Chocolate genache cake

 https://baranbakery.com/chocolate-ganache-cake/#mv-creation-339-jtr

I made this recipe because I had a lot of heavy cream to use up.  I liked the frosting,  but not the cake. The cake was a little dense and dry.

More zucchini

I planted more zucchini than we could use again.  In addition to some of the same hits from last summer, here's what I tried making this summer 

Chocolate zucchini loaf cake

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023356-chocolate-zucchini-loaf-cake?smid=ck-recipe-android-share

I wasn't a huge fan and neither were the kids. Folks at work liked it though!

Zucchini cake with ginger and hazelnut 

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/9661-zucchini-cake-with-ginger-and-hazelnuts?smid=ck-recipe-android-share

I really liked this cake/quick bread. The first time I made it, I vegaized it by using a combination of ground flax and chia seeds and a frozen banana.  I also didn't have hazelnuts so used walnuts instead.  The second time i made it i followed the recipe more closely. I think I liked the first version better.  Perhaps I will chop the hazelnut smaller next time.  

I made this cake too,but it wasn't what I wanted  (zucchini spice cake)

https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/zucchini-cake-3075406

Apple tart

 https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a23364812/apple-tart-recipe/?fbclid=IwAR3gZxYTCYRdYPxQRaqU8SgzeDAxfhVbqiiv76B_M9BHUY9PoP03saiqDsQ

I made this after seeing it on the FB dinner group. I didn't use the crust recipe, though because we had a tube of sugar cookie. It turned out ok, but needed a little more sugar because the apples were quite tart.

Posto, post W30

We ate at Posto last night and I felt good after eating all the things!
Lemon arancini, beet salad with goat cheese, bruchetta with goat cheese and some pizza.
I'm going to have to try to re-create the arancini sometime soon.

Sarma

Ebon and I got out for a date night after long bouts of illness on both of our parts for several months. We went to Sarma in the eastern part of our fair city of Somerville - it's in the "lowlands" between Winter Hill and Spring Hill. We didn't have a reservation, but thought we might be able to get a spot at the bar, seeing as it was early (6:30pm) on on Sunday. Boy were we wrong! It was super busy with several groups of people waiting to sit at the bar. We put our name on the list with the hosts in case anyone canceled their reservation and started waiting in the bar for seats there. Ebon ordered drinks - beer for him and non-alcoholic drink for me (Buzz Aldrin, the menu said it had Orange, Cinnamon, and Sage). I thought mine was pretty good, not too sweet - hopefully no added sugar. Being newbies, we didn't know that the bar had a separate list for seats there too, so we put our names on that list! Luckily, someone else had cancelled a reservation so we got to eat in the dining room!

I ordered the beets without the goat cheese and the asparagus. Ebon ordered the fava bean pate, potato wedges, and the vegetable frito misto - all of which were not W30 compliant, so I didn't have any of his. My dinner was 90-95% compliant though, the asparagus had an egg that was wrapped? in some phylo spikes, so that was probably not compliant, but I'm pretty sure everything else was. The beets were very good and the "salsa" that was on it was fragrant and spicy, but not hot spicy. The asparagus was OK, the flavors were very interesting but I didn't really taste the black truffles and thought the asparagus was a little too burnt - though it wasn't overcooked. I was pretty full after eating everything though!

Ebon ordered a dessert- frozen yogurt with a chocolate/peanut topping- but didn't like it because the yogurt was too tart and the chocolate was dark/bitter. I had mint tea that was lovely.

Ebon seemed to like his meal, but said it was kind of "fancy" for his taste.
I'm glad we got to go, but not sure we'll go back together. I'd probably go back, but not with the W30 restrictions.

Whole30 Day Eight

I've completed a week of this and have not shriveled up to die!

• Breakfast was three eggs, half an avocado, half a sweet potato, and garlicky greens. I cooked up a big batch of kale and beet greens for the coming days! The eggs were a little overcooked, if nothing else, I will hopefully have learned how to cook eggs better.
• Some green grapes for snack.
• Lunch was broccoli and some leftover ratatouille with walnuts and hemp hearts sprinkled on top. I fried up two eggs with runny yokes, much better than breakfast.
• Ebon and I finally went out on a date for dinner at Sarma. The food was pretty good, and I had a few options to choose from. I'll put more detail here!

I finally made ghee in the crockpot. I have a pretty old-school crockpot and I don't think I had enough butter in there to reach the main part of the heating element. I tried to follow the method outlined in this tutorial, but after about 6 hours or so on high, the milk solids never really got brown. I tried to transfer to a pot on the stove, but it kept bubbling up and splattering everywhere. I had pretty good luck filtering out the top stuff using an old napkin. However, once I got down to the milk solids on the bottom, those were flowing though the filter too. Only a little bit got through, and I probably should have tried to re-filter, but by that point I was so done. I just said screw it. Hopefully that doesn't ruin it in the long run.

Also I felt like I had a lot of energy yesterday, so much so that I almost cleaned the whole house - vacuumed all the rugs-including the basement, swept, and most time and energy intensive - cleaned the bathroom and especially the tub. It was so disgusting, and now it's much cleaner. I always feel so much better when the house is clean!

Long weekend

Thursday - Thai food leftovers - exciting!
Friday - On our way up to Stowe, VT, we stopped to get dinner. Driving along I-89 in NH, it it difficult to tell what kind of food is at the exits. In most other states, there are signs telling you which restaurants are at the exit before you get off, but this is not the case along I-89. There is only a sign that there's food, so you have to take the exit to find out what kind of food is there and if you like it, great. We kept getting on and off the interstate because as vegetarians, our options are somewhat limited when it comes to fast-food on the go. In previous travels, I had been to the Lebanon/Hanover exit and I thought I remembered some food there. We got off one way, but there wasn't anything, so we turned around and went into the town. There in the "historic distict" of Lebanon, NH we had dinner at Three Tomatoes. It was pretty decent, we had the Margarita pizza along with an arugula and beet salad. Though as a wood-fired pizza place, I'd put the pizza below Posto and Flatbread Pizza at Sacco's.
Saturday - attended a wedding at the Stoweflake Resort. The food was excellent. Other Saturday activities included a trip to the Ben & Jerry's factory and the Cabot Cheese annex where there were many samples to be had!
Sunday - Before departing Stowe, we had breakfast at the Dutch Pancake Cafe. The food was great, but we waited sooooo long to get it. Our waitress must have been in another world, because she wasn't doing her job attending to us - that's for sure!  Once we finally got our food, that kept us full until we got home.  At that point, Ebon had the Burger King he was craving all weekend and I had the leftover pizza from Friday night. We also stopped at the Cabot Cheese annex once more to buy cheese to bring home with us. We ended up leaving with about five pounds of cheese! Plenty to last for quite a while. Grilled cheese and tomato soup will be on the menu sometime this week!

Food Truck Dinner

Ebon gets regular email updates from Kicka** Cupcakes, so he found out about the Boston Food Truck Throwdown on Saturday:

So after a little hike in the woods at the Middlesex Fells with the pooch and some friends, we decided to check it out.  Wow, there were SOO many people there! Lines for the different trucks snaked around the park and sometimes crossed each other. Ebon works near Dewey Square where there are food trucks there on a regular basis for lunch, so he's had fare from most of the Boston trucks already. The big draw seemed to be what was new - all the trucks from New York and we weren't immune to their novelty. We decided to divide and conquer. I stood in line for about 45 minutes to get empanadas by Nuchas. and Ebon headed over to get something sweet - waffles from Wafles & Dinges. After guessing the size in terms of the price and seeing other people eat them, I thought that two or three empanadas would be sufficient for dinner. I got us the Portobello, two Spicy Cheese, and Shitake Curry empanadas and a sweet empanada filled with apples cranberry, pear, and nutella. I met up with Ebon still in line for the waffles, and we scarfed down the empanadas before he ordered five (yes five) waffles.
The empanadas were all quite tasty, we both liked the curry empanada the best - it was flavorful and hearty and the curry sauce kept dripping down my fingers. The sweet empanada was also really tasty
The waffles were also quite good, they have two different kinds of waffles, a "crusty" type and a "soft" type. I think he got two "crusty"- one with maple syrup and one with chocolate; and three "soft"- one with strawberries, one with bananas, and one with speculoos spread and whipped cream. That was my first introduction to speculoos spread and I'm hooked! It is a gingerbread-based cookie paste, and that is what it tastes like too. Supposedly Trader Joes had this back in April, so I'm going to have to go check and see if they have any. I also found a recipe for it that I'll have to try out. After all the waffles had been consumed, I pulled out the sweet empanada, and I really enjoyed it. I thought the dough was a bit chewy, but the filling was an excellent mix of tart and sweet.  If you can't tell, I like that combo. It had gotten pretty cold once the sun went down, so we retreated to the warmth of the subway and headed back home, with a quick stop at Flat Top Johnny's to play darts and pool.
How is the food truck scene near you? Any delectable food not seen in a restaurant?