Extreme Beer Fest

A few times a year Beer Advocate hosts various beer fests at the Cyclorama in the South End. I've been going to these since I moved to Boston since Sunset caters all the food. Each Beer Fest has a distinct theme, all of them amazing-- Belgian, German, American or Extreme. A few weeks ago, Jamie came to town for the Extreme Beer Fest.

I love the Cyclorama. It's an amazingly beautiful and as lame as this sounds, the bathrooms are amazing. All exposed brick and copper piping. So pretty.

Obviously, the Extreme Beer Fest is pretty intense. This year I did the best I've ever done in trashing beer I wasn't feeling: taking a sip and deciding, nah. Or maybe I was moving to quickly and hadn't finished my 2-3oz sample by the time I'd reached the next station. Whatevs. While, I generally avoid the Sunset food except what I can snag for free, I LOVE the Belgian waffles, despite their extraordinary price. They are TOO delicious to pass up. I think I also housed some tortilla chips and perhaps a Beer Pretzel. I'm sure I was also sorely disappointed that Marc hadn't made a batch of beer ice cream for this one... Regardless, we made a night of it, even tho beer fest ends at 930. We cabbed it back to Allston, hit up Deep Ellum and eventually made our way to Sunset for a nightcap and some SpinArt Dip. I'm sure I flirted and gropped Renaldo before I left beer fest. A day in the life...

Photo captions--
2: I'm sure that is how the actual Extreme Beer Fest flag looked to us as we left.
3: Me and Angie.
4: Me and Ben. I love how he's shrinking to not tower over me. Also, I'm not double fisting, but instead holding Jamie's brew, while he takes the picture.

Ricotta Gnocchi

I don't fancy myself a great chef. My focus is always on taste, simplicity and quickness. I love decadent, involved meals, but I rarely create them. My goal is start to finsh, out of the fridge and onto the plate in under an hour. Ideally faster, but I'm no Rachel Ray, so 30 minutes is generally unachievable...

My friend Kaitlin found this recipe for Ricotta Gnocchi and I was amazed. It looked amazing, but wayyyy too difficult for me. I do NOT make my own pasta. I do always make my own sauce, but making things from scratch has really never been my bag. Maybe I'm more like Rachel Ray than I thought. Kaitlin made the gnocchi and claimed that she did it start to finish, including sauce in 45 minutes, so my interest piqued. I had some leftover ricotta in my fridge, so I decided to give it a go. I'm sold. It was easy, fun, rewarding and oh so deliciously satisfying! I altered the recipe to fit the amt of ricotta I had, and I didn't have a lemon, so I just squirted in some lemon juice. All in all it was a success. I mixed 1/2 a cup of ricotta, with 1/4 cup of parmesean (both low/no-fat varieties) w/ a squirt of lemon juice, chili flakes, dried parsley and an egg yolk and added the flour. Then I broke up the dough into the 4 sections and rolled out snakes. I found the dough wanted to separate some, so I'm not sure if I used too much or too little flour, but it worked nonetheless and I cut them in to knuckle sized pieces w/ my fork.

To fry, I put some olive oil in a pan and heated it w/ some cracked garlic. When the garlic started to brown, I took it out of the pan and threw the gnocchi in. I shook the pan to make sure the oil was underneath the gnocchi. I also squirted some lemon juice over them to infuse a bit more flavor in them. I turned them once and pulled them out and put them in a paper towel lined bowl to soak up any excess grease. My condensed recipe made 2 batches of gnocchi, and 2 meals.

Instead of the brown butter sauce in the original recipe, I made a simple tomato sauce. I sliced up the already cooked garlic, some leek and added a can of tomatoes flavored w/ burgundy wine and olive oil. To that I added a splash of the red wine I'd be drinking w/ dinner and herbs and spices (basil, oregano, parsley, s&p). Quick, flavorful and easy. My MO.

Start to finish, this meal honestly took abt 45 minutes. Sure, there was a bit more clean up cuz I had to clean my counter more thoroughly before and after cuz of rolling out the gnocchi dough, but the gnocchi and sauce were made in the same pan, so that was nice. I didn't add cheese on top cuz I figured the gnocchi had enough cheese in them anyway. This meal was delicious. I can honestly say I was PROUD of what I had done. I often think abt what I can make for dinner parties that is easy, but impressive. This recipe certainly covers both. I can't wait to make them again!

BTW, check out Kaitlin's food blog too.

Berry Pancakes

So far I think most of my entries have been brunch related. Brunch is easily my favorite meal, and if it were acceptable to eat it for every meal, I would. It is also the meal I'm the most comfortable making. As I've said, I look forward to the weekend to make brunch and take a break from mornings of quick breakfasts of oatmeal, frozen waffles and granola.

This morning I made cranberry/blueberry pancakes. I have pancake mix that you just add water to. I know it's not the best, but it's the easiest and I've gotten it down so I make exactly 2 pancakes. I don't think I'd ever make pancakes if it resulted in leftover batter. I also have a pancake pan that my aunt gave me for xmas a few years back. Both my mom and my aunt bestow wonderful kitchen gadgets on me, perhaps because they've both been homemakers and know the benefit of cutting some corners. I think I could probably make pancakes the old fashion way, but the pancake pan makes it so easy. It's pancake size and folds down over the pancake, so you just turn over the whole pan to flip the pancake. It is a bitch to clean tho, but that's more the fault of the fruit I add to the pancakes that kinda burns and carmelizes than the pan's fault. This morning's pancakes came out great. I like the tartness of the cranberry and the sweetness of the blueberry. I also do banana pancakes if I have bananas that are a bit overripe.

As a side note, cranberries are one of my favorite foods. I love them. I love the tartness. I love the juice, them dried, in salads, in oatmeal, etc. It's weird my favorite flavor profiles are fall flavors and fall is not my favorite season... I may like it more than winter, but only cuz of October. The rain and progressive coldness really grates on me. It's also weird cuz I'm not a Thanksgiving fan, yet some of my favorite flavors/foods are pumpkin, cranberry and fall/winter squash, especially butternut. Each year I buy a bag of cranberries and put them in the freezer so I can enjoy them all year round. I guess I really am a Massachusetts girl...

Flavored Olive Oil

My parents came up Friday night and as usual they brought me a ton of food! They're great like that. Always want to make sure I'm well-fed and healthy. My mom made sweet potato burritos that are now in the freezer, roasted chick peas, the makings for stuffed peppers and curry, while my dad made a quinoa stirfry, but what I'm most excited abt is the flavored olive oil my mom made. I'm not completely sure how she did it, but she cracked some garlic cloves and shoved some fresh parsley and rosemary in it to soak. MMMMM. I used it yesterday to make homefries and I could really smell the garlic. My hope is that the longer it sits, the bolder the flavors become. I'll keep you posted...

DST=Spring?

So less than 1 week after Mother Nature dumped a foot of snow on us, it is pretty much all melted. Today is the third beautiful day in a row. I think yesterday takes the cake, being 60, albeit overcast. Today its around 55 and while it was supposed to rain, it looks like the skies are crystal clear. I'm tempted to take the book I'm addicted to and to finish it in the park across my st, but I'm afraid of all the mud! I'll take a walk for sure tho. It is WAY too nice not too. I cannot wait for Spring to really be here. For buds on the trees, flowers poking thru and regularly walking home from work. Unfortunately that will also mean baseball season and hordes of drunk, obnoxious, rude Red Sox fans in my neighborhood... But for today none of that, but all of the excitement when Boston awakes from Winter and everyone comes out of their apts and walks Newbury and Boylston to window shop and enjoy the weather...

UPDATE: I did go read in the park across the st. I got a little cold and ended up strolling further into the city, stopping by a restaurant I used to work at to drink some sparkling lemonade and to say hi to my friends who were working. Once moving, I was perfectly warm and even took off my fleece. The sun felt great beating down and I stuck to the sunny side of the st as much as I could.

But, surprise, surprise it's supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow. Go figs...

Quarter Life Crisis 26.1

I got my hair cut today. For the first time in MONTHS. My lovely hair dresser informs me she has found grey hair. I turned 26 just about a month ago. FUUUUCK.

Mini A'dam Reunion

Most of my posts have been abt food and that is not my sole intention, so here are some pics of me and my friend Clay who was up visiting this weekend. We met 5 years ago in Amsterdam while we were studying abroad. We have seen each other for 3 weekends in the past 5.5 months which is some kind of record, but has been absolutely amazing. I kinda want to just slip into Clay's skin. He has an UBER cheap apt in DC and works for the federal government. I have an expensive apt and work for the state... Our apts are painted in almost the exact same colors. He may be moving back to Boston, I may be moving to DC...
These pics are late night, after a long day of working at the restaurant (cuz my paycheck really isn't that big, moonbats), a few drinks and an adventure at a gay bar I never knew existed. But honestly, I have no idea why Clay's eyes are so bloodshot. Needless to say, I stayed in bed til around 6 the following day... a day in the life...