Cooking

It's great to know a bunch of quick dishes for the days you don't feel like spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Here are a couple good ones:

Broccoli rabe with sausage. Here we added some tomato paste and red bell peppers, and served it with couscous (another super easy and quick side)


Pan roasted brussels sprouts with fish sauce and chili garlic sauce


When I have a bit more time, I like making things that will keep a few days, for example asian slaw.
Here I had red and green cabbage, cashews, and a sauce made with lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, soy sauce, ginger, and rice vinegar:


and I love potato salad (this one with onion, red pepper, mayo, spicy mustard, tarragon and thyme:


Finally, the fastest way to get food on the table is to have someone else make it! My husband made corn cakes with red pepper sauce, and a sausage (yeah, I know it looks like a giant turd).

Weekend breakfasts

Growing up, I ate cereal for breakfast pretty much every day, even on the weekends. No omelettes, pancakes, or anything that required cooking. Maybe occasionally I'd make french toast, but that was rare. Now, I love making a leisurely breakfast on the weekend.

Last weekend, we had scrambled eggs with local shitake mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and scallion, topped with scamorza cheese.


Today we made salmon and potato patties, topped with a fried egg. Served on some cucumber and pepper strips lightly seasoned with rice vinegar and salt.

Old Cambridge Haunts

Went to East Coast Grill for dinner last night. We hadn't been in a while, and last time was for Hell Night. We had the fried calamari, which was really good, especially with its accompaniment of mint, cilantro, and chili garlic dipping sauce. Fried chicken livers were also good, if a bit overdone. They came with a delicious mix of chard, orange marmalade, and lime (and probably some other ingredients). It was a great sweet and sour dish. Mussels were also very good in a ginger lemongrass sauce, and the grilled sirloin was fine, but nothing special. We sat in front of the oyster shucker, who was very friendly.

Afterward, we met some friends at the Cellar, another Cambridge spot we hadn't visited in quite some time. I forgot how cheap it is compared to other places in Boston--at one point we ordered a round of 8 drinks and it was $37!!!! I love Cambridge!