Sperris

Fish Tacos

2011-04-04T00:18:48Z

J.P. loves fish. Ok, I could write a novel about his love of fish. The last time we went to Southern California, we had fish taco after fish taco and boy were they good. Since then we have be trying them at random establishments around the country with very mixed results.

So why haven't we made them at home before this weekend? Burritos. In addition to his love of fish, J.P. loves burritos and so I've always tried to combine the two. Now, if you like burritos, you'll notice that there aren't too many fish burritos. Shrimp, yes. Pork, beef, veg, yes. That just about mirrors my success with the concept. So this weekend, we gave up on the big shell, the big wrapping, the over abundance of fillings and just went with the basics. Small shells, mahi mahi, cabbage and peppers, cheese, guac, cilantro sour cream. Nom nom nom. It was such a success on Saturday night that we did it again tonight.

One more time

2011-04-04T00:16:11Z

On. Off. On. Off. On.

Yup. Back on the wagon again. I would blame the Spawn but really, I just lost steam. But I've hit my stride again so I'm picking by blog back up. Whee!

Foods for Finn

2010-01-27T01:03:39Z

It's been so exciting to start feeding Finn solid foods. Well, solid is a bit misleading. Smushy foods would be a better description. We started out with rice cereal which he was very indifferent to. He likes squash. He likes sweet potatoes. He loves avocado. He LOVES peas.

God. I HATE Internet Explorer. Apparently I will need to fiddle around with this video to get it to display in bloody IE. Yeah, it worked fine on my Mac... in Firefox. Sigh.

Work work work

2010-01-27T00:58:02Z

I hate to say it but damn, work gets in the way of eating well when you are still learning to juggle a kid. This is not to say that we aren't eating well because that would be just silly but my brain power to write about it isn't quite there. But in typical me fashion, the fits and spurt start again.

And now we wait

2009-10-12T00:41:34Z

Yesterday, J.P. scoured all the equipment and then set about to brew from the Rogue kit. For the most part, everything went really well. We had been concerned about the yeast because we forgot to refrigerate it when it arrived. We smacked the Pacman yeast packet and popped the inner pouch and after a few hours, it had expanded to the point where we thought it was going to explode.

We wrapped the grains and the various flavor, aroma, and finishing hops into individual little cheese cloth packets. After much steeping and bubbling, we finally got everything into the carboy. Now we just need to let the happy fermentation proceed!

Scalawag!

2009-10-10T09:04:34Z

Beer? Everybody like beer!

Ok, that might not be entirely true but a good beer is really something people should like. A number of years ago, we had the pleasure of going to visit my sister out in Portland, Oregon, otherwise known as Beer-vana. While we were primarily interested in the wines of the area, we did take time to try out some of their fantastic beers. And then my sister got us a set of various Rogue ales for Christmas and I was hooked.

Luckily we can from time to time, get some of the Rogue beers out here in Boston. This summer we tried the Hazelnut Brown Nectar which quickly became one of our favorite beers. J.P. is a big fan of browns and this one was gorgeously balanced with a nice malty-nuttiness without being too fat and sloppy.

It reminded us that it's been a while since we tried brewing our own beer. Two weekends ago, J.P. went down the the basement to haul the 5-gallon carboys upstairs. We need to get more tubing, a new filter, a wand and some airlocks but hopefully we should be in back in action in a few days. We are wimping out with our first foray back into the brewing world by using a kit (gasp) but it is a kit for the Hazelnut Brown Nectar complete with Rogue's special Pacman yeast and we thought it would be better to start easy rather than diving in with grinding grains. Wish us luck!

A Vacation in Every Pint

2009-10-08T15:02:35Z

Whenever we travel, J.P. and I really like to find local foods and drinks, things we can't get at home. That's how we discovered Cape Cod Beer. We got a growler of the Harvest to go with our grill session at the cottage in PTown. The Harvest is described as an Oktoberfest style beer. It was delicious and very nicely balanced. Very drinkable and perfect for a crisp fall evening. We decided to hit their retail store in Hyannis on our way home to get a refill.

We got there and discovered (to our great delight) that they do tastings! We got 1-2oz tastes of all of the beers they currently have. All the beers were so fresh and clean. Some matched our tastes more than others but we were impressed with their knowledge of their craft and willingness to chat about it. We ended up getting two growlers, one of the Dunkel and one of the Red. Yum!

Lovely Lobster Roll

2009-10-08T06:19:38Z

I have to admit that in the past, I've only mildly been interested in lobster rolls. I am generally skeptical of anything that is bound together with mayonnaise (not particularly a favorite condiment of mine). I've had them in the past where they were too mayonnaise-y, with too many filler items or too mangled to discern that I was actually paying for lobster and not some processed pink/red product. I thought I might like the lobster rolls with butter instead but after trying that at Red's Eats in Maine, that was a bust as well.

But we were on the Cape this past weekend with Finn and I decided to give it another shot. After browsing the web a bit, we gave the roll at Moby Dick's on Route 6 in Wellfleet a try. We were pleasantly surprised when the waitress brought to our table, a beautifully buttered and griddled bun filled with lobster chunks only barely licked by mayonnaise and dusted with paprika and with one leaf of lettuce between the meat and the bun. It was very tasty. The lobster was still mostly in chunks and the mayo did not overwhelm it.

The next day we headed back to Boston. On our way home, I wanted to try another lobster roll after the success at Moby Dick's. We hit the Friendly Fisherman in Eastham. Wow! While I have limited experience, it was clearly the finest lobster roll I have ever eaten. It was so filled with lobster that I could barely find the bun. Again, the bun was beautifully buttered and griddled. The lobster was just kissed by mayo, enough to lightly dress it and actually accentuate the lobster's sweetness. The lobster meat itself was so fresh and succulent. It was perfectly cooked, tender with a wonderful briny sweetness. I could go on for days about how wonderful it was. Oh, yes... And they were actually really friendly there too.

Rabbits of the veggie world?

2009-09-17T00:06:12Z

Perhaps it's just an erroneous perception but zucchini seems like the most ridiculously productive veggie in any garden. Ever year, people talk about how they have too many and they don't know what to do with them. They offer to bring them into the office for co-workers. They make it sounds like a plague. For some reason, these folks with their mythical zucchini never seem to cross my path... until the other week. The Island Crew was up to visit Finn for the first time and J.P.'s brother brought up six enormous specimens. Each one must have weighted over a pound.

It was like the gauntlet had been thrown down. What to do with them... They were older thus were a more fibrous and had large hard seeds. I thought about it for a long time before copping out with the old reliable stand-by for older veggies: soup. I gutted the zucchini to get rid of the wooden seeds, sautéed some onions in a little butter, put in some garlic and thyme, chicken stock and whizzed it all up with the immersion blender. A dollop of sour cream and ended up with a darn fine soup.

Deprivation

2009-09-16T23:59:40Z

Modern pregnancy seems to be filled with so much deprivation. There is a litany of things that you can't do and an even greater list of things that you can't eat. I had this list of all of the items that I would be gobbling down as soon as Finn was out of me: sushi, coffee, wine, rare beef, soft cheeses and the list goes on. But as karma would have it, I left the hospital with a sensitive stomach, which could hold about 10 bites of food before getting cramps. Oh, and a crabby baby also makes getting a decent slow meal in a little more difficult.

The beef, wine and cheese have been the easiest to pull off so far. We've had some fabulous steak and J.P. pulled a couple of bottle of wine up from the cellar. The first night out of the hospital, we ate in the fading sun on the roof deck and I got my own glass of wine and it was delightful. We've been trying to do that as often as possible, even dragging a squirming Finn up with us.

Starting again

2009-09-16T23:57:11Z

Periodically, I like to just wipe the slate clean on my blog and start over again. I've been on a hiatus from this blog for a few months due to my pregnancy. Now with the arrival of my son, Finn, I'm taking my maternity leave to rethink my blog. The changes are still up in the air and I'm not sure about the exact direction that I'm going to be moving it but I like the fact that there is some organic growth (pun not intended). Bear with me.

Yummy Beers

2009-08-01T20:57:10Z

We have been having a few great beers lately. Ang is pregnant (not dead) and can only have a sip... but that is ok. I will suffer through the beer myself.

The beer of the day is "Pretty Things: Baby Tree". It is a fitting beer given that we are past our due date :)

It is a little on the strong side and has just a hint of plum, made in Mass. :) Give it a try.

I will post a summary of the beers late on, we have a few contenders.

Apologies and Explaination

2009-04-23T02:37:48Z

Probably until Summer time, I'll be writing primarily on my other blog.

Firstly, my apologies for letting my food blog die a little. I'm my current state, I have not been cooking all that much and I've been very fixated on a finite list of food which aren't particularly interesting (hell, they include canned peaches with splenda). And sadly, my nose is all messed up. I made some soup the other day and I could smell the onions for almost a week. I was opening the windows when it was freezing out in a vain effort to get rid of the onion smell. It really puts a damper on cooking.

Things to remind myself to write back later:
     Eating in Las Vegas
     The awesomeness of really good ricotta
     Cake
     Rice Krispie Treats
     Bibimbap - Chinese style
     Soft serve with strawberry sauce
     Country Ham
     Frosted Mini-Wheats

Simple. Clean.

2009-04-22T18:57:09Z

While I've been a pretty boring person food-wise over the last few months but it has not dulled my love of ice cream. Recently I found the Haagen-Dazs Five flavors. I've had the Brown Sugar and the Vanilla. The Vanilla is out of this world. So so vanilla-y but not in an obnoxious way. It has such a clean pure flavor. Really lovely. I can't want to try the Passion Fruit and the Ginger, two things I love.

Root beer

2009-04-06T19:34:11Z

I have mixed feelings about root beer. I like it as a concept but in practice, I don't have a history of being overly fond of it. Perhaps it was a bad root beer barrell experience as a child but J.P. drinks it while I only have a sip or two.

Perhaps it's my new condition, but I've take a shine to the stuff recently. And being as I live in an infinitely scientific household, J.P. has been conducting blind taste tests of different root beers both warm and cold to find out which we like.

In the first round of tests, we compared Main Street (Stop and Shop brand), A&W, Mug to see which we liked more. Surprisingly, Main Street won! Hurray for liking the most inexpensive one.

The next round put Main Street against IBC, Stewarts, and Weigh Watchers. This time, the clear winner was IBC. Drats! Back to expensive tastes. We think that Main Street might have consistancy issues but the IBC won both warm and cold for both of us.

We still need to try it again Polar Classics which I really like but this has been one of those fun things that just tickles me.