My in-laws came up to Boston for the weekend, and we enjoyed some good eats over a two day span.
We had planned to go to Neptune Oyster in the North End on Saturday night – and even showed up at the embarrassingly early time of 5:30 to get a table at the uber-popular restaurant – but were told there was a 2 1/2 hour wait.
Yikes.
Needless to say, we opted for a spot around the corner (Rabia’s) were I enjoyed an amazingly creative dish of apple ravioli with figs in a gorgonzola cream sauce (the iPhone photos of which were promptly discarded due to poor lighting) followed by a cannoli from Mike’s Pastry.
This right here my friends is a peanut butter cannoli that was approximately the size of my forearm.
Ok, slight exaggeration… but this guy was HUGE and, needless to say, amazingly delicious.
Easter has never been a big holiday for my family – though my parents did set up an annual egg hunt for my brother and me – so I stayed home to cook dinner while John and his folks went to church on Sunday morning.
The spread:
- a big green salad with sliced toasted almonds, dried cranberries, crumbled goat cheese, and a maple-Dijon vinaigrette
- roasted asparagus
- baked maple/brown sugar-glazed ham
- mashed maple sweet potatoes
- a variety of freshly baked rolls from Whole Foods
I honestly could have made a meal out of just the asparagus & sweet potatoes, but everything was delicious!
My mother-in-law put together a beautiful Easter basket for us, including these gorgeous flowers, which are now gracing one of our living room window sills:
They remind me of how nice it is to have fresh flowers inside :).
3. The editorial assignment for this week’s Back Burner post is “local ingredients”.
Since most farmer’s markets aren’t yet open here in Massachusetts, I perused the aisles of Whole Foods with an eye out for the “I’m a local!” tags.
I came up with this simple – but delicious – salad featuring locally grown greens, goat cheese from locally raised cows, and two New England specialties: dried cranberries (grown on Cape Cod) and maple syrup (tapped from trees in Vermont).
You can find more recipes here!
