Stovetop S'mores

The perfect pick-me-up after a busy day of house hunting? Stovetop s'mores!


We had originally bought the ingredients for these during the 4th of July weekend and ended up being too stuffed every day to bust them out (seriously, we had so much food that weekend)! Andrew's parents sent us home from their labor day cookout with the forgotten s'more fixings, and of course, it took us less than a day to break into them!

Having a gas range stove worked almost as well in toasting the marshmallows:


Andrew demonstrates how he makes s'mores - three sections of a Hershey's bar on half a graham cracker, topped with a marshmallow (I prefer a larger marshmallow to graham bar ratio by using only one piece of Hershey bar on a quarter piece of graham cracker):


Smush all that gooey goodness together while extracting the mini-fondue fork we were using for toasting the marshmallows:

Bite in and enjoy!

Extra thanks goes out to my charming demo model. :)

Fuddruckers Burgers

Jen and I peeled ourselves from our respective couches on Saturday night with the goal of doing what we do best - eat!

I had heard about Fuddruckers from Jen and from Phantom Gourmet commercials but had never actually tried one of their burgers. So we headed up Route 1 North to the Saugus location, which, as expected, wasn't too impressive from the outside (although it had plenty of parking):



One of the best features of Fuddruckers is their topping bar - basically, you order your burger, cheese and type of bun (white vs wheat) and then you're on your own to top it. I love the variety of toppings including pickles, sliced white onions, sliced red onions, diced onions, jalapenos, salsa, lettuce, tomato, etc. This variety also extended to their condiment selections, which varied from multiple types of mustards to cheese sauce! Everyone that knows me well knows how much I love fake cheese sauce (no joke!)


Jen and I both ordered the 1/3 pound burgers, hers with a side of steak fries topped with mayo and mine with a side of onion rings, topped with pickles, onions, lettuce, tomato and spicy mustard with jalapeno cheese size on the sauce for dipping:


Fuddruckers definitely good burgers for a reasonable price. I must note it was a bit noisy, due to the fact that the restaurant is popular with families with young children. They had seating section designed to look like Fenway, a table that was actually set in an old car from the 50's and tons of electronic games.

On a side note, as we were driving on Route 1 after dinner, we passed the exit for the new Sonic. Keep in mind there was a backup at the exit at 9 pm with a police escort and Sonic was packed! The picture is a bit blurry but is supposed to show the line of cars at the exit:


I'm guessing we won't be able to hit Sonic unless it's on a random weekday during an off-time, since it's bound to be packed for months!

Portugese Kale Soup

Kale soup was one dish I had never tasted or even heard of before I started dating Andrew. He brought home a bowl of soup one day to try and I was hooked. Based on a tip from one of his Portuguese coworkers, we learned that Stop & Shop actually sold a decent kale soup in their prepared food section. This ended up being a quick, easy meal for us on nights when we were too tired to cook. However, I always thought to myself that kale soup looked like something I could make easily at home - and I was right!

NEW BEDFORD PORTUGUESE KALE SOUP from Cooks.com

• 1 package frozen or 1-2 lbs fresh kale (I used a bag of frozen kale)
• 1 large yellow onion
• 3 potatoes, peeled
• I added 1 bag of frozen carrots
• 2 chourico or linguica, sliced (I used one package of linguica that include 8 sausages)
• 8 cups chicken or pork broth (I would increase this to 12 cups of chicken broth next time I make this, which would be three containers of broth)
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 can Cannelloni beans
• I added 1 can of kidney beans
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 hot pepper, seeded (I used cayenne pepper instead)
• 1/3 teaspoon paprika (I didn't have this so I left it out)
• Season with salt, & pepper to taste

Directions

1. Slice chourico or linguica and saute in 1/4 cup of olive oil, onion, and chopped garlic. Do not allow garlic to brown, so add last. Sausage does not need to cook. Add liquid and simmer for 10 minutes.
   Prepare the kale by rinsing thoroughly and tearing the leafy portions from the stems. Tear into bite-size pieces. Discard stems. (None of these steps are necessary if you use frozen kale like I did!)
2. If you do not have broth on hand, use 4 tablespoons of Minor's or Tone's chicken base or 2 tablespoons of Knorr's bouillon granules. (I used containers of Swanson's chicken broth, it tasted much better than using bouillon cubes)
3. Add potatoes, kale, carrots, beans and simmer additional 30 minutes.
4. Serve and enjoy - yum!

Stop & Shop Giveaway

First, I am pleased to announce the winner of my first giveaway, courtesy of MyBlogSpark and Pillsbury simply... cookies - CR! CR, you will be receiving your prize pack in the post directly from MyBlogSpark, congratulations and enjoy your cookies!

Now, I'm excited to announce the latest giveaway from MyBlogSpark, General Mills and Stop & Shop.

The Back-to-School Saving Event is currently underway at all Stop & Shop stores, from September 4 through September 10. At the event, General Mills and Stop & Shop are teaming up to give families a great way to stock up and save, as they gear up for back to school.

So shoppers will see sale pricing on the participating General Mills brands:
Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Reeses Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cookie Crisp Sprinkles, Cookie Crisp, Fruit Snacks, Old El Paso Dinner Kits, Pillsbury Strudel, Pillsbury Scrambles, Green Giant Boxed Vegetables, Yoplait Yo-Plus Multi-Pack, Fiber One Yogurt Multi-Pack, Pillsbury Refrigerated Cookies, Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, Pillsbury Sweet Rolls and Yoplait Delights.

I'm drooling at the thought of Cinnamon Toast Crunch already!

In addition, you can score a gas discount for buying participating General Mills items at Stop & Shop stores that sell gas.

How does this work? Buy four (4) participating General Mills items and you’ll automatically earn 100 points on your Stop & Shop card
For every 100 points earned, you'll save 10¢ per gallon of gas. Just swipe your Stop & Shop Card at the pump to redeem your Gas Rewards.

So that's my spiel, I know you're all waiting for the what the prize is - a $10 gift card from Stop & Shop! I don't know about you, but I think any shopping experience is enhanced when you can save money by buying great groceries on sale AND by using a gift card to lower the total.

To enter the drawing for the free $10 Stop & Shop card, simply tell me what General Mills item you will buy by commenting below. I will choose a winner at random on Thursday, September 10. Good luck!

My Actual Birthday Celebration

Clearly, I spent the whole weekend celebrating the weekend. I was one lucky girl to be surrounded by friends and loved ones. And did I forget to mention the food - I'm still salivating at the memories!

We spent the morning of my birthday driving back up to Boston (after a failed attempt to get more Pinkberry). After all the excitement of the weekend, I was in the mood for a low-key celebration for the rest of the day.

This meant a late lunch with Andrew and Amy at Fugakyu in Brookline - this may look exotic but Japanese food is really confort food to me!

We didn't want to be too full as we already had dinner plans for 7:30, so we decided to split several dishes.

Our order of sirloin maki (yup, that's meat rolled around the rice) with asparagus and scallions, an order of spicy tuna maki with tempura crumbs and cucumber (unbelievable) and simple kappa maki:

I'm spacing on the type of cold soba noodles pictured (Amy or Camie can comment with the correct name below) and tempura fried vegetables:

And an all-time favorite, chicken katsu:

Later, after dinner at New Rod Dee's (I was definitely on an Asian food roll), you already know that we headed to BerryLine in its new Fenway location for frozen yogurt - it's worth looking at the picture twice!

We sat outside on the front steps of the Fenway movie theatre to enjoy our treats - Amy and I were cardigan twins alongside Jen:

The guys were simply too cool to sit down:


And the money shot - a close up of me and Amy:

It was truly a spectacular weekend, I can't remember the last time I was so relaxed and had so much fun. Thank you to everyone who made it so special!

Frozen Yogurt Showdown

As I mentioned earlier, Amanda was a great hostess and made sure we visited a ton of places and as you now realize, a bunch of delicious meals as well.

At the beginning of the weekend, she asked if there was anything in particular that I wanted to do or see. I told her honestly that I had just one simple goal in mind - to finally try Pinkberry frozen yogurt. Luckily, there is a Pinkberry within blocks of her place.

I do have to mention that we had an incredible meal at Uva that night - a charming Italian place known for its wine selection. Sitting in their back garden area, enjoying food recommendations from Amanda (who has lived in Italy) and wine recommendations from Javier (manager of a wine store), we had a simply incredible meal. Even the bread and olive oil tasted above the ordinary. I took it easy and skipped the photo taking, but you can salivate over the menu here.

For dessert, everyone was kind enough to skip the tempting choices at Uva to join me at Pinkberry!

Here's the front of store (this was taken the next morning when we were hoping to get another serving of Pinkberry before leaving New York. Unfortunately, it opened at 11 am and we were on the road at 10 am):


Amanda and Javier opted for a small serving of the coconut flavor with Captain Crunch and chocolate shavings.


I'd like to take credit for introducing Andrew to real frozen yogurt and to the fact that fresh fruit toppings taste the best - so here's Andrew with the natural flavor with strawberries, blueberries and almonds - the same thing I got! He claims it was his idea since he ordered first, conveniently forgetting that this is the combo I always get:


I could barely wait for the picture taking to dive into the frozen yogurt:


Closeup of the long-awaited treat:

I love it when people warn you that these frozen yogurt places serve really "tangy" yogurt, because that's what I really enjoy. And Pinkberry delivered - it was great and totally lived up to the hype. I tend to prefer natural as a flavor, but I wanted to point out that tasting the coconut and passionfruit flavors (I missed out on the pomegranate), each flavor tasted as delicious as the one before it.

On my actual birthday, when we were back in Boston, we headed to BerryLine for dessert - I got the same order of natural yogurt, blueberries, strawberries and almonds as I had gotten at Pinkberry the day before:

The conclusion? Pinkberry wins by a slight margin on the basis of taste. But I'm not going to lie, I'd be happy eating both every day for the rest of my life. And I have to give credit to BerryLine for offering mochi as a topping when we were in Monday.

Browsing the Brooklyn Flea

After the fabulous breakfast at Bubby's, all we had to do was cross the street to reach the local farmer's market:


Immediately past the farmer's market was the path that would take us to the Brooklyn flea held directly under the Brooklyn Bridge. The cool part of the path was the fact that it even had a bit of shoreline - for some reason, I never associated urban NYC and Brooklyn with beaches!

Of course, this spot was perfect for photo ops - Andrew and Amanda:


Our brunch companions, Camie and James:

Me and Andrew with the Manhattan bridge in the background:

And to switch it up, with the Brooklyn bridge in the background!

One of the most interesting things we saw at the flea market - a huge pile of creepy pitchforks! What the heck would people be using these for? A mob crowd of townspeople conducting a witch hunt?

A shot that shows how the flea market is literally located beneath the Brooklyn bridge:

Brunch at Bubby's Under the Brooklyn Bridge

On Sunday, we headed to Camie and James' neck of the woods to have brunch at a place they recommended and described as being right by the Brooklyn Bridge.

Walking from the subway stop to Bubby's (which made me giggle because of the way the Real Housewives of NJ used this word), I knew we were in for a special treat when I could see views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges - this was my first time up close and personal to both:

In the restaurant, we were about to experience another incredible brunch. Camie ordered the Bubby's special (I think), which was your basic egg, breakfast meat, fruit and toast combo:

Amanda and Andrew ordered one of the specials, the Crab Benedict served over asparagus. In a nod to their mother's Southern heritage, both had grits on the side:


I caught James mid-chew with his chicken salad sandwich (along with his admirer, a baby in a stroller that could not keep her eyes off him):

I went with the very tasty hash special with an easy side up egg and fresh, gigantic pieces of wheat toast:

I swear, there wasn't a meal we had over the weekend that wasn't special in some way. Bubby's was an excellent choice and was located right next to the Brooklyn Flea, our next destination.

Cupcake Truck

Spotted on the way to the subway on Sunday morning, a cupcake truck!



Andrew's convinced that this could be our great new business, he'd drive and I'd bake and sell cupcakes:


Again, only in NYC would you see something like this. And it seemed pretty popular.

What Would You Do For Korean Ice Cream?

Almost anything, if you're half Korean and have spent most of your childhood living on Army bases in Korea (well, technically right off base), eating Korean popsicles.


On our way to Me bar, we passed a Korean grocery store named H Mart and I made the mental note to check it out after dinner. After we said our goodbyes to Jay, Camie and James, Amanda and Andrew humored my request to check out the store.

After I walked in and saw this freezer stocked with Korean ice cream, I went a little crazy and everything's a blur:


I remember tossing tons and tons of ice cream and snacks into a basket (which I had told Andrew to grab once I saw the freezer above) and using all the cash in my wallet to pay for it (over $30). In fact, I paid, noticed boxes of French pies by the register, and bought them as well, to the amusement of the two male Korean cashiers who were wondering why the heck I was I was so excited by everything.

Here's a breakdown of the ice cream I bought - to be truthful, the only ice cream I actually ate as a kid was the B-B-B bar (what my family calls it) which is a delicious red bean ice cream. I know it sounds gross but even my Dad, who shuns a lot of foreign food, eats it. Although, Andrew took one bite of it and declared that he didn't like it. The rest were just different versions of ice creams I had eaten before and the only quality assurance I needed was that they were Korean. I also love the fact that some of them sported their Won prices on the label:



As for the snack foods, Amy and I had eaten all four time and time again as kids. In fact, the onion ring chips were served at our birthday parties. And my all time favorite, the food that my parents would send me in care packages when they lived in Korea three or four years ago, is the apple french pies:


The packaging has changed and Haitai has gotten cheap, as there's only one pie in each package instead of two:


But it's still the same messy, sugary, flaky goodness on the inside with dollop of apple jam:


It was totally worth the hassle of buying a cooler and ice to drive the ice cream back up to Boston. And also worth the look on Amy's face as she saw some of our old favorites.

Birthday Weekend Recap - Dinner at Kang Suh

After Me bar, we simply walked across the street to the Kang Suh restaurant. Here's a shot of Camie and James, who trekked all the way from Brooklyn to meet us for dinner:

Half the table ordered okdol bibimbap (me, Andrew and Amanda) while Camie and James opted for bulgogi and kalbi Korean BBQ and Jay for a Korean savory pancake. Poor Jay, his pancake ended up being served individually to all of us, but food was shared freely and the restaurant did a good job of providing banchan side dishes:

Andrew and I have definitely been spoiled by Apgujung because the bibimbap simply couldn't compare - it didn't come with neat and didn't have the same quality/variety of vegetables. Also, Amanda and I made the mistake of ordering gin and tonics which were so stiff that we nursed the drinks throughout dinner. However, Camie and James seemed to really like the Korean BBQ, which was what the restaurant is known for. I also have to mention that I was disappointed that no bowls of rice were served with the BBQ orders, which seemed really cheap to me and was unexpected, otherwise we would've ordered it separately:

The guys really seemed to enjoy their massive bottles of Korean Hite and OB beer:

Dinner was a fun sharing experience, and ended up being pretty reasonable split six ways although I feel like the guys definitely could've used slightly more food (again, rice would've helped).

Birthday Weekend Recap: Koreatown - Me Bar

Amanda, being the great hostess that she is, had carefully researched possible places to go for dinner and drinks. Knowing that Andrew and I love Korean food, she received a recommendation for a great place to have dinner in Koreatown and also had found a hidden gem of bar for us to grab drinks at before hand.

As we got out of the cab, it was clear to see that we were in the right place:


I was thrilled to see all the restaurants and signs with Korean writing:


We headed to Me bar, which is charming bar with an outdoor patio hidden on the 14th floor of the La Quinta hotel. We walked through the front doors, hopped on the elevator and rode straight up to the bar. We were able to score a corner table right off the bat, which was a great people watching position:

Amanda and Andrew look relieved to be sitting down after all the walking we accomplished earlier in the day:

As it started getting darker, we were served complimentary popcorn with some sort of spicy powder sprinkled on top as we waited for one of Andrew's friends from college - Jay - to join us. I had noticed a large building looming overhead when we first arrived and when I saw it lit up in the dark, I knew it had to be something well-known. I asked Amanda and Jay about it (no one else could really see it well from their seats unless angling their heads) and they incredulously exclaimed that it was the Empire State Building:

Oops, I guess I gave myself away as a tourist.