strawberries in paris

Ned was uuuuuber excited to receive this cookbook for Christmas. It is so popular I think it still may be on backorder! Thomas Keller is a genius and this is a really good cookbook to have around. So this dish consisted of chicken thighs, green olives and fennel and a really nice broth/sauce! The chicken thigh is such an underutilized part of the bird in my opinion. Ned went to Whole Foods to get a pack of them with skin on. We are going to try to get a significant percentage of the meat we buy from Whole Foods from now on, because we really want to do our part in supporting the ethical and classically natural way of raising meat. But we’ll still be sticking to Wegmans for everything else!

So this chicken broth/sauce made in this recipe was just exquisite! TK really knows how to develop solid flavor in such a short amount of time and this recipe was the perfect way to use my new Le Creuset that I purchased with gift cards (Thank you Auntie Martha and Mrs.W!!!) After recopying the recipe below I am delighted to see how simple TK’s language is in the recipes. It really speaks to the true nature of ad-hoc: relaxed and at home for your loved ones. Now go check out this recipe!

Continue reading Going Ad-hoc at Home for the First Time…

Hi Food Blogger World, This is Laura (Elizabeth’s sis) guest blogging for the first time. I went downtown Saturday with some art school friends to Federal Hill. We were planning on going to go to Dangerously Delicious Pie’s … But they are closed til the 15th. We kept walking and I called my foodie sister who advised me to go to Spoons on Cross St and they said the kitchen was closed, it was only 4:00! Anyhow, we got advice from the guys in the shop who told us to head down the block to a place called Metropolitan. We started down the street but were stopped cold in our tracks. CREPES! Who doesn’t love a crepe? This was a very good find.

The name of the place is Ruben’s Crepe’s. His crepe shop was unique and had a large array of fillings for his crepes. My friend Kat enjoyed a nutella, strawberries and bananas crepe. Kris had a egg, apple, swiss, cracked pepper and bacon crepe. Pio had an ham, apple, spinach, meunster cheese crepe. I had the NEW one Salsa-Verde, Beans, cheese, chorizo. This was tasty but very hot. For the time of day (between lunch and dinner) I should have got something sweeter. Overall a good bite to eat in the cold weather. This was a small and cozy space and is reasonably priced- $1.00 for coffee and $6.00 – $ 9.00 for the crepes. The fillings are generous and the shop has only been open for a WEEK but he had nice tables and a relaxed atmosphere. Go for the jump to see the menu!

Continue reading Hungrily Hunting the Hill…….

So indeed we were verrrrry chilly in DC on Friday night. Probably 20 and windy! Very difficult to walk happily around town! So in addition to being chilly on Friday, we ate chili!! Perfect for the cold and it was definitely a fun highlight to our evening. One of our favorite One World Cafe bartenders is Chris and he happens to be in a band called the Fishnet Stalkers. He was opening for the Upper Crust at the Black Cat. We needed to get some grub before we went to the concert, so I went searching on google maps and what did I spot only three blocks away?? Ben’s Chili Bowl!! I recognized this place from Tony Bourdain’s visit and hearing about President Obama’s love for this establishment

This place was hustling and bustling around 7pm on Friday night, slightly less crazy than when we walked by again on our way home from the concert! About 15 people in line and the booths and counter seats were full. They only take cash, so I was glad to have some moola leftover from Christmas presents! Ned knew he wanted the Half smokey dog and I had my sights on vegetarian chili (from my early perusing on the web..). When I saw those delicious hot dogs roasting on the griddle I knew I had to have one, but just one! The half smokey is a half pork/ half beef smoked sausage, homemade on site! They top it with onions, mustard and their famous chili. Check out my blurry iphone pictures below!

Continue reading Getting chilly in DC!…

So around Christmastime, our whole family was sitting around talking about Bob and Jen’s wedding and how much fun it’s going to be! But the one thing that will not be fun (watch out here comes vanity) is if we are all heffers in the wedding photos! Since my surgery, I’ve gained weight and about half of our family is not so skinny either, so we decided we need to gang up together and get this done in the next 5 months for our health and for our vanity. So the weight loss ideas started flying and what resulted is pure genius! We started a google spreadsheet to document everyone’s weightloss (hell of a way to keep myself honest!) and we started a blog named Cut the Cake. Wedding appropriate and funny, right?? So the blog has been around since the day after Christmas and I really think its succeeding in its purpose! Everyone is posting their healthy food choices, exercise accomplishments, setbacks and random funny things (heres looking at you Auntie!). I really look forward to keeping up with it over these next five months.

So anyways, I had to incorporate some sort of food thing into this Cut the Cake post, so here is my latest baked good and hopefully will be the last for awhile! Bobby hosted an awesome New Year’s Eve party and I wanted to bring something delicious and so I decided on breakfast. I went straight to my new happy reading addiction- Baked and found this recipe. It’s pretty healthy I think- and since when I ate one on New Years Day and a couple of mornings since then, I have wished that there was more sugar in it- so it must be lacking those evil calories! (sugar is not evil actually. I really wish I could stray away from that kind of speak like ‘I was so “good” today because I didn’t have sweets…’ Rather I would like to think -’I was so healthy today and made healthy food choices.’) The muffin crumb on these babies was perfect and the texture contrast between the mushy bluberries and crunchy sliced almonds was nice. I don’t really think I could taste any overwhelming orange flavor though. Wonder if doubling the orange zest would help with that. And I wish there was some fun buttery sugar crumbs on top…..(3rd person now) but seriously healthy minded Elizabeth- you know its not necessary!!! Check out the recipe below!

Continue reading Cut the cake… And have a muffin??…

This meal came the day after the snowpocalypse 2009. Ned and I were looking to eat healthily, like we always do on Sunday evening to try and make up for the weekend of chips and frozen pizzas! (snow food you see!) Ned has been on a big chestnut obsession for awhile, so we finally got some from Wegman’s and then took to roasting them! We paired the chestnuts with grouper, swiss chard, and a pomegranate vinaigrette.  I used my new App on my pink iphone for the epicurious recipe search. I typed in seafood and winter and this recipe is what popped up in the search!

The fish was so decadent and delicious, probably the most expensive of the flaky white fish selections, but it was worth it! I loved using swiss chard, so meaty and very green. The chestnuts added a nice flavor and texture contrast to the rest of the dish. It was actually pretty fascinating roasting them! (see pictures below..)

Continue reading Chestnuts Roasting in a Warm Oven…….