April 30th, 2011

Tulip

More flowers because I can't help but take photos of them.

April 29th, 2011

Beautiful day for lunch outside

The weather is beautiful enough now to venture outdoors for lunch. Everyone is gathering these days on the big lawn outside the building. The grounds are kept beautiful and lush with green grass. It's a little damp to see on the ground directly like this fellow, but the tables are frequently full. If you see the lady sitting up by the building in the background, that's where I usually like to gather. There are benches, chairs and tables, often empty, and directly in the sun. It's a beautiful place to kickback for a mid day break.

April 25th, 2011

Seedling

My seedlings are already busting out! I am notoriously bad at caring for seedlings, so I hope they make it past this stage, honestly.

April 23rd, 2011

Cheeseboy
South Station
Boston, MA

I was headed home for the weekend and discovered the newest addition to South Station. A grilled cheese fast food company. Woah. Different breads, cheese and add-ons make for a delicious (although not particuarly healthy) lunch on the go. Comfort food for a long train ride.

I ordered the healthiest option possible: Whole wheat bread with low fat swiss cheese and fresh tomatoes. It wasn't half bad and I was starving. Not really a good nod to healthy eating, but definitely worth the one-time taste test. Whomever came up with the idea for this chain was brilliant.

April 21st, 2011

Tulips
Brigham's Circle
Boston, MA

Tulips
Brigham's Circle
Boston, MA

More flowers. Tulips. Brilliant. They're everywhere I look in Boston!

April 19th, 2011

Tres Leche Cake

One of my coworkers had a birthday today. He's orginally from Mexico, and since I've been on an ethnic/cultural kick for my birthday cake themes, I thought I'd try my hand at Tres Leches.

There is a reason people rave about this cake. I was a little wary of the overly sweet soaked sponge cake, but after the first bite I was won over. This is probably the most amazing cake ever created. Dentists everywhere must curse its existence.

I snagged by recipe from my recently purchased cookbook, My Sweet Mexico by Fanny XXXX. This is where I got the recipe for the milk fudge last month.

April 18th, 2011

West End
Boston, MA

West End
Boston, MA

All of the flowering trees are in bloom right now. Everywhere you look or sniff, flowers scream of spring in the air!

April 17th, 2011

Seed Starter Kit

I picked up some seeds last week and finally got the energy together to get them growing in this ready made seed starter. I'll be sowing snapdragons, xxx and xxx indoors, to be transplanted outside at the beginning of June.

April 15th, 2011

Explanted Total Hip Replacement ready to be sterilized and cleaned for analysis

A little gory, I know. But this is what I face at work every week. It gets soaked in ethanol, then all cleaned up.

This particular implant is a total hip replacement with a conventional polyethylene liner, that has some clear backside wear. This was a fresh arrival, so its a little bloodier than I usually receive. I thought it make for a dramatic image, however.

April 13th, 2011

Asparagus, Pea and Caramelized Leek Salad

Another spring-inspired dish, this time from the new cookbook I picked up "Power Foods", distributed by Real Simple. It's filled with delicious, mainly vegetarian dishes that are high in nutrients.

This salad used a couple pounds of asparagus, fresh peas, caramelized leeks. It took me several stages to put together, but the end results was a fresh, lemony dish.

April 12th, 2011

Logging after the gym

Damn you flickr. I wrote so much. Damn you.

April 11th, 2011

Il Pasticiotto
Torretta's Bakery
Revere, MA

I am still quite obsessed with Torretta's Bakery. Quite convinced that anything and everything created in the shop is going to meet and exceed every expectation of food that I've ever had.

I decide to try the pasticiotto this week. It was delicious, mind you, but a little less glamorous than some of the other pastries. I believe it was cherry in there with the sweet cheese. I also snacked on a slice of the Sicilian pizza. Wow. I really am not one of those pizza-loving folks. I find it heavy and have a general dislike of cooked tomatoes - i.e. tomato sauce. But this squared-sliced, fresh-baked pizza really hit the spot.

Truly, they can't do anything wrong there.

April 9th, 2011

Snap pea, goat cheese and leek shredded pasta

I'm kicking off my spring meals with some green-inspired dishes. Dinner consisted of shredded sprouted-grain lasagna sheets tossed with fresh, steamed snap peas, fresh parsley, sauteed baby bok choy, sauteed shallots and goat cheese.

April 3rd, 2011

Strawberries

Homemade Strawberry Syrup

Homemade Strawberry Syrup

My favorite place for recipes and inspiration these days is thekitchn.com. I've mentioned this a few times before. A couple of weeks ago, they posted a fabulously inspiring recipe on strawberry milk. Apparently, the author had been using store-bought strawberry milk for a recipe and ended up addicted. However, store bought strawberry milk is loaded with unsavory things like corn syrup and artificial flavors. She thought that she could not only make it healthier, but tastier, but making her own strawberry syrup. And why not?

The recipe is pretty much the same steps that you use to make strawberry jam. Strawberries + Water + Sugar + Heat. Except that in the end you separate the syrup from the fruit with a sieve. Which actually gives you syrup for the milk AND preserves to spread on biscuits or to mix into your oatmeal, yogurt or top your blintzes with!

This was use a cup or two of fresh strawberries, but the original post used frozen strawberries successfully.

April 2nd, 2011

Leek Tart

I had intended to create a delicious lunch dish, high in protein and nutritious with greens. However, I made one vital mistake: premade pie crust. I had one of those frozen pillsbury roll-out pie crusts in the fridge, that in my laziness, I decided to use as a base. Holy freaking cow. It has so much fat and so much sodium, you'd think I just decided to eat 3 pounds of salted butter instead.

Healthy tip: Never under any circumstance use Pillsbury Pie Crusts.

The contents were fine. I use all egg whites, sauteed leeks, lots of fresh chopped dill, and give it a dusting of Parmesan. It was really that simple. In any case, it was like buttery insanely good due to the pie crust and I pretty much destroyed my diet eating the whole thing over the course of two days.

April 1st, 2011

Coconut Rice Pudding

I'm mildly obsessed with coconut, and my friends will be the first to tell you this. My friend was joking that if I was on an episode of Hoarders, they'd open my kitchen cabinet and find 2 cases of coconut milk. That I could fund my own coconut milk can drive. Ha...ha..huh.

Well, whatever. I love coconut and I'm not afraid to admit it. You've seen images of the Coconut Cake and Coconut Cream Cupcakes I made last month. Well, I delved into virgin territory last week and made: Coconut Rice Pudding.

There were a lot of recipes to choose from, and I didn't like half of them. I also only had brown rice, which no one seemed to recommend. But that's life and I thought it would be mildly healthier anyway. A loosely based this recipe from the Rice Pudding Recipe featured on the blog Slice of Feist. I'm not entirely sure what went wrong with it. Texturally it worked out well - but spice-wise, it was lack luster. I needed something more. I nearly doubled all of the spices and flavors in the first place. Okay, it was unintentional. I halved the recipe, halved the rice and such, but forgot to half the spices. But even then, it was still sort of flavorless and mild. I wanted more--something. The coconut flavor - I even added coconut extract -- wasn't particularly strong either. Maybe if I'd had raisins, it would have been better or at least added an additional flavor in the mix.

I think that in the future, I will be able to enhance this recipe more to my taste. But in the first go around, it only look cute and was only mildly comforting comfort food.