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By Emily, July 14, 2010 1:16 pm

It’s amazing how quickly vacation can seem like it was years ago.  We’ve been home for 10 days, but that relaxed, carefree feeling that comes from not wearing make-up or having a schedule for a week is quickly disappearing.  It’s probably just as well that it took me awhile to write Part 2 of this post, maybe I can mentally return to vacation.

If you missed Part 1 of my favorite eateries in the Boothbay Region, check it out.  Part 2 is focused more on snack and dessert establishments, but who says you can’t have ice cream for lunch?

Wannawaf (Boothbay Harbor)

Above is a picture of an amazing hot dog.  It’s called “A Dog Named Jeff” and it’s got mayonnaise, stone ground mustard, caramelized onions and fresh onions…and maybe something else.  It’s hard to remember.  Anyway, the hot dogs and their respective combination (they’ve got a dozen or so creations that I’d never think of) are awesome.  But that’s not why we go to Wannwaf.   We go to Wannawaf for the ice cream. Staying with the theme from Part 1, Wannawaf is an order at the window and eat at picnic tables establishment located on the waterfront in the Harbor.  They serve ice cream sundaes over Belgian waffles.  The combinations, once again, are incredible. This time around we tried a S’more variety: waffle, vanilla ice cream, marshmallow topping, hot fudge and walnuts.  So good.

Gelato Fiasco (Brunswick)

Image from The Gelato Fiasco website

If you leave the Boothbay penninsula and head south–to go to Brunswick, Cooks Corner, or Portland, you’ll come close to or go through Brunswick.  And when my family passes through Brunswick, we stop at Gelato Fiasco pretty much every time.  My sister once went 3 times in one weekend, it’s that good.  As I’ve mentioned before, the flavor selection is creative and delicious(banana, chocolate orange, ginger, pomegranate lime, dark chocolate caramel) and the atmosphere is inviting and relaxing.  Gelato Fiasco also supplies a number of Maine and New Hampshire restaurants and stores with their product, including a recently opened gelato stand in Boothbay Harbor.

Downeast Ice Cream Factory (Boothbay Harbor)

When I worked summers in Boothbay Harbor (every summer of my high school and college careers, plus a couple summers after), I always sent people to the Downeast Ice Cream Factory for dessert.  The servings are big, the ice cream locally made and they have tons of flavors, many Maine related (maple, blueberry, whoopie pie, etc).

Coastal Maine Popcorn (Boothbay Harbor)

image from Coastal Maine Popcorn

As I mentioned last year, Coastal Maine Popcorn is one of my favorite places to grab a snack in Boothbay Harbor.  They make 34 flavors and though I’m much more into savory popcorn (salt & vinegar, buffalo wing, wasabi soy) than sweet (marshmallow, fresh peach, root beer), I’ve never had a flavor that didn’t taste exactly like what it was supposed to.  Brian and I headed home with 3 bags this trip: Tuscan Herb, White Cheddar and Parmesan Garlic.   Of course, we’re all out again, so if anyone in Boothbay wants to send some our way, we’d be eternally grateful.

Frontier Cafe (Brunswick)

If I lived in Brunswick, I’d probably spend a lot of time at the Frontier Cafe (when I wasn’t eating gelato, of course).  I reviewed them a year ago, but I needed to share the experience with Brian. The Frontier Cafe is a combination of wonderful things: good coffee, local and organic food, art, films, beer and wine. This time around, Brian and I got the French Marketplate (Black Forest Ham, Brie, House Made Pate, Fish Bowl Farm Organic Roasted Beet, Sliced Tomato, Coquillo Olives, Cornichons, Grainy Mustard, Baguette); as you can see, it’s beautiful.  It tasted beautiful, too.

Honorable Mentions:

Sarah’s Cafe (Wiscasset) – We didn’t have time to go to Sarah’s this time around, but their diverse menu and reasonable prices helped make Sarah’s one of my family’s favorites.

Kaler’s Crab and Lobster House (Boothbay Harbor) – Another one of the places I always sent tourists to, Kaler’s is my pick for cheap, fried seafood, though they have really good salads too.

Boathouse Bistro (Boothbay Harbor) – Brian’s been bugging me to try out the Boathouse Bistro’s tapas menu for years and we finally got around to it this summer.  Everything we tried was unique and yummy, as were my parents entrees.  Besides, tapas are just fun.

What Boothbay region eating establishments did I miss?

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By Emily, July 1, 2010 5:38 pm

It’s hard to believe that just over a year ago (June 27, 2009), Brian and I got married. It was a perfect wedding and a great year…and our one year anniversary meant that we could finally defrost our 2 slices of leftover wedding cake and eat them!

Cake that’s been in the freezer for a year may seem a little sketchy.  I wasn’t sure I was going to want to eat it.  But at $6 a slice it didn’t really seem fair to waste it. Besides, its tradition.
Surprisingly, the key lime coconut cake was still incredibly delicious. Even the frosting was good!  The bakers at Sticky Fingers Cakes in Waldoboro, Maine definitely know what they’re doing. And now we have more room in our freezer!

Anyone else actually eat their wedding cake on their one year anniversary?

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By Emily, June 5, 2010 7:33 pm

It’s June.  It’s hot.  There are 10 days of school left.  I’m stressed out and I’m sweaty.  When these factors combine, I want to cool off and I want to eat junk.  Luckily, there’ve been lots of blog posts about homemade ice cream and popsicles.  I haven’t tried any of them yet (though we did make some yummy strawberry/yogurt pops last week), but I definitely have plans to–once final exams are over.  In the meanwhile, the 2 containers of Ben and Jerry’s in our freezer are gonna have to help me pull through.

Ice Cream:

• Strawberry Ice Cream from YumSugar
• 20 Cool Ice Cream Concoctions are featured on the Kitchn
• Tasty Kitchen has a post linking to over 30 ice cream/frozen yougurt/sorbet recipes.  Yes, please!
• Blueberry Buttermilk Ice Cream on Grist
• The Tasty Kitchen post also links to a David Lebovitz article I’ve been dreaming of: “How to Make Ice Cream Without a Machine”. Now maybe I can stop dreaming of buying the ice cream maker attachment for my Kitchenaid and start making ice cream!
• Slashfood has a new idea for an ice cream sandwich–put ice cream between 2 Pop Tarts.
  

Popsicles:

• Rachel’s Tropical Popsicles – I cannot wait to make these…as soon as I purchase a new popsicle mold.  Ours sustained some damage during the removal of our last batch.
• Homemade Mango Coconut Popsicles on $5 Dinners
• Chocolate Banana Popsicles on Whole Foods Kids.  Yes, please.

Finally, though it has nothing to do with frozen desserts, Cheap Healthy Good just re-posted an excellent piece on keeping cool when it’s hot outside (and inside).

Best of luck staying cool!

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By Emily, April 27, 2010 8:49 pm

Nothing I have done in the past 16 months of changing my eating habits has aroused as much suspicion and curiosity as my decision to make vegan brownies last weekend.

Yes, you read that right: I made vegan brownies.  No milk, no butter, no eggs.

I didn’t start out with the intention of doing something “crazy”.  One of our friends was coming to visit for the weekend and Brian suggested that it might be nice to have something in the house for dessert (and I think we both wanted to overload on sugar, given our recent day without).  That idea led to brownies, which, it was decided, should be made from scratch.  Then I remembered that I had saved a recipe for vegan brownies which had appeared on No Meat Athlete awhile back.

Bless my poor husband, he actually let me make them, despite the fact that (and he literally just admitted this to me) they sounded “vile”.

Christine’s recipe for Black Bean Brownies may be vegan, but fear not– there’s plenty of sugar, cocoa, hazelnuts and instant coffee contained within.  And, as the name suggests, a can of black beans for moisture, texture and…protein?  I followed the directions, poured the batter into a pan and half an hour later, produced my first vegan black bean brownies.

I was so pleased with my creation (okay, Christine’s creation that I made) that I shared the news with my mother.  “What’s the point of vegan brownies?” she inquired.  I replied with something about using less animal products and that some people are vegan and that it was an experiment.  Then I convinced her that I wasn’t vegan, but I think that just confused the issue more.

When our friend Josh arrived (bringing, ironically, brownies) we made him try one, without warning him about the vegan-ness.  He ate that one, and several more over the course of the weekend.

Why?  Because they’re surprisingly delicious. And, if I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t know they were vegan.  Would I make them again?  Probably.

Still, I may wait a few weeks before I try making White Bean Blondies.

Have an interesting recipe to share?  Ever trick anyone into eating vegan?

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By Emily, December 21, 2009 8:11 pm

I  think the past couple months of cooking and blogging way less than I’d prefer finally got to me because I baked a ridiculous amount of cookies this weekend.

For some reason, I decided a few weeks ago that it’d be cool to make cookies for our friends as Christmas gifts, instead of buying real gifts.  Plus it gives me an excuse to bake, without having to then eat all my creations.  I waited to begin cooking until this weekend, since we were waiting to give them out until today.

Saturday didn’t start out great.  I decided to make lace cookies using the recipe from The Internet Food Association.  They looked simple and didn’t require any weird ingredients.

Not such a great idea.

The cookies were in the oven for less than 5 minutes when I decided to peek at them.  As you can see, they were burnt to a pretty good crisp and our fire alarm decided to make sure everyone in the neighborhood knew.  Brian was up the street doing laundry and he could hear it.  Our downstairs neighbors called up the stairs to make sure there wasn’t an actual fire.

Yes, I pulled them out of the trash just so I could share a picture with you

After that super embarrassing moment, I decided not to make lace cookies.

From there, things got much better.  Below are the results (click the cookie names for the recipe):

Chocolate Chip (Tollhouse, of course)

Chocolate Nut Revels (I got the recipe from my mom, but this one is exactly the same)

Magic Cookie Bars (also from my mom, but the recipe’s online at allrecipes)

Cinnamon Sugar Rolls (Food Network Magazine)

Shortbread (Food Network Magazine)

Lime Sugar Cookies (from Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook)

How I ended up with six kinds of cookies I’m not really sure…but it was fun trying out new and old recipes.  After all the cookies had cooled, Brian and I arranged them on plates:

I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty impressed with myself.  And our friends and coworkers seemed pretty happy to receive them.  It almost makes me wish it was Christmas more often (though I’m sure I can find other excuses to bring treats in to work!)

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By Emily, November 11, 2009 7:54 pm

So…theoretically, this is a blog about eating well, cooking things instead of buying them, avoiding preservatives and packaged foods and the like.  I appreciate all of those ideas and adhere to them whenever possible.

However, anyone who knows me knows that, in addition to good nutrition, I’m a stickler for making my sister happy.  Birthday presents, visits, random gifts.  If I can do it and my sister wants it, chances are she’s gonna get it from me.  Perhaps I spoil her.  But she’s my baby sister…my only baby sister.

So when I asked “the baby” what she wanted for her 22nd birthday, she requested her “favorite” cake.  Who am I to say no?  I made cupcakes instead of the recipe-suggested Bundt cake, because everyone knows cupcakes are more fun (and easier for my sister to eat and share at college).  However, Brian also needed something to bring to an event, so I made a cake for that too.  This was the beautiful result:

Tell me that doesn’t look good.

So, why is this cake my sister’s favorite?  Because it tastes amazing.  Several college students say so.  And even though it breaks a lot of my “rules” about what I should be eating, its nice to have the occasional treat (and I only had a couple cupcakes)  Why is it now my go-to chocolate cake recipe?  Because it’s amazingly easy to make, despite using packaged cake and pudding mix, plus 4 eggs and alcohol.

Need I say more?

Triple Chocolate Cake

1 package devil’s food cake mix
1 package instant chocolate pudding
1 cup sour cream
½ cup brewed coffee
½ cup dark rum
½ cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips

Beat all ingredients except chocolate chips together 2 minutes.
Fold in chocolate chips.
Pour into greased and floured 12 cup Bundt pan.  (I told you it was easy!!!!)

Bake at 350° for 55-60 mins for bundt cake.
18-22 minutes for cupcakes.

Cool 10 mins. Remove from pan, cool on wire rack.

Enjoy!

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By Emily, July 29, 2009 11:49 am

Hard to believe that I’ve been married for a month already!  I’m positive it was the fastest month ever.

Things I’ve learned (food related) during my first month of marriage:

1. I don’t have to do it all myself: This week’s menu is probably the one I’m happiest with yet and a large part of that is due to the fact that I asked my Man what he thought we should have.  He really is full of good ideas (eggplant parm being one of them) that just don’t occur to me.
2. All my cooking doesn’t have to be perfect: My husband isn’t opposed to eating vegetable tetrazzini that didn’t come out just right or curry that doesn’t take like much.  If it’s food, its probably edible.  Takes a lot of the pressure off of me.
3. Food shopping as a couple keeps us out of a lot of trouble: We’re perpetually talking each other out of items we don’t need.  The supermarket is a very tempting place, but usually one of us has enough sense at any given moment to talk the other out of whatever unhealthy/overpriced/unnecessary item the other is considering.

To celebrate our first month, I decided to bake a lime pie for my Man.  He’s really into key lime pie, so when this recipe for Key Lime (Or Not) Pie appeared in my Reader a couple weeks ago I had to find an excuse to make it.  I used regular limes (and actually cheated by using lime juice from a bottle for half the juice).

It was a little bit of a risk, as I’ve only made one pie before and never with a graham cracker crust.  In the end however, the pie turned out great, though a little yellower than I expected.  Still, it tastes really lime-y (the green flecks are lime zest, in case you were concerned).

The only imperfection in my pie (I think…my husband may have other opinions) is that the crust is really crumbly:

The theory is that the crust just needs more butter.  We don’t mind crumbly crust though…it still tastes really good.  Overall, this pie was really easy to make, though it does take some time, since the crust has to be baked at least 1/2 an hour before the pie filling can be added.

Another cool part of this pie:  I used the egg separator that came with our measuring cups to separate the 4 yolks I needed from their whites.  It was one of those things that we didn’t expect to ever use, but sure enough, it came in handy.  See what a good job it did:

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By Emily, June 7, 2009 7:55 pm

Once upon a time, there was a great song by the (now disbanded) band, Five Iron Frenzy:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJhP7Qmn8k]

Feeling that it was inappropriate to sing this song without ever having eaten rhubarb pie, my sister convinced me to make a rhubarb pie yesterday.  I have never made a pie. I have never had rhubarb.  But my sister has this strange way of making all her ideas sound like good ones, so we did some research.  We settled on this Fresh Rhubarb Pie recipe and this “Best Ever Pie Crust” recipe, both from allrecipes.com.

We made the crust, which needed to be refrigerated for 4 hours or overnight, last night at 11pm.  Way past by bed time, but the recipe was incredibly simple.  The 2 balls of dough were done and in the fridge by 11:30.

This afternoon we began making the pie.

The setup: Pie plate, my sister chopping rhubarb, 2 balls of dough, my mother’s pastry mat (I told my Man today that I need this one), and my laptop which provided us with the recipe.

I was very proud of the job I did rolling out this pie crust:

Then we filled the crust with the chopped rhubarb and sugar/flour mixture

The pie baked for 55 minutes total and this was the final result:

Beautiful, eh?

My sister and I were thrilled (but not shocked) to discover that rhubarb pie tastes as good as it looks.  I’m sure the cup and a third of sugar that’s in the recipe helps, but that’s beside the point.  Rhubarb pie is delicious, and you should make one while rhubarb is still in season.

And, when you’re done baking, put on some Five Iron Frenzy music and have a dance party in your kitchen like my sister and I did.

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By Emily, April 23, 2009 8:56 am

Fore Street Restaurant

Whole Foods Market, though completely wonderful, was just an errand on the way to the climax of my day.  I had 6 pm reservations at the Fore Street Restaurant in Portland (Maine).  Fore Street made an appearance in a recent issue of Down East Magazine in  “Where to Eat Now”, but what really got me interested in checking it out was its nomination for a 2009 James Beard Award for “Outstanding Restaurant”.  When I saw that a Portland establishment had been nominated for an award, I knew I had to go, especially since Fore Street is focused on local, fresh ingredients, which sounded right up my alley.

I don’t eat at “fancy”  restaurants much, but the meal really made me question why I don’t.  From the moment we entered the restaurant, I felt at ease.  First of all, though Fore Street is beautiful, it’s just rustic enough to feel cozy.  Our waiter, Lance, was incredibly kind and helpful.  The menu was relatively long and though I’ve never been somewhere where carpaccio or foie gras was actually being served, they apparently don’t just exist on television.  That said, there were many items on the menu that sounded delicious and I wish they didn’t change their menu daily (!!!) so I could try to experience more of the items on it.  I settled on duck, cooked in their wood-burning oven.  My Man ordered pork loin.  We split a side of delicious Maine garlic mashed potatoes.  I had never had duck before, and it was incredible.  I figure if you’re going to eat at a good place, you may as well order something different because it’ll be good.  Yay for trying new things, again.  We also had some really excellent pino grigio (I forgot how good quality wine was!)  We had a wonderful meal at Fore Street.  I would absolutely recommend it to someone looking for perfectly prepared food, though be prepared for $25-40 entrees.

Gelato Fiasco

Forgoing dessert at the Fore Street was a hard decision (though we were pretty full…)  My Man and I had other plans; on the way home we stopped at another place we adore.  The Gelato Fiasco in Brunswick is a frequent stop for my family (my sister once went 3 times in one weekend…and its a good 40 minutes from our home!).  I’m sure Brunswick isn’t the first place you’d look for good gelato, but it’s well worth it.  The gelato is created fresh from scratch right in town.  They always have at least 20 flavors available and I’ve never had a bad one.  Tuesday night’s choice for me was half strawberry (sorbetto, actually, not gelato) and half chocolate gelato; my Man had half espresso gelato and half chocolate caramel.  Delcious.  Gelato Fiasco is also very generous with samples, has games for customers to play and provides free wi-fi.  They’re open 7 days a week, 11-11.  If you’re ever in mid-coast Maine, definitely check them, or one of their partner locations, out.

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By Emily, April 5, 2009 8:00 am

Yesterday I finally got around to making Lime Sugar Cookies with Pumpkin Seeds from the Rebar Modern Food Cookbook.  I borrowed the cookbook from the library months ago, and the cookies were one of the few things that really intrigued me at the time.  I found them both easy to make and delicious.

Generally speaking, cooking is still not something that comes naturally to me, at least creatively.  I never would’ve thought of these cookies on my own.  It’s just occurred to me, however, that it’s just a sugar cookie recipe with lime zest, lime juice and rough chopped pumpkin seeds (pepitas).  I really should work on coming up with these sorts of ideas myself.

Anyway, I highly reccommend them, and the cookbook, which probably deserves another look from me.  Everyone in my family is eating these cookies, which really says something.