2010: Full of Family, Friends, Food, and Fun

Looking back, 2010 was kind of a blur! The hubby and I were busy all year, in a good way. And we both turned the big 3-0!  Every month was filled with visits and adventures with friends (new and old) and family.  We attended a total of 5 weddings (and celebrated one engagement).  Between the hubby and I we traveled to 10 states and to Spain.  Of course every adventure was accompanied by delicious meals - both home-cooked and restaurant cuisine.  We sampled local specialties and visited farmers markets in every place we could.

As Good Cook Doris celebrates 2 years of tasty posts, here's to a 2011 filled with even more delicious adventures!

Before the recap, here is the overdue announcement of our first Good Cook Doris giveaway winner! Congratulations to Joanna from The Hungry Crafter who said...

"I think what every man should know can be summed up in two words: "Yes, dear." One of the first things I taught my fiance. Now if I win this book, I can teach him something else ;)"

I hope your fiance enjoys this book and cooks you some delicious meals!

Good Cook Doris' 2010 Recap

January
The year started by celebrating Tim and MaryBeth's engagement and bundling up for the BU v. BC hockey game at Fenway Park.  Shortly after, our newest nephew came to visit from sunny LA (with parents of course).  Just look at how happy he was to be in the freezing Boston winter!  We celebrated the one year anniversary of Good Cook Doris and continued to create new dishes in the kitchen.  Winter Market season kicked off in the suburbs and we were able to buy local foods year round.

February and March

Always the longest short month of the year in New England, typically full of snow and gray days. My February was brightened with a 30th birthday surprise! While I was in on the party planning for my big birthday, I was not in on the special surprise. The hubby surprised me by arranging for my mom to come in for the party!  I thought that was all, but when he picked me up at work the next day my brother was in the car too.  We had a wonderful weekend together and they cooked a fantastic Spanish feast as a preview of our trip to Spain.

Our Spanish adventure was a combination celebration of our 30th birthdays and our 5th wedding anniversary. We started in Madrid with a day trip to Toledo. After eating our way through Madrid, we jumped on the train and headed south to the beautiful city of Seville. We enjoyed the architecture, people, food, and pretty much everything about the trip.  Thanks to recommendations from a friend we visited local favorites, saw lesser known museums, and explored different neighborhoods in each city.  One unexpected highlight was the Roman ruins outside of Seville in Italica. The amphitheater was the third largest in the Roman Empire! There were original tile floors, a bread oven, and outlines of most of the buildings in this ancient city.

Despite not eating jamon, we managed to eat a lot! From the Mercado de San Miguel with aceitunas and queso to the leg of lamb at Botin (oldest restaurant in the world, est. 1725) we enjoyed the local cuisine. Some places we even visited twice - like Chocolateria San Gines for churros con chocolate and the market for huge plates of pickles and olives.  

The month of March finished off with a trip to Kansas City to surprise my oldest friend Mara for her 30th birthday! Her husband asked me to fly in to surprise her, how could I say no? Our moms were sorority sisters in college and we were born exactly 3 weeks apart. She grew up in KC and I grew up in St. Louis, but there were a lot of trips back in forth. And there were often matching outfits.  In honor of our matching fashions during our elementary school years, I brought along outfits for us to wear for the birthday weekend.  During the trip I also got to spend time with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and their cute dog Sam.  

April

In April we took a quick trip to St. Louis to visit my grandmother and family.  The rest of the month was busy finishing up class work and projects around the house.  The hubby has been working at his job for over seven years, which meant an 8 week sabatical.  He used his time off for our trip, to paint the bedroom and bathroom and take a class to learn how to lay ceramic tiling. This summer I'm looking forward to a freshly tiled back porch.

May

May marked the start of summer farmers market season in Boston with the opening of the Copley Square Farmers Market and the SoWa Food & Produce Market. I started my weekly visits to Copley and was excited to get to know some new vendors this year.  Mara came to town for a visit and we explored the SoWa market on its first day of the season. Our friend Avi threw a gourmet dinner party and we dined in style and caught up with some of the hubby's old friends from college.

May also marked my return to running. After running the Disney Marathon in January 2008, it would be fair to say that I have not laced up my sneakers very regularly.  Thanks to my unexplainable ability to win contests on twitter, I "won" two entries into Boston's Run to Remember. I picked the 5-mile option and signed up my dining partner Renee to run with me.  We survived the race and celebrated with ice cream!

In addition to seeing all my old friends, I also got to meet some of my favorite bloggers in person at a wine tasting hosted by Michelle and Megan. It was the first of many delicious meetings over the summer and fall.

June

The celebrations continued in June! The hubby's parents bought him a cake that suggested "3" more than "30", but it was just as delicious.  We hosted a backyard party with lots of delicious meat and good friends. While the 80's trivia game proved too challenging for those of us born in 1980 we still had a blast.  

This year I am honored to be the president of my sorority's Boston Alumnae Chapter. I represented our chapter at the International Convention held in sunny Orlando.  It was an amazing experience with over 800 women, both alumnae and collegians gathering together for a week of fun.  Of course I had to take a quick detour to my favorite park - Epcot.  I flew straight from Florida to New York for wedding number #1 of the season. We met up with family from all over the country for a fabulous celebration.

July
No surprise - July was full of more fun! We hit the road and headed south to Westport, CT to see our LA family who was visiting for a wedding. All of the MA family headed down too. It was quite a party!  Our nephew Sammy was a perfect beach baby and we also toured the aquarium and downtown Westport.  On the way home the hubby and I stopped for my first trip to the drive-in (in Mendon, MA).  Later in the month I joined my mom and brother for wedding #2 of the season in St. Louis.

August
Tomatoes! My little tomato plants that I bought on the first day of market season grew into tall, healthy plants covered in little green zebra tomatoes.  But before I could harvest them all, some furry creature (or hungry neighbor) took them all. Not to worry, they eventually came back.

I met up with my Boston blogger friends for a wonderful restaurant week dinner at Sportello. A fun bonus? We got filmed for a promotion with Southwest Airlines!  A lovely foodie from Philly did a 'dish trip'  on Southwest - flying to Boston for one day to take in the cities best dining.  We were her dinner stop before she headed back home. While our dinner is just a quick toast on the video, you can see some of my new friends in the earlier parts of the video.

Local in Season hit the market scene in August at the Roslindale Market. I joined Jon and Michelle for the Tomato and Zucchini day at the market. It was a lot of fun chatting with farmers market shoppers about local food and sharing the Local in Season message.

September
September was jam packed! The LA family headed east again for Rosh Hashana and a beautiful wedding  of Josh's cousin (#3 of the season).  The wedding was on the pavilion at the Museum of Science looking out onto the Charles River.  The following weekend we packed up and flew south to Virginia for Tim and MaryBeth's big day (#4 of the season).  Their wedding was a blast - held at a winery in Virginia Wine Country.  The weather was spectacular and we had a wonderful time toasting the newlyweds.  As a bonus, we got to stop and see two other good friends on our way back to the airport.

October

One thing that is different about my gastronomy classes is the amount of reading!  I spent a lot of hours reading about the sociology, philosophy, and anthropology of food this fall.  It was fascinating and I'm looking forward to another class this upcoming semester.  When I wasn't reading, we were out enjoying the beautiful fall weather.  We started the month with wedding #5 of the season, one of the hubby's high school friends. Renee and I laced up our shoes and met up with our sorority sisters for our second race of the year, the Tufts 10K.

I spent a day in the glorious sunshine at the first annual Boston Local Food Festival with Local in Season. The crowd was huge and it was wonderful to meet so many readers and local food companies. That's where I met Joanna, the winner of the giveaway!

November
November marked the end of the 'summer' market season. I closed out my share at Atlas farms and started to get ready for a big Thanksgiving in St. Louis with my family.  This year almost everyone came into town and we stuffed ourselves with Turkey day favorites, White Castle, Frank and Helen's (best hamburger & onion pizza anywhere), and more.

December
We followed our family Thanksgiving trip with a visit to the hubby's parents in Columbus. We had a low-key weekend full of delicious eats.  I posted a recap of our dining adventures and couldn't figure out why my traffic was so high. Turns out the market we visited and a number of the vendors posted links to my post on their sites! What a wonderfully supportive food community!  Next time you're in Columbus, be sure to visit them all!

I spent a lot of hours working on my first research paper for the gastronomy program. I am working on a shorter version for the blog - while it was a fascinating topic I don't think that you all want to read my 17 page paper! I researched Boston area farmers markets and the increasing participation by female food entrepreneurs. Since I spent a lot of time at markets this season it was a fun topic to research. Thanks to the lovely food entrepreneurs who helped provide insights and information for the paper.

There could be no better way to end the year than with family and friends! We spent Christmas Eve with my sister- and brother-in-law and our three nephews. I will admit, it's hard to answer questions about why Santa doesn't go to Auntie Lara and Uncle Josh's house too.  I just hope we aren't the ones to blow Santa's cover.

Christmas Day we packed up half a dozen KO Catering and Pies frozen meat pies and a few sausage rolls and flew to DC to meet up with Mara and her Aussie husband Mark.  We spent four days touring the historical sites, eating at unique local eateries, and taking it all in.  Thanks to my twitter friends for all of the delicious food recommendations. There will be a separate post on our DC dining.

Here's to a fabulous 2011! Happy cooking to all!  Cheers!

A few fun blog facts for 2010, in honor of my second blog-a-versary!

How many visitors?
4,559 Unique Visitors
9,821 visits
16,283 pageviews

Where are they from?
80 Countries
52 States (thanks Google analytics)
The country with the longest average visit time: Switzerland

How did they find the blog?
14% Direct visitors
Top Referral Sites:
1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Foodbuzz
4. Blogger
5. Hootsuite
6. Boston.com
7. Google
8. Refrigerator Soup
9. Foodie Blogroll
10. Local in Season

Top Keywords in Search Engines (excluding Good Cook Doris)
1. Slow braising roast beef
2. Comida de Espana
3. Quick Friday night dinners
4. In the kitchen where I'm cooking where its good for me -- this one is my personal favorite (it resulted in 30 page views!)

Top Content
1. Main page
2. About Us
3. Not Such a Simple Stew (Project Food Blog entry #2)
4. Reading List
5. Good Cook Doris' New Adventures (Project Food Blog entry #1)

Thanks for joining me on my adventure!

When He Fends For Himself: A Quesadilla Every Man Should Know

The cookbook Recipes Every Man Should Know showed up in the mail a few days after the wife told me that she received an email from the publisher offering her a review copy.  I told her I would review one of its recipes for my next dinner. I knew the book was coming, so when it came I was surprised that the book was so small. My expectations on size and content probably lead to my initial impression that the book was unimpressive. I went through most of the recipes and thought that dishes like "Baked Potato" and "A Great Cup of Joe" did not warrant individual entries. These were not recipes every man should know, they were "recipes" any productive member of society would be embarrassed not to know (and that's saying something coming from me). I was thinking that the follow up to this could be "The Man's Guide to Doing Laundry -- How to survive when you move out of mom's basement"

It took a couple times going through the Table of Contents and seeing titles like "Baja-style Fish Tacos" and "Sexy Strawberry Zabaglione" before I warmed up to the rest of the list and settled on "Quick-and-Easy Quesadillas" as my dish. It also took a few looks at Table of Contents to decide on what to make because I was looking for a dinner meal, which removed more than half the book ("Hearty Breakfast Classics", "Beer, Bacon, and Bar Food", and "Chocolate, Cheesecake, & More") from consideration. I settled on quesadillas because they are a meal I like, I've never actually made them, and they looked pretty easy.

The following night I knew I was on my own for dinner because the wife had after work plans, so I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up the  necessary ingredients. The cookbook said to have flour tortillas, 1/2 cup of shredded cheese, and "fillings of my choice". At the store I picked up the tortillas and cheese, as well as sour cream, salsa, red peppers, and grilled chicken from the store's salad bar. I knew I wanted the chicken but I didn't want to have to cook that as well. Finding the pre-cooked salad bar chicken, I thought, was a nice solution.

I arrived home and immediately jumped into action. I got the skillet out, added some olive oil to the pan and placed the tortilla in. After cutting up a red pepper, I placed it, the cheese, and the chicken on half of the tortilla and let it sit for about 2 minutes. I then folded the tortilla in half, flipped it, and cooked the other side for a remaining 3 minutes. When that was complete, I plated the quesadilla, cut it into quarters, and added salsa and sour cream on the side. The whole meal took about 10 minutes to prepare and was actually very easy. It tasted pretty good and I enjoyed my dinner that night and was pleased with the outcome. When I need to fend for myself again, I might even try to make them again.

As for the cookbook itself, I think my initial expectations blinded me from real purpose of the cookbook. That is, it's a list of dishes that can inspire a man to actually get to work in the kitchen. Everyone has to start somewhere and the basics introduced in this book can be a foundation for future cooking growth. However, it will not be a foundation for me. I know what I am, and more often than not my place is not in the kitchen (except for when the dirty dishes pile up). So please leave a comment. Tell me what you think of this post, my wife's blog, or what you think every man should know and enter to win this cookbook for yourself or your man! Submit your entries by Tuesday, December 28 at midnight. The winner will be selected using Random.org on Wednesday morning!

From the publisher: The book features over sixty recipes compiled by celebrated food blogger Susan Russo (foodblogga.blogspot.com), a regular contributor to Kitchen Window on NPR, and Brett Cohen, the author of Stuff Every Man Should Know.

Disclaimer: We were provided one copy of the book, free of charge, from the publisher. We were not obligated to review the product and we received no compensation. All opinions expressed in this post clearly belong to the hubby. He decided to give one lucky commenter this copy as a holiday treat (sorry about the few fingerprints on the cover!).

Easy Entertaining with Trader Joe’s

As I mentioned in the previous post, my mother-in-law is an expert at using Trader Joe’s ingredients to make quick and flavorful meals. She says, “The joy of Trader Joe’s is that you can take their ingredients, be creative, and in 15 minutes have a dish cooking that is worthy of being served to company.” Her revised book concept is Dinner Party Dishes with Five Ingredients from Trader Joe’s

During our visit she had an opportunity to cook us one of her delicious creations. With a mix of fresh, canned, and prepared foods she put together a full meal with appetizers, salad, entree, vegetable side, and dessert. The meal preparation was quick and everything was ready in advance of our dinner guests’ arrival.

Our appetizers included assorted olives, hummus and whole wheat crackers, and a spinach pie. The spinach pie can be found in the freezer section. After baking in the oven, my mother-in-law cut the rectangular pie into small squares for serving. Inside the flaky pastry crust was a savory mixture of spinach, feta, and spices.

Main course on top and spinach pie on bottom.

After finishing up with the appetizers we moved on to the main meal. First up, a mixed green salad chock full of cucumbers, tomatoes, mushrooms, red onions, garbanzo beans, and flavored mixed nuts (with herbs & spices). I contributed a quick salad dressing to top it off. She had picked up an assortment of infused olive oils during our trip to North Market along with a divided serving dish. We sampled four of the oils as part of the salad course. A crusty French baguette was the perfect dipper to try all of the oils.

The meal was straight from the pages of her soon to be written cookbook! The ingredient that inspired this dish was frozen ravioli. My mother-in-law was thinking about a baked ravioli dish that she had growing up in New York. Using Trader Joe’s ingredients, some lemon olive oil we had picked up at North Market and a few things out of the fridge, she put together a layered baked ravioli dish that was hearty, flavorful, and quite impressive! The baked ravioli was full of vegetables, so a simple side dish was all that we needed. She steamed fresh green beans and tossed them in a little lemon olive oil with salt and pepper for the side.

We enjoyed a lively conversation while we devoured dinner. It was hard to stop eating, but we knew that we still had dessert on the way!

My mother-in-law has a go-to dessert that she uses when entertaining. It’s an elegant (and healthy) dish that requires just a little assembly. She fills an ice cream dish with a slice of fat-free pound cake, a dollop of fruit preserves, a generous amount of fresh berries, and tops it off with whipped cream. But no dinner party is complete without multiple desserts. We also enjoyed some rugelach and carrot cake.

Sans whipped cream

This meal was quick to prepare, delicious to eat, and everyone was satisfied (and quite full) at the end of the night. The next time you’re stuck in a cooking rut or short on time and don’t know what to make, just head to Trader Joe’s to put together a great meal! And don’t forget to ask my mother-in-law for her recipe!

Baked Ravioli
2 packages Trader Joe’s frozen ravioli (any flavor, we used one package of asparagus and one package of sundried tomato)
1 jar Trader Joe’s bruschetta mix
1 jar crushed tomatoes
1 can artichokes
1 cup sliced mushrooms (leftover from the salad)
A few tablespoons of lemon olive oil
Shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
In a large oval casserole dish, spread olive oil in the bottom (covering the entire dish)
Pour the jar of bruschetta in the dish and spread evenly
Place raviolis in a single layer on top of the bruschetta
Spread the artichokes on top of the raviolis
Top the artichokes with another layer of ravioli
Add the mushrooms next
Top with a third layer of ravioli
Spread the crushed tomatoes on top, covering all of the ravioli
Bake for 20-25 minutes until heated through
Sprinkle the shredded mozzarella on top and bake for another 5 minutes until the cheese is golden brown
Serve directly from the casserole dish

Summary:
Prep time: 10 minutes (opening jars & packages)
Cook time: 20-30 minutes
Casserole dish, serving utensils

Quick and Easy Salad Dressing
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons orange juice
3/4 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Salt, pepper

Add all ingredients into a small salad dressing bottle or dish with a lid
Shake vigorously until well combined
Toss with salad

Easy & Healthy Dessert
Slices of fat free pound cake or angel food cake
Fresh blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, washed
Fruit preserves (cherry, strawberry, or raspberry
Whipped cream

Place a slice of cake in the bottom of a dessert dish
Add a spoonful of fruit preserves
Add a generous amount of berries
Top with a swirl of whipped cream