 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
2 packages active dry yeast
1/2 cup plus 1 teaspoon sugar
3 1/2 – 4 1/2 cups flour unsifted
1 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon lemon zest, this is lemon rind, grated
1/2 cup warm milk
5 egg yolks
1 stick butter cut into slices and softened, plus 2 tablespoons more softened butter
1 egg slightly beaten with 1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1″ plastic baby doll

Directions

Pour the warm water into a small shallow bowl, and sprinkle yeast and 2 teaspoons sugar into it. Allow the yeast and sugar to rest for three minutes then mix thoroughly. Set bowl in a warm place for ten minutes, or until yeast bubbles up and mixture almost doubles in volume. Combine 3 1/2 cups of flour, remaining sugar, nutmeg and salt, and sift into a large mixing bowl. Stir in lemon zest. Separate center of mixture to form a hole and pour in yeast mixture and milk. Add egg yolks and, using a wooden spoon, slowly combine dry ingredients into the yeast/milk mixture. When mixture is smooth, beat in 8 tablespoons butter (1 tablespoon at a time) and continue to beat 2 minutes, or until dough can be formed into a medium-soft ball.

Place ball of dough on a lightly floured surface and knead like bread. While kneading, sprinkle up to 1 cup more of flour (1 tablespoon at a time) over the dough. When dough is no longer sticky, knead 10 minutes more until shiny and elastic.

Using a pastry brush, coat the inside of a large bowl evenly with one tablespoon softened butter. Place dough ball in the bowl and rotate until the entire surface is buttered. Cover bowl with a moderately thick kitchen towel and place in a draft-free spot for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the dough doubles in volume. Using a pastry brush, coat a large baking sheet with one tablespoon of butter and set aside.

Remove dough from bowl and place on lightly floured surface. Using your fist, punch dough down forcefully. Sprinkle cinnamon over the top, pat and shake dough into a cylinder. Twist dough to form a curled cylinder and loop cylinder onto the buttered baking sheet. Pinch the ends together to complete the circle. Cover dough with towel and set it in draft-free spot for 45 minutes, or until the circle of dough doubles in volume. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Brush top and sides of cake with egg wash and bake on middle rack of oven for 25 to 35 minutes until golden brown. Place cake on wire rack to cool. If desired, you can hide the plastic baby in the cake at this time.

Colored sugars
Green, purple, & yellow paste
12 tablespoons sugar

Squeeze a dot of green paste in palm of hand. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons sugar over the paste and rub together quickly. Place this mixture on wax paper and wash hands to remove color. Repeat process for other 2 colors. Place aside.

Icing
3 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 – 6 tablespoons water

Combine sugar, lemon juice and 3 tablespoons water until smooth. If icing is too stiff, add more water until spreadable. Spread icing over top of cake. Immediately sprinkle the colored sugars in individual rows consisting of about 2 rows of green, purple and yellow.

Cake is served in 2″ – 3″ pieces.

Actually, I forgot to do the “Brush top and sides of cake with egg wash” step but it turned out great anyway. Also I used a pecan instead of a plastic baby and blue instead of purple icing because I didn’t feel like going out in the snow to acquire them.

Posted in Cooking & Food, From the Internet | No Comments »

Cookies FTW

Monday, April 20th, 2009

Taking full advantage of my day off I decided to make some cookies. Specifically faux girl scout cookies. More specifically this Do-Si-Dos recipe. I’m very impressed with myself, these cookies are a major win. Unfortunately my camera is still MIA, so you’ll have to imagine them.

Posted in Cooking & Food, From the Internet | No Comments »

First Dinner at My New Place

Monday, September 1st, 2008

The first dinner prepared at my new apartment is current cooking. This may not come as surprise because it will be my third night sleeping here, but I have not actually gone grocery shopping yet! I also did not move much of any food from my old place, not that there was a meals worth of food left at the old place when I moved. So where did this dinner come from? Mostly from my new, wonderful downstairs neighbor Karen. She was out on a farm somewhere (near here, western Mass. most likely, but I didn’t catch where) for the weekend. She brought back 3 ears of fresh corn, a bag full of pear shaped tomatoes, a bag of fresh garlic (still on the stem) and an small container of some sort of baby, sweet tomatoes. I’d never even seen either of these types of tomatoes before.

The baby, sweet tomatoes were a great snack during board gaming, which also had its inaugural run at the new place. The corn was an easy first step for dinner. I did move 1 serving worth of pasta, but I checked and we have no sauce for it. But there are 3 large cans of tomato paste, and a bit of olive oil to combine with some fresh garlic and other random spices we moved for my first ever attempt at from scratch (well sort of) tomato sauce. It is an experiment currently bubbling in progress on the stove. I hope it turns out well, or dinner might not be so good tonight.

I haven’t posted much since moving into the new place. I am still unpacking. It will be a long process. I have most of my stuff in my room unpacked at this point, but there is still a bunch of the land lord’s stuff (which is everywhere and a longish story for another time) to pack up into boxes and stash away. I’m about 75% done with stashing away that stuff from my room. The rest of the house is not so far along. When rooms get to a presentable state I’ll start to post pictures of them. Time for dinner.

Posted in Cooking & Food | 1 Comment »

Strawberries

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

This spring I decided to replace my usual generic sweet treat of some sort of ginger based cookies with strawberries. It was a great idea, they are so tasty. Unfortunetly they don’t last as long as the cookies and so they probably end up costing more. Without the guilt associated with such an unhealthy snack holding me back I can fish off a batch in two nights. The other week I had the great idea to go strawberry picking, which would net me enough strawberries to last a pretty long time I bet. But now, I’m told, the season is pretty much over around here. Anyways, HealthPoints++; for me.

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