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Buying food is one of my favorite things to do, right up there with tasting wine and visiting places where wine is made (or where food is made!). Saving money on day-to-day things so that I can do the above is also a favorite of mine, so I am always on the lookup for bargains and often compare prices from store-to-store.

Back in October, the Target in the South Bay Shopping Center in Dorchester got all fancy and became part-grocery store. South Bay is not one of my favorite places; it can be downright chaotic, but it’s close, and as much as I love me a small, local store, I do love Target.

And their grocery section is good! They have a lot of great deals, especially for their Archer’s Farms brand. A favorite this time around? Strawberry Cheesecake yogurt. It really tasted like cheesecake and made for a nice little Monday breakfast with some walnuts.

Target had some of my favorite things, including these addictive sweet peppers.

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While I was making dinner, I kept washing and eating them raw. I had to make myself save some for the chicken, which turned out to be skillet chicken with sweet peppers, tomatoes, and goat cheese.

I was happy to see that Target offers some humanely-raised chicken. It was a little more expensive, but this is one of the places I am willing to spend more.

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Here you see the chaos of my cooking station. I try to get lunches and dinner done at the same time. And eat olives while I cook.

The chicken was a really simple preparation. I threw it and a lot of olive oil into a pan and got it cooking. I wanted to make sure the outside got golden brown.

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When both sides were cooked, I added in grape tomatoes that were getting to that wrinkly point and the chopped sweet peppers. I topped it with a little more olive oil and some garlic powder and let it cook away while I made some spinach with lemon and garlic to go underneath.

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It always amazes me how spinach cooks down. An entire bag of fresh baby spinach made two teeny servings. It was good, but I want more spinach!

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Once the chicken and vegetables were cooked I put them on top of the spinach and then topped the whole thing with goat cheese which started getting nice and melty with the heat. After feeling icky for days, this bright meal was just the thing to help boost my energy. I am having daily freak-outs about my inability to run, with the marathon coming up more quickly than I would like. I am hoping some good eating and a little more rest will have me back to normal soon!

Do you have a particular grocery store you always shop at? Have you ever shopped for groceries at Target?

Tags: chicken, Food, goat cheese, grocery shopping, recipe

Most of my cooking involves throwing in a bit of this and a pinch of that. I rarely follow recipes to the letter, but I do love a good cookbook for inspiration.

Last week I received a review copy of CHLOE’S KITCHEN: 125 Easy, Delicious Recipes for Making the Food You Love the Vegan Way, and it was truly love at first flip-through. Like the cover, the rest of the book is vibrant, clean, and welcoming, a celebration of really good homemade vegan food. If you know someone who equates eating vegan with eating celery and carrots all day long, this book would be a good way to sway their opinion.  

There are all sorts of recipes, from salads to desserts, with some hearty, soul-soothing vegan fare in between. You could easily make any of the recipes in this book for a group of people, whether vegan or not, and the conversation would likely be on the fresh, creative cuisine, not the missing meat or dairy!

With recipes like Falafel Sliders with Avocado Hummus, Garlic Knots, and Baked Sprinkle Donuts, there is no deprivation here, just good eating.

Chloe's Kitchen

Here’s  a photo of my copy. Despite being crazy busy, I stopped everything I was doing to bookmark about 10 recipes in this book. As you can see, I grabbed from my work area to bookmark, so there are post-its, scraps of envelopes, and business cards. I like to reuse, I guess.

The book is very aesthetically pleasing, and many, if not most of the recipes appealed instantly to my palate. I declared to my husband that we would be eating vegan for the next week. He basically said “Meh”, and I remembered that if I just made and served the food, he would eat it, love it, and probably not think about vegan vs. not.

Chloe's Kitchen

So what did I make?

cashews

We started with the Wontons with Apricot Mustard Sauce. I ended up subbing sriracha for mustard, and the mix of that with apricot jam was to-die-for. The filling in the wontons featured cashews, carrots, mushrooms, and ginger, among other things. These made for a delicious and fun weeknight dinner; we chatted and caught up on our days as we filled the wontons.

wontons

Over the weekend I also made the Herbed Polenta Cutlets with Marsala Mushroom Ragout. I subbed in a bottle of red wine I had open for the Marsala, and overall we liked the dish. It was rustic and had a meaty, hearty quality from the mushrooms and wine. This is definitely a dish for a cold wintry night.

mushroom

To get ready for the work week, I also made the Tuscan Bean and Greens Soup over Garlic Toast. I subbed in pinto beans for white beans because that’s all we had in the house. The pink beans gave the soup a weird color, but other than that, it was fantastic, garlicky, full of greens, and great served up over hot, crispy garlic toast.

Tuscan greens soup

And last, but so not least, I made the Avocado Pesto Pasta. If you love avocado and pesto, you can probably imagine what this pasta tasted like. To me, it was pure, creamy comfort food. Don’t worry, I did add pasta. I just thought that the tomatoes and avocado pesto looked lovely together.

tomatoes and avocado pesto

CHLOE’S KITCHEN offers menu suggestions for various occasions, something I always find helpful. Regardless of how often I cook a multi-course meal, I never know what  to make for each course so that there is a natural flow and cohesion. This book  is going to be my go-to recipe inspiration for the next few weeks at the very least.

I did receive this review copy for free, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

Tags: cookbooks, cooking, Food, recipes, review, vegan, Vegetarian

A Thursday night after a very long and trying week calls for a good cocktail. ArtBar at the Royal Sonesta is making Thursday’s once- a-month even better with a chance to taste, mix, and learn from an expert in their new cocktail classes. Director of Food and Beverage Troy Clarke is sharing his love for cocktails, his expertise, and the innovation happening at ArtBar, and last night we participated in a class on American whiskey. Classes fill up, but luckily Jon made sure we had a space. We joined Jon, Lindsey, and Adam to become whiskey experts. . . well we learned a lot! And had some delicious cocktails.

Bully Boy white whiskey

The scene was set with whiskey: Bully Boy White Whiskey, which is made right here in Boston, Prichard’s Rye Whiskey, and Woodford Bourbon Whiskey.

ArtBar

And the night kicked off with, what else, but a cocktail! We sampled house-aged Bully Boy White Whiskey in this Manhattan. Yum.

Troy walked us through tasting spirits (Hint: It’s different than wine. Stick your nose in the glass, and breathe deep, you might just ruin your sense of smell for the night.) and he gave us a good amount of background information on the whiskeys we were tasting before we launched into making out own cocktails.

Royal Sonesta Director of Food and Beverage, Troy Clarke

Tasted on their own, I liked the Prichard’s Rye Whiskey the best for its vanilla caramel notes. The color and the different notes in the whiskeys come from the barrels in which they age. The white whiskey skips the barrel and heads straight into the bottle.

whiskey

Tables were set with all of the ingredients we needed to make two cocktails, an Old Fashioned  and a Sazerac.

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We each had a recipe card at our place, along with a bunch of glasses, and we got right to mixing. I may not have been paying 100% attention during the instruction part, so things were a little silly during the cocktail-making. The end result, my “Old Fashioned Old Fashioned” (called that because like the original Old Fashioned, it’s missing fruit), was quite good. And we have all of the ingredients, whiskey, sugar, bitters, soda water, and lemon peel at home so I can practice a bit more.

Old Fashioned

Peychaud's  Bitters

The second cocktail we made was a Sazerac. Featuring Peychaud’s Bitters, Rye Whiskey, and Herbsaint, the Sazerac was a little bitter for me, and since we strained out the ice, a little strong, but I still enjoyed it and had fun making it.

Sazerac

Sazerac

The class ended with lots of questions for Troy about all sorts of things like stirring cocktails vs. shaking them, complete with a demonstration.

Next up is a Brandy class. We get back from Sonoma (!!!!!!!) just a few days before, so I may have to give it a miss, but if you love cocktails, check it out.

 

Of course, there was also food involved throughout the evening. When we arrived, my husband and I took advantage of the happy hour food menu and shared some delicious pulled pork tacos.

pork tacos

During the class, we were treated to some bites to keep us fueled as we mixed up our cocktails. I’m not sure what was in the spoons, but it was very good.

appetizers

And, as I tend to do, I ended the night with fries. ArtBar’s menu features baskets of fries and sweet potato tots with spicy banana ketchup, pesto crème fraiche, and roasted garlic parmesan. These fries and tots and sauces, and in particular the garlic parmesan, were amazing. Add this to my post-long run cravings list.

fries and tots

fries and tots

We closed out the night with one of the best Irish coffees I have ever had on either side of the Atlantic. Troy makes a very good Irish coffee that integrates the flavors of the coffee, whiskey, and sugar perfectly without any one overwhelming the others. With St. Patrick’s Day around the corner, you should get yourself to ArtBar for one of these.

Irish coffee

All in all, it was a really fun night. The cocktail classes at ArtBar are well worth the $20 cover. You end up with several cocktails, some great cocktail and spirit education, and a taste of ArtBar’s creative menu, quite the deal!

And if you dine at ArtBar before or after the class, you get 10% off your food. The Royal Sonesta’s Web Media Manager did also treat us to cocktails and a warm welcome. It was great to chat with her to hear about upcoming events at ArtBar. They have pretty much one of the best views in Boston, and are really doing a lot of cool, quality things food and drink wise.

I stayed out way too late, am exhausted and pretty much still have a whole week of work to do. I have not been able to catch up this week, my training runs have felt awful, and other than an enjoyable time at ArtBar, I am completely cranky this week.

I might go to bed at 7:00 tonight.

What are you most looking forward to this weekend?

Tags: bloggers, bourbon, cambridge, cocktails, events, Food, Restaurants, whiskey

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