dinner b. good

Last week, Brian and I were graciously invited over to Elina’s condo in Boston for a deliciously catered dinner by b. good!

It was a warm night in the city and it was so nice to relax on her patio.

Some other bloggers in attendance were:

Lauren and her husband, John

Shannon

Alicia

Josh and his wife Melissa

After a drink (wine for me, beer for Brian) served by Elina’s husband, Adam, we mingled for a while until the food arrived!

Of course we all we’re snapping pictures before anyone even thought of digging in.  Brian was pretty amused by this as he’s never been around multiple food bloggers at one time haha!

b. good specializes in burgers, salads, sides, and shakes!  On their menu they offer your choice of Veggie, Turkey, and Beef burgers as well as Chicken Sandwiches.  Then you pick your style: Cousin Oliver, West Side, Buffalo, El Guapo, Adopted Luke, or a Seasonal Special.

Our dinner included a variety of MINI burgers!!  LOVE anything mini :)

Buffalo chicken sandwich:

 Cousin Oliver Burger – lettuce, tomato, pickles

Veggie Burger!  I’m not sure the style, I didn’t have this one.

 

El Guapo Turkey Burger: bacon, homemade jalapeño ranch, lettuce, tomato.  That jalapeño ranch had a big kick to it!  But so tasty!

If someone could make this for me everyday I’d be a happy girl…

Southwestern Chicken Salad – mesclun, avocado, corn, tomatoes, black beans, toasted corn, and chipotle balsamic dressing!

  
Sweet Potato Fry heaven :)

Smoothies!  Mango and Strawberry – Banana!  These were incredibly refreshing on a warm night.

  
Brian and I started by sharing these 2 plates…

We tried a buffalo chicken, Cousin Oliver burger, and turkey burger…all delicious!  I haven’t had a real beef burger in a long time and it hit the spot.  I think the buffalo might have been my favorite but they were all very very good!

(totally took this picture from Elina’s post, but I was lacking any good pictures of the group :)

Thank you so much to Elina and Adam for such a fun night!  I wish b. good would open closer to me, but since we’re only like 15min out of the city I think we could make the trip.

p.s. all “B” tags for this post ;) I resisted adding a tag for Brian and Bridget

Hot in Herrrre

Yeah, it’s been a straight up heat wave around New England lately!

We have a small window AC in our bedroom (thank god!), and another down stairs, but the one downstairs barely makes a difference.  Therefore the last thing I have been craving is a warm meal. (side note: it was actually really nice out last night and we grilled and ate outside, but more on that later this week)

I also had a fun-filled Bachelorette party weekend for my friend Jenny!  So I am going to just devote this post to things that are either…
good on a hot day, or just HOT in general ;)

First, one of my favorite warm weather dishes…

Caprese Salad…with basil from the garden of course!  Now I just need some of my tomatoes to ripen up and this will be even better!

Secret ingredient…

Seriously is the best olive oil EVER!!  If I could go back to Greece and bring you all home some I would ;)

I love the salad with just a drizzle of EVOO, salt, and pepper…but I also love it sometimes with tangy balsamic vinegar.  So I opted for a side of vinegar, so I could decided which bites would be dipped.

Now onto other “Hot” things…well the first may be more under the inappropriate category…

C’mon people!!  It’s a cake!!  Calm down :)  Don’t worry that’s as far as the “raunchiness” went this weekend.

Nice cool glass of Sauvignon Blanc at Cava with Jocy before the festivities of the day began.  We ate here for my bachelorette last year!

 

Cava’s Meza Plate…perfect summer food

Starting with the falafel with pickled red onion on the bottom left, going clock wise we have: tabbouleh, baba ghanoush, cous cous salad, hummus, Moroccan salsa, and back to the falafel

Seriously, BEST falafel I’ve ever had…with an amazing tahini sauce underneath

Bachelorette, resuming now…

enjoying some of the “man” cake

We all wore black, except the bride, not a huge fan of black but I conceded…thank god for Forever 21 sometimes right?!

 

Watch out Portsmouth…here we come!  Hotness…

The first bartender of the evening… he “unbuttoned” for the bride, but only for a minute haha

Sangria time!

Mmmmmm

Yeah it was hot AND humid…notice the hair starting to curl on it’s own.  I spent about half hour straightening it, only to have it back to a HOT mess by the end of the night!

College Roomies!!!!  Congrats Jenny!!!  Can’t wait for the wedding :)

Now I need to get this HOT laptop off my legs!! (yeah hopefully getting  a new one soon!!)

Stay Cool!

Homemade Fro-Yo Yo Yo

Continuing on from the Pesto dinner the other night…we were in dire need of a frozen treat!!

Now I know you’ve seen homemade tart frozen yogurt all over the blog world, I have too.  I think the first one I saw was way back on 101Cookbooks, and one of the more recent ones has been on Lauren’s blog

I liked the proportions of non-fat/low-fat yogurt and reduced sugar that Lauren was using, so I went with those measurements.

• 2 Cups Non-Fat Greek Yogurt
• 1 Cup 2% Greek Yogurt
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• I added about 1/8 tsp vanilla bean paste in the hopes for some flecks of vanilla bean in there…not really sure why I didn’t just use all paste instead…oh well next time

 

Throw it into your ice cream maker and let ‘er rip!

I was craving some of the toppings that I get when I hit up Berryline…which sometimes involves sugary kids cereal :)

So I bought this bad boy…

OMG, I used to always ask my mom to buy these when I was little!!  Of course I’d eat the few I liked and not the rest…hence I didn’t get them often ;)

My yogurt serving was going to involve one of these selections:

Fresh cut up nectarine

and fresh raspberries

Coco Puffs it is! 

The yogurt came out sooooooo creamy! 

I almost think it was even a tad too sweet…I might cut down the sugar to 1/3 of a cup next time! 

 

This has got to be the easiest homemade frozen treat yet!  I can’t wait to explore the possibilities and flavors.  

Perfect for this crazy heat wave we’re having up here!

Time for Body Pump, I haven’t been in weeks!!!  Should be interesting ;)

Homegrown Pesto with Broccoli and Chicken

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!!  I’m relishing in the final hours of my long weekend…why is it even with long weekends I always wish I had just one more day to just do nothing!

So the 5-mile race… don’t you love how 1 year can make you entirely forget how hard something is??  Well it was HOT and HILLY and I just really had to listen to my body on this one, so I ended up walking a lot of the hills.  I still shaved a few minutes off my time though!  This race is not chip timed, so by my watch I finished in about 53:30, which is about 3-4 minutes better than last year.  I was NOT going for any sort of time so I would of been happy with any time…I just wanted to finish!  :)

This afternoon when we got home I was in the mood to make dinner and new exactly what to make after watering the abundance of basil in our garden!

Pesto!  I went out with my herb snips and gathered some fragrant green leaves

I also grabbed some mesclun lettuce :)  Maybe for lunch tomorrow

I also grabbed the only 3 baby orange cherry tomatoes that were ripe

lots-o-basil…

Dinner started with marinating some Organic Free-Range skinless boneless chicken thighs in garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika, and fresh parsley!  This sat for about 1 hour before grilling

  Then onto the Pesto!  I don’t measure out much but here are the approximate amounts:

Basil Pesto

• 1 bunch fresh basil
• 1/3 cup Olive Oil
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese 
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2-3T pasta water
  
• First, chop the garlic cloves in half
• Heat about 3 T of the olive oil at medium heat and saute the garlic just for a minute or two…don’t brown it!!  This just takes the edge off the garlic a little.
• Add everything to the food processor
• Add the Basil

 

Process until you get a basil-y paste!  This is like a concentrated pesto paste :)

Either before or after making the pesto base, cook your pasta (I used whole wheat rotini).  When the pasta is done take a cup and scoop out some of the pasta water before draining.

Then add 2-3T of the water to the pesto and process…add water until desired consistency is reached.  DON’T ADD TOO MUCH!  You don’t want to dilute the pesto, just thin is out a little to make it more of a thick sauce…something you could still spread on a sandwich.  The pasta water also gives some creaminess to the sauce. 

This is what mine looked like after adding the pasta water…

Then I steamed some broccoli while Brian went out and grilled the chicken.

Combine pasta, pesto, and broccoli.

Chicken thighs are so juicy!

Mmmm

Pesto pasta + chicken + 1 tomato

My pesto comes out different every time but this batch was particularly delicious!  Can’t wait for lunch tomorrow…this is going to be awesome cold.  I’m so excited to use more of my garden-goods!

I have a nice cool air conditioned bedroom waiting for me :)  Good Night!