2007 Year in Review

Another year gone, a new one to dawn. We had an interesting 2007... some ups and downs, a great summer, more camping and fishing, visits with family, a new nephew, and lots of cooking. There is no doubt that 2008 will be a much more interesting year on many fronts - including in the kitchen.

We did a Year in Review last year with each of our Top 5 blog posts, so we thought we'd do it again!

Stacey's Top Five!

5. Butternut Spinach Gratin
We love butternut squash - and this was a delicious, inventive use for it!

4. Pickled Pink Eggs
These were awesome - if you like pickled beets, you'd love this.

3. Beer Can Chicken
Our juiciest, most smokey, most tender, most flavorful chicken yet!

2. Enchiladas with Cuke Salsa
Delicious with mole sauce and the fresh veggies - great leftovers...
And, with video!

1. Blended Soups!
Green Soup, Carrot Soup, Butternut Squash Soup, Black Bean Soup - we love delicious fall soups made with our new handblender! Can't wait to try more...

Mike's Top Five

5. Fiddleheads and Fishing
My top five are of posts that remind me of things I enjoy in life - this post reminds me of fishing!

4. Corned Beef and Cabbage
St. Patrick's Day in Boston is one of our favorites... this corned beef was delicious.

3. Boston's South End Restaurants
I enjoyed putting this post together - it reminds me of our old apartment in the South End. Now I'm craving some B&G Oysters!

2. Mojitos and Fish Tacos
The quintessential summer time meal, reminds me of long days in the sun on the back deck, relaxing after playing a game of tennis.

1. Cucumber Salad
This recipe and this post reminds me of my youth and my family... plus the cuke salad is delicious!

We are thankful for another year and looking forward to more posts in 2008. Have a Great New Year and happy eating! See you then...

Boston Chef

WCB - Blogging our Cat on the Weekend

It's still the weekend, so we're joining in the Weekend Cat Blogging at one of our favorite food blogs - Sher's What Did You Eat!

From our earlier post, you can see that this is his favorite spot:


And here is Osiris and his new toy, a q-tip that he found on the floor wayyyy on the other side of the house. He brought it over to that favorite spot in the kitchen.



Bonus picture:

Green Soup

How do I love my hand blender? Let me count the ways…

I think I’m on a journey and that journey involves creating blended soups in all the colors of the rainbow. The color of the day is GREEN. And seeing that it is the holiday season, perhaps the next one I shall create will be RED! This soup is heavy on the spinach and zucchini, hence the green color. It’s full of veggies and vitamins and good stuffs, so if you can’t get your hubbie or kids to eat their veggies, this might be the way to go.

Sautee 1 diced onion and 3 sliced carrots in 2 tbs butter on lowish heat just so they sweat and don’t burn. Soon add 2 ribs of diced celery, and let that get happy for about 10 minutes. In the meantime, defrost your frozen spinach and zucchini. Now, if this were the summertime, I would have used fresh zucchini, but they didn’t look too good at the store, so I opted for frozen. You’ll need roughly 1 16oz bag of zucchini, and perhaps the same amount of spinach ( I honestly just eyeballed it).



After about 10 minutes of sweating, I added 4 peeled and cubed Yukon Gold potatoes to the pot. After that simmered for 5 minutes, I added the green veggies, and then topped that off with stock just to the top of the veggies. For seasoning: a big handful of fresh flat-leaf parsley chopped up. Then about 1 tbs dried basil, 1 tsp dried thyme and 1 tsp Penzey’s Shallot Salt, along with S&P to taste.

I let that simmer (low boil) for 30 minutes and then I blended it all up! You know the drill by now, if it’s too thick, add more stock! Wow, even M was impressed at how delicious this soup was. One night we had it with grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches, and the next with grilled up some Cajun seasoned chicken breasts. The potatoes added some thickening starch to the soup that would even satisfy a meat and potatoes guy!



Coming soon, red soup…

And here's my little helper: