Onion Tears: Choose Your Own Adventure

Hello my friends!

Sorry for the lack of updates, it's been a busy week.

I am here to tell you about my fantastic, food-filled, and fun weekend (<3 alliterations).

Friday night was book club with my circle of friends from college. Yes, we actually do read books and talk about them...for five minutes. But I made mini skewers of watermelon, prosciutto, mozzarella, and basil with balsamic based on this recipe from Skinnytaste. They weren't bad, definitely a bit of a risk. I wish I took a picture of the beautiful spread our host, Sara, had for us. Once again, I fail as a food blogger.

On Saturday, I made waffles adapted from this Coconut Yogurt Waffles recipe. The recipe is meant to be gluten-free and dairy-free but I used whole wheat pastry flour and coconut Greek yogurt. I am a rebel. These were SO good! They were filling and dense yet crispy on the outside. A perfect combo. Served with bacon.

My husband "artistically" arranged this for the picture

Saturday night was a birthday celebration for my dear friend Robbie at La Brasa in Somerville. The inside of the restaurant was funky. Industrial but rustic at the same time. Really cool. Since there were 6 of us, we sat at a nice large table meant for sharing. The concept of the menu was a bit confusing for 6 people. There were snacks, appetizers, small plates, sides, mains, and sharing mains essentially. It was hard to figure out exactly how much food we needed but we managed. First up was amazing bread, a cheese plate, Iberico Ham, and toasts. Some of the guys had grilled oysters.

After that, we got served our sides and anything else that we had ordered.

This Mexican Fried Rice was AWESOME. We also had tacos and those were really, really good too.

Beets and Polenta above. I love polenta but I am not a huge beet fan. This tasted good but couldn't fully get past the flavor of the beets but for someone who does like beets, this side would be great.

These were brussel sprouts with an aioli, also really good.

We ordered a table-side meat cart. This was a pot roast that was sliced to your specifications on the cart and then a chimichurri and red wine au jus was added.

This was seriously melt in your mouth and some of the best beef I've ever had. The chimichurri was so fresh!

We obviously had to have dessert. Troy's (on the right) birthday is also coming up so the birthday boys got candles in their desserts.

My husband and I both got the dulche de leche flan which luckily was small and light.

The food was amazing, the drinks were great, and the atmosphere was fun. We didn't have the best waiter which dampened the experience a bit. But it just gave us something to laugh about/make fun of. The waiter kept saying it was a "choose your own adventure" experience.

Today was my sisters' birthday celebration at my parents' house. Adam, my sister's boyfriend, busted out this traditional Portuguese clay cooking vessel in the shape of a pig.

He used smoke sausage that he bought from a Portuguese shop near him in Bristol, RI. He filled the inside of the piggy with Everclear and lit it on fire to cook the sausage.