Beer Trivia - Test your knowledge

Here is a fun little game. It has 90 beer bottle photos and the goal is to identify as many of them as you can in 8 minutes. "8-minutes" you say, yes 8 minutes, but I assure you this is actually not a lot of time, and if you are a poor speller like myself you find yourself struggling through that aspect and wasting time.

I only got 25 right and knew another 1/2 dozen but could not properly spell them, while a good dozen more looked familiar because I have tried them, but I couldn't recall their name.

GOOD LUCK!!!
Beer Trivia Game

TODAY!!

According to Thrillist - soft opening today of a new restaurant in Kendall Square (in the old Quantum books) of MEADHALL!! 100+ beers and upscale pub food (through late night - finally an 'after bar' spot!!) to go along.

Their website is not up yet but if you go to Twitter you can hook yourself up with some opening day deals!!

Yogurt Rocks

In the land where soft serve yogurt reigns supreme, there is a place, that's one man's dream. Haa enough with the rhyming already right? I'm out visiting The Great Moomsi in warmish San Diego, and there seems to be an alarming number of soft serve yogurt outlets. What's more alarming, though not quite unexpected is the fact that Great Moomsi has been to all of them, taste testing and comparing one against the next. His favorite, and where he also has a loyalty card to, is Yogurt on the Rocks.
I thought I should try them for myself. They had about 12 soft serve flavors available (though rotate through about 24-30 of them) on the line and 3+ dozen toppings to choose from. Like all yogurt shops in Cali, it is self serve (an idea we already discussed as genius in the posting "Pinkberry vs Sweet Ceces"). When the yogurt is self serve you need to have a game plan - layering the flavors then toppings then flavor works or you can do side by side flavors with a layer of topping and then more yogurt on top of that. I chose the later method, putting cappuccino and Italian Chocolate gelato side by each, topped with a brownie bite and some chocolate chips. Then there was Blueberry Acai tart with some yogurt chips to finish.

I found the cappuccino had great flavor in the tasting cup but didn't really pan out when combined with other flavors, it got lost in the shuffle and its flavor was undetectable. The blueberry acai was a nice start, tart and fruity, but I wasn't a fan of the yogurt chips. The Italian chocolate gelato was heavenly. It was a deep chocolate, and it was soft to the tongue, slightly creamy and full of richness. I really could have eaten a whole cup full of that!

If you are a yogurt fien then Cali is your place. Always feel free to drop in and taste test your favorite flavor to compare against the competition. I'm sure you're not supposed to taste test if you aren't buying but lets be real, none of those girls behind the counter are going to stop or yell at you, so enjoy!!

EXERCISE Earth Day

Admission to the national parks is free today in honor of Earth Day so go out for a walk and get some exercise!!

Ladies Night

I was feeling the need for vegetables yesterday when I invited the girls over for dinner, so I decided to make a vegetable lasagna. While technically not a lasagna (yes I looked up the actual definition of lasagna "1. large, flat, rectangular strips of pasta, 2. a baked dish consisting of layers of this pasta, cheese, tomato sauce, and usually meat" though the definition did go on to say that lasagna comes from the Italian 'lasania' which is a cooking pot - I guess maybe the word origin fits what I actually made more then the true definition.

What I came up with was layers of vegetables and a roasted garlic ricotta on top of a polenta base. Vegetarian and gluten free friendly, though non of us follow either of those lifestyles. It came out quite tasty, but I'll admit a little more liquidy then I would have liked. I should have cooked all the vegetables before assembly - I only cooked the mushrooms, lesson learned - next time i will roast the sliced vegetables first.

Ingredients:

1 quart part skim ricotta cheese
1 lbs block part skim mozzarella cheese
1 head garlic
1 medium eggplant, sliced width wise
2 small zucchini, sliced length wise
3/4lbs of portobello mushrooms, sliced
2 cups spinach leaves
2/3 cup polenta, dry
4 cups hot water
olive oil
salt and pepper
dried thyme

1. Slice the top of the garlic head off, place garlic head on a piece of tin foil. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Wrap with tin foil. Set oven to 400 and put garlic in oven - let roast for about 45 minutes until whole garlic head is soft to squeeze. Let cool.
2. Squeeze garlic cloves into the food processor and combine with ricotta cheese until smooth, season with salt and pepper.
3. Boil 1 1/2 cups water. Add polenta meal. Stir continuously to combine. Meal will absorb all fluid, gradually add more water 1/2 cup (continuing to stir) at a time until polenta meal is completely bloomed, you may need to use more then 4 cups water. When you taste the polenta it should not be gritty or taste mealy - that is when you know it is ready, will take about 30-40 minutes.
When ready - spray bottom of Pyrex dish with PAM. Pour polenta over bottom of pan.
4. Saute sliced mushrooms in some olive oil, salt and pepper and a pinch of dried thyme if you have it. Cook until soft about 10 minutes.
5. Spread some ricotta over the top of the polenta. Layer with zucchini strips. Add spinach on top of zucchini.
6. Evenly distribute slices from half the block of mozzarella cheese over the spinach leaves, then cover with ricotta. Place eggplant rounds down next, spread mushrooms, cover with remaining ricotta and top with remaining mozzarella slices. cover and bake on 350 for 90 minutes, uncover and bake 10 minutes more.

ENJOY!!! with good friends and some good bread :)

Sweet Cece's vs Pinkberry

Pinkberry is taking the world by storm - well ok maybe that is an exaggeration, it is at minimum gaining speed across the US, with copy-cat yogurt chains popping up all over the place. I first had Pinkberry in 2007 while visiting my brother (the Great Moomsi) in Los Angeles. I was quite amused by the product Pinkberry offers. I am probably one of the few who actually enjoys eating non-fat plain yogurt straight from the container, so I much enjoyed their tangy, unsweetened yogurt. The fresh fruit bar of toppings was also a plus along with many others both normal and non conventional. I remember going to NYC and being excited to see Pinkberry on the corner near my friend's place and the excitement that the approaching opening date of Pinkberry on Newbury Street brought, but now that Pinkberry is the 'in' thing, I think I want out.


Recently though, I have discovered a new tough competitor and perhaps lethal threat to Pinkberry's reign on top and it is called Sweet Cece's. Pnkberry usually has 4-6 flavors to choose from (and while I would normally not see this as a drawback, since you can focus on quality), Sweet Cece's had about 8 (including plain/original). Sweet Cece's is also self serve and is then pay-by-weight purchased (an ingenious strategy if you ask me, because who really just fills up the cup 1/2 way??) Their topping bar is also much more expansive then at Pinkberry. I took a gander on Pomegranate, plain, heath bar and peanut butter flavors. I enjoyed the creaminess of the yogurt itself. Each flavor was the same consistency which can be hard to mimic and the fruit flavors at Sweet Cece's didn't mimic creamsicles like they can at Pinkberry. The heath bar was a perfect replica of the candy bar and the pomegranate was tangy and slightly sweet. Peanut butter was delicious, though honestly, it is hard to mess up peanut butter.

The topping station was slightly overwhelming but it was much easier to control your portion of topping then it was pulling flavor levers. I only went with a few toppings, but was super excited to see snow caps as an option - for some reason I have always loved those! I also opted for the cheesecake bites. I am a sucker for a good cheesecake, and I always opt for the cheesecake bites at Pinkberry but am always disappointed. I gave the cheesecake bites another chance; I thought 'new place - new cheesecake bites' and these ones did not disappoint me. Truthfully, I was sad I didn't get more of them! They were actually pieces of cut up cheesecake instead of the processed topping bites. (Closest comparison of poor toppings I can think of, is when you get cookie dough that has the floury coating over it - that is the first red flag that that stuff came out of a giant box full of little cookie dough balls instead of fresh cut from a cookie dough log. The cheese cake balls from Pinkberry are the same deal - but the ones from Cece's were the bomb.)

I really think that Sweet Cece's has a good shot at a large market share portion should they chose to expand. I wish this business venture well!!

JP Licks - New Spring Flavors

Spring has sprung in Massachusetts - sort of...and JP Licks has released their newest flavors! Their Red Sox themed line up is sure to be a bigger hit the season starting record for Sox Nation.

Batter Up! = cake batter ice cream with brownie bits
Peanut Butter Beckett Chip = peanut butter ice cream with sweet chocolate chips (probably will be my favorite!!)
Papelbon Pineapple Sherbet
Youk's Manischewitz Sorbet = Manischewitz wine
Noodle Kugel = tender egg noodles blended with brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg

Check out the closest JP Licks to you! Newest location is opening in Wellesley Center! Be sure to sign up for a Licks Card to get points towards free coffee and ice cream scoops!

New Dessert Concoction!!

I was craving ice cream after dinner tonight - everything in my freezer is left over from the days of G$$ and hence extremely freezer burned and I am to lazy to leave the house to get ice cream. What would I do?? I had a container of Greek yogurt in the frige and decided that I would soup it up. It satisfied my need for cool-creaminess, and my sweet & salty fix. Try it out for yourself!!

1/2 cup nonfat plain greek yogurt (I used Fage)
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup (well maybe a little less then 1/4 cup) chunky, natural peanut butter (I had Whole Foods brand in the cupboard - usually use Smuckers natural)

Mix all together!! YUM!

BBQ, burgers, beer and babes dancing this weekend! Queen and I will let you know where all the fabulous honkie-tonks in Nashville, TN are and where the most delicious bbq comes from! I did do a whirl-wind tour through Nashville and Memphis about 4 years ago, but I ate so much that it is hard for me to remember what came from where. Stay tuned, if you are heading this way on a road trip, vacation or for college you won't want to miss out on the scoop for all the local hot spots!

I hope we can dance off all the calories :)