Surprise!

by Xani

Hey BCD readers (if you still exists)-- surprise, I'm still alive!  And still cooking and eating.  Here's a quick post of some recent culinary treats, to whet your appetite for more BCD blogging!
Lobster:

Lobster Roll and Thrice Cooked Fries

Valentine's Day Special: We bought two big lobsters and ate them three ways!  First, boil them up, reserve the claw and tail meat for the lobster rolls, then devour every morsel in the bodies.  That was Friday night.  We also did the first cooking of the Thrice Cooked Fries so they'd be ready for lunch the next day.  Most of the tail and claw meat got lightly dressed and stuffed into a toasted, buttery split-top rolls (luckily we were able to find the appropriate rolls-- a real New Englander won't have it any other way!), and served alongside the fries for Saturday lunch.  The fries were excellent but in my opinion not worth the hassle, since the America's Test Kitchen one-step fry technique is just as good, and so much easier.  The rest of the meat got mixed into a decadent dinner salad with mango, avocado and, of course, homemade vinaigrette.  You know I love my salads!

Pizza:

Oscar-worthy Flatbreads

These are a couple of flatbreads I whipped up for Oscar night.  Using my trusty Ratio method for the dough, I shaped the breads and baked them on a pizza stone in a 500 degree oven (it was still too cold outside to grill them-- but luckily grilling season is right around the corner), then topped them and slid them back in to melt the cheese.  The one of the left has brie and peppedew peppers, on the right is a classic combo of caramelized onions and Gruyere.  We ate these before we lost our appetite from the bad jokes.

Bread:

My First Bread!

Above are the before and after of my very first home-baked loaf of bread!  Again, I used the recipe/technique from Ratio for a basic "lean" bread.  I cooked it in my Le Crueset dutch oven, like all the kids are doing these days.  I could not have been happier with the result.  Here's an interior shot:

It was absolutely fabulous slathered with butter and a little salt (but what isn't?)

Weeknight dinner:

Spinach Gratin with Poached Eggs

My new favorite thing is poaching eggs.  It's so easy and they cook up perfectly.  I'm eating less meat these days so eggs are a good protein source to include in dinner.  This spinach gratin (which you can see hiding under the eggs) was actually supposed to be the main course, but the spinach cooked down to nothing! I had to supplement the meal and poached eggs were the perfect solution.  A little toasted whole wheat pita was the perfect thing to dip in the runny yolks.  

So there's a little update on what I've been eating for the past few months, just in case you'd been tossing and turning all night wondering ;)  I'm hoping to post more now that spring is on its way and fresh, delicious ingredients are back on the menu.  And stay tuned for very special upcoming posts from Boston and, a BCD first, INTERNATIONAL BLOGGING!

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