Second Dinner

Dinner tonight was a flop. We tried a new recipe- chicken and broccoli casserole from The Six O'Clock Scramble Cookbook. I think the word "casserole" should have warned me off, but I wanted to try it. The Six O'Clock Scramble Cookbook is somewhat hit-and-miss with us. The positives are that the recipes are easy, relatively inexpensive, healthy, and tasty-sounding. The negatives are that the recipes tend to not produce enough food to feed my husband (who eats A LOT, although you wouldn't know it from looking at him), and they tend to be somewhat bland. I think the blandness is in part so the recipes appeal to kids, since the hook of the cookbook is quick, family-friendly dinners. The recipes are somewhat adventurous, given these constraints, but I often find that I need to add a teaspoon of salt to any recipe from that cookbook, because the author almost never includes it in the recipe. We don't eat that much salt at our house; we eat far less than most people. There are some real winners in that cookbook, though. The chicken tikka is a favorite of ours, and there's a spinach noodle bake that is also very tasty. I sometimes bulk it up for my husband by serving a fried egg on top.

Knowing what I know about the overall blandness in these recipes, I decided to punch up the flavor. I sauteed onions to add in with the chicken and broccoli, and when I made the sauce to pour over the chicken, broccoli, and onions, I added lemon zest and salt. I also mixed in a tablespoon of butter into the breadcrumb/shredded cheese mixture that we put on the top before baking.

I didn't think it was that bad, but my husband hated it. He forced himself to eat a small portion. Then we went for a walk, with the idea that he might be able to pick up second dinner for himself. We walked to Harvard Square, and walked around a lot before finally settling on The Garage, which is this food court type building. I had ice cream at Ben and Jerry's (still better than Emack and Bolio's), and my husband had a burger at Flat Patties. Although I liked the fries, which were thinly cut and well cooked, the burger didn't go over so well. I am not sure what the problem was, only that he didn't like it, although he ate almost all of it. He said he might be in a picky mood. I said that he was only allowed to reject one dinner per night! He came home and had a bowl of Weetabix. My opinion of Weetabix is a whole other post.

Boston Eats

Three weeks ago, I moved from the Organic/Local Food Capital of the World (California, that is) to Boston. I am crazy, crazy, crazy about eating, so the first thing in any new place that I am most attuned to is the opportunity for food consumption. Eating is also what sticks out in my memory the most. When we visited Boston during the winter to see if we wanted to move here, we pulled up to the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, and I said, "Hey, I've eaten here!" I had a great meal at Henrietta's Table when I visited a friend of mine at Harvard during our college years. I remember almost nothing else about that visit (well, I also remember being incredibly excited to see the ducklings statues... Make Way for Ducklings was one of my favorite books as a child), but I remember eating at Henrietta's Table.

Food was good in California. Really good. How will Boston stack up?