Both daughters were home for Christmas, and our exchange student, S, was heading to our next family right after Christmas, so we headed to an old favorite, Tara Kitchen, for a last night out together.
I am super-excited that Maqooda are back on the menu — these potato patties were a huge favorite when the girls were younger, and then they were off the menu for years. We missed them while they were gone. Another tasty starter was this orange hummus with olives and pickled onions.
After that, I got too busy to pause and take pictures, but we have a lot of favorites there, like lentils with preserved lemon and chicken pomegranate. But even more fun: I noticed this flyer on the bar:
Um, hello??? Who’s going to join me for $5 happy hour?!? I need to go!
While J is home, she enjoys the luxury of a fully-stocked kitchen, and we are the beneficiaries of her delicious cooking. She made us some chicken with lemon and mushrooms that was delicious, and look at these gorgeous empanadas she made!
It turns out that she picked up some serious skills while working at Viva Empanada! These were yummy, and she made them along with some extremely delicious Aji Verde sauce which I did not take a picture of, but Cute W and I insisted that we needed the recipe. Here it is (she took inspiration from these three recipes) to put together her own interpretation):
Aji Verde
Ingredients:
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ½ cup queso fresco
- 2 jalapenos, roughly chopped
- 1 large bunch of cilantro (about 2 cups)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3-4 teaspoons/to taste aji amarillo
- 1 T white vinegar
- 1-2 cloves garlic
- Juice of 1 lime
Directions:
- Put it all in a food processor and pulse.
J was extremely comical explaining this recipe. For example, when it came to the queso fresco, she said, “about as much as the palm of your hand,” and I was like, “You sound like somebody’s abuelita explaining this!” When she first gave me the recipe, she said t teaspoon of aji amarillo. Then later, she said, “Maybe it was more like 2-3 teaspoons,” and then the next day, she said, “Maybe it was more like 3-4 teaspoons.” Meanwhile, I didn’t even know what aji amarillo was, so she pulled a jar out of the refrigerator. She had also rejected the queso fresco that’s easy to find at Hannaford and Market 32 and opted to buy something that felt a little more authentic at La Mexicana (a favorite take-out spot as well as store for staples for some favorite recipes). Anyway, if you go shopping and need help finding them, here they are:
And speaking of delicious recipes, Cute W has been making what I’m just going to go ahead and say are the most delicious potatoes that I have ever tasted. And I know that’s a bold statement, especially since there’s been steep competition over the years. But look at these beauties:
The recipe is from Poppy Cooks. Try it.
Anyway, there was a lot of eating over the holiday, and this continued while we were serving up people’s favorites before they left, J was cooking recreationally, and we were still in holiday mode. And now all the girls have left and things have changed significantly. Here’s a dramatic before-and-after:
To the left, BEFORE, with Cute W’s roast chicken and homemade gravy and roasty potatoes and J’s roasted Brussels sprouts and her delicious roasted carrots with chili-honey-goat cheese on a holly-bedecked plate with some Christmas market sangria. On the right, the AFTER we’ve gone back to empty nesting, with a basic chicken salad for dinner and only a cat for company.
This sounds like it should be extremely sad, but it isn’t, really. By the time everyone had left, Cute W and I were basically begging for a dietary cleanse, and it is good to get back into a routine and have the time and space to take some deep breaths. And these days require taking plenty of deep breaths!
