dagomakai: The Last Word: Chili, Chicago, Scotch and Home Cooking ...

শনিবার, ৮ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১২

The Last Word: Chili, Chicago, Scotch and Home Cooking ...

Our week in review: snippets of food, drink and fun stuff that didn?t make it in to a full post but we thought good enough to share.? Happy Friday!

?The Last Word: Jon Style

Chili Goodness: There a few things that I crave during a cold New England winter and one of them is a warm bowl of chili. I recently cooked a ?really good chili? [ - Lin] with a lot of veggies, beans, ground turkey breast and ground bison. The mixture slow cooked for over 6 hours, which was part of the secret to making ?really good chili?. Another part of the secret was the bacon I slow cooked in the crock pot for 45 minutes prior to adding all the other ingredients. The final part was luck because I didn?t have a recipe and winged the whole thing.

Grilling in December: Hoping and praying for a repeat of last year?s unusually mild winter, we took full advantage of the mid 50 degree weather we had recently and grilled some meat. Grilled lamb chops with some rosemary, garlic, pepper, salt and olive oil is one of our favorite meals.

The?Hors d?oeuvre that we will forever bring anywhere we go from here on out: Behold, hogs in a blanket from Food & Wine. I?m a big fan of finger food and one of my all-time favorites are pigs in a blanket. This is similar, but better. Definitely try them with a mixture of dijon mustard and a chutney (we used hot pepper jelly and hot tomato). Now who?s having a holiday party?!

Scotch, scotch, scotch: Single malt whisky is another one of those things I crave during the late fall-winter. I can drink whisky any time of the year as it is one of my favorite pastimes, but I tend to consume the majority of my yearly consumption of it during the colder months. Lin too. Cheers!

Brunch with pastries that came from heaven: I may be one of the few people in the world that doesn?t really care for brunch, but if Farmstead Table in Newton did brunch regularly, I may be swayed. During Newton Centre?s annual Holiday Stroll, FST opened its doors to the brunch crowd and gave us a something special. Some of the highlight?s included the delicious pastries below. Full post to follow.

While Lin was away, Jon was home with the dog and working: Every year, Lin travels to Chicago the week after Thanksgiving for work. It?s tough timing right after Thanksgiving, especially the traveling, but we make do. Her trip includes an annul deep-dish pizza and this year?s was from Lou Malnati?s. In an epic Boston vs Chicago deep-dish pizza showdown last year, we pitted frozen and shipped Lou Malnati?s against Lena?s America?s Test Kitchen recipe. She won hands down, but Lin says it was still nice to check out the original place.