Nicole

Hash Benedict @ Deluxe Station Diner, Newton MA

May 5, 2012

Recently, Price and I went to Deluxe Station Dinner in Newton, MA for an early morning weekend breakfast. We had been to their sister restaurant, Deluxe Town Diner, in Watertown, MA more times than we can remember. And we would always pass by Deluxe Station as we took the train everyday so we finally made plans to stop in one day for breakfast.

The diner is located at the Newton Centre T stop on the D-line (Green Line). The building is charming inside and out. The diner is located inside the old train station. It is filled with fun accents and interesting artwork.

We settled into a booth together as a friendly waitress gave us some menus. We had checked out the breakfast menu before going so we knew what we were getting but it was nice to take a peak again. We enjoyed some coffee before placing our orders. Price ordered the Deluxe Colossal Hungry Person Special and I ordered the Hash Benedict, natch.

Hash Benedict – Two Poached Eggs and Homemade Corned Beef Hash over English Muffin with Hollandaise Sauce and Homefries or Salad… $12.50

My love of Eggs Benedict was satisfied during our visit. The large plate it barely visible with the combination of Hash Benedict and home fries piled high. The eggs are layered with English Muffin, Corned Beef, poached egg, and hollandaise sauce. They use the hearty English Muffins from Wolferman’s so the stand up well to the flavors stacked up high on there. I was so excited for this when it was placed down in front of me. I was eager to dive right in.

I loved the combination of each bite. The Hollandaise was very good as it was light, lemony, and very buttery. The color is always so inviting. The Hollandaise was a little lumpy so it was a bit disappointing.

The corned beef hash was flavorful, tender, and piled high. I would have prefered it to have been on the griddle a bit longer as I love crunchy edges on corned beef.

The eggs were cooked perfectly. The poached eggs were neatly trimmed, the whites were set, and the yolk was warm and runny. Once you pierce the egg the yolk cascades down the corned beef and onto the English Muffin.

A generious portion of home fries were plated along side the eggs benedict. The home fries are simple without adornment with veggies (onions, peppers), but are seasoned well with are fresh herbs.

I highly suggest visiting the Deluxe Station Diner when you crave a great breakfast. If you love corned beef hash or eggs benny as much as I do then you should really order this. You might want to take a nap afterwards but it will be worth it. 🙂

Rating

English muffin– 20 pts

Corned Beef Hash– 20 pts

Poached Egg– 25 pts

Hollandaise Sauce– 15 pts

Side– 9 points

Total: 89/100

Deluxe Station Diner

70 Union Street

Newton, MA 02459

617. 244.2550

@dluxstation

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Garlic Lemon Shrimp

May 3, 2012

When Price and I first met ages ago he did not like seafood. At all. Well, with the exception of the fried fish dinner from Doug’s Fish Fry from back home. And I think that was only because they have the best cole slaw there. Over the years he has been more adventitious and has expanded his pallet so every now and then we had seafood for dinner. Shrimp was on sale one day so whipped up this super simple, flavorful dinner for us on a whim.

This was so easy to prepare. The prep time was so fast as most of the work was done for me has the shrimp had been de-veined and de-shelled. I only needed to remove the tails before tossing together the rest of the mixture. This could be served with rice or pasta but I decided to not dirty another pot and just enjoy it with french bread. Normally, I would drizzle the bread with extra virgin olive oil but the rest of the dish was so indulgent with butter, oil, and wine so I keep it basic. Besides, the bread would just be dipped into the ‘broth’ anyway. This is very garlicky so this is not a first date kind of meal, enjoy it with someone you love and some wine!

Garlic Lemon Shrimp

Serves 2 as an entree, 4 as an appetizer

Ingredients

1 pound shrimp, medium sized (31-35)
4-6 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons of butter, cut into small pieces
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 1/2 large lemons
salt and pepper
1 loaf of french bread

Process

Preheat oven to 425. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Rinse and remove the shell and tails from the shrimp.
In a bowl, mix together the shrimp, garlic, butter, olive oil, wine, oregano, red pepper flake, and the juice of 1 lemon. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Lay out the shrimp mixture on half of the lined baking sheet. Cut the remaining 1/2 lemon into thin slices and lay onto the shrimp.
Slice the french bread into 1/2 thick pieces and lay out on the other half of the baking sheet.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, it is done when the shrimp have all turned pink.
First remove the toasted bread, then carefully pick up the aluminium foil to transfer the shrimp and it’s cooking liquid to a serving dish.

Our House

May 2, 2012

Is a very, very fine house…

(back unit- furthest from street)

WE CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE ON MONDAY!!!!!

HORRAY!!!!!

We’re really excited about the new adventure at hand. We have been discussing where different pieces of furniture can go around the house. What new pieces we can get, what to get rid of. It’s all about making this space our own. I’m super excited about the kitchen and open first floor, Pricer is excited about a man cave, and we are both really excited to have an outside space again. 🙂

Exciting first purchase (besides something I ordered online) for the house were trash cans.

And these are some pics…

view of kitchen from front door // kitchen from living room corner

view of kitchen, closet, and stair door to basement

I realized I didn’t take any photos of the living room… imagine a room with 2 windows.

closet // door to stairway to finished basement

first floor half bath

view from bottom of the stairs up to 2nd fl // view from top of the stairs to 1st fl

big bedroom

smaller bedroom

upstairs bathroom

tub // closet

finished basement from bottom of stairs

finished basement- bathroom, laundry, stairs

big wall of finished basement (perfect for a projector!)

basement bathroom with shower stall

I can’t wait until we are all moved in and we get to start to make it our own!!

The best wine you will ever have…

May 1, 2012

is any wine you drink while watching Cougar Town!!!

I’m serious. Pull out a bottle of 2 Buck Chuck or whatever you have on hand and pour yourself a BIG glass of wine to enjoy while you watch.

Price and I are HUGE fans of the show. We started watching it because of my obsession with all things Friends related, including the fabulous Courtney Cox. It has been such a blast to watch it from the beginning to get invested in the characters and everything else involved.* We love all the characters (except we HATED Kristen… she was annoying and she killed Big Joe!!), story lines, jokes, and the amount of wine consumed.

The break between season 2 and 3 was excruciating! The 3rd season of CT was push from premiering in Nov 2011 to Feb 2012 all for that shit show call Man Up! to waste everyone’s time (it was canceled after 8 episodes). February finally rolled around, and to celebrate the 3rd seasoning premier and Valentine’s Day I bought us the most amazing wine classes to have our own ‘Big Joe’ glasses.*8 I named mine Lovely Lola. 🙂

Well during a work party we discovered my boss also watches Cougar Town so I ordered her glass. Well, that prompted this series of photos that I took during a recent Friday afternoon ‘buzz’ in the office since she didn’t really believe it can hold a bottle of wine. Well it does!!!!

Ta-da!! A whole bottle is in there!!

For reference, this is what a whole bottle of wine looks like in a pitcher.

Also, to compare its size, we poured a ‘typical’ glass of wine in a normal glass, then we poured that into the big glass…

*Truthfully, the show took some time to develop and find itself – hence why the show title doesn’t make sense now- but then found its groove and things got out of control from there. So if you didn’t love it when it first started you should give it a try again!! You can catch up on episodes on Hulu.

**The glasses we purchased are not the exact ‘Big Joe’ glass on CT. The Riedel Sommeliers Burgundy Grand Cru is the exact glass but sells for $105. We picked the more affordable DCI XL Wine Glass for $10ish. I highly suggest that you order your own massive glasses and enjoy Cougar Town!!!!!

Cougar Town is on ABC and airs at 8.30pm. Steal the remote from your kids… Glee is crap now anyway.

Peanut Butter Cup Peanut Butter Ice Cream

April 30, 2012

PEANUT BUTTER CUP PEANUT BUTTER ICE CREAM

post from 4/30/12, pictures updated 7/6/17

What a crazy month!

April has been crazy for us with procedures to buy our first house. It’s been very exciting and stressful… so many phone calls, emails, and things to do! Crazy!

Well, that is exactly why I picked this recipe from A Cook’s Quest for this month’s Secret Recipe Club posting. I loved flipping through all the recipe filled pages debating over different things to make but I kept going back to doing this amazing ice cream.

When I saw the recipe for Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream I knew that I had to do it. It would be super simple but so intense.

PEANUT BUTTER CUP PEANUT BUTTER ICE CREAM

And that is what we needed this month considering everything going on. Sometimes a big bowl of ice cream helps melt away all the stress.

It would be the perfect sweet treat to enjoy to end the month. Plus, it would give the ice cream maker a bit of work before being packed up for a bit.

This is one the creamiest ice creams I ever made. The high fat content from the peanut butter and that fact that everything is mixed so thoroughly really made this so smooth and creamy.

Peanut Butter Cup Peanut Butter Ice Cream_03

Plus, who can resist the combination of chocolate and peanut butter!?

I found the recipe really easy to make and would definitely make it again and again!

Peanut Butter Cup Peanut Butter Ice Cream_04

Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream

Serves 8 (1/2 cup portions)

Ingredients

1 1/2 Cups smooth peanut butter
3/4 Cup sugar
2 Cups 2% milk (alt, 1 Cup skim milk, 1 Cup whole milk)
1 1/4 Cups heavy whipping cream
8 ounces of mini peanut butter cups (alt, chop up regular or miniture sized cups)

Process

To create the ice cream base, use a mixer to combine the peanut butter and sugar until smooth.
Slowly add in the milk and mix until all the sugar is dissolved, approximately 2 full minutes. Add the heavy cream, beat until well combined and smooth.
Refrigerate at least 1 hour to chill the mixture. Freeze the mini peanut butter cups.
After the ice cream base as chilled, follow your ice cream makers directions to process the ice cream.
When you ice cream is done, mix in the frozen peanut butter cups.
Transfer to a storage container. Ensure the peanut butter cups are well mixed throughout.
You can enjoy the ice cream now with a soft-serve consistency at this point. Or you can let it chill again, for a least another hour to set up

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Post contains affiliate links

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Check out my previous Secret Recipe Club Posts:

March: Sauteed Green Beans with Lemon and Almonds

February: Fried Pickles

December: Shrimp Sriracha Stir Fry

November: Vegetable Enchiladas

October: Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars

Check out the rest of the reveal day posts!

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.

NOOOOO, NOT FRANK!!!!!!!!

April 29, 2012

Some a-hole hit our car while I was at CVS today getting photos developed. I didn’t notice it from the way that I parked, as I did not need to pass the back of the car to get into the driver’s seat. But Pricer had to run an errand tonight and saw it while he was out. He came back looking very solemn and said ‘Someone hit Frank’. At first I thought he was talking about a scratch on the passenger’s side of the bumper so I went out to take a look, but holy hell someone really hit our Frank The Tank*

Thanks jerk.

*Price named the car ‘Frank The Tank’ because this teeny tiny car has put up with our crazy city driving and our long crazy adventures.

Corgi Addict

April 27, 2012

Highlight of my day…

So there I am just standing on City Hall plaza waiting for lunch from Lobsta Love. I was freezing my butt off because I was originally just running some jobs over to the job site and didn’t grab my coat. Well, I order and turn around…

see this lovely face!! I instantly knew that I had to meet this corgi and take some pictures to send to Emily. Emily is a hardcore corgi addict. How can you blame her? These guys are just so adorable! She loves them as much as I love french bulldogs. ZOMG! their squishy faces! So irresistible! Anyway…

Well, as luck would have it his owner told me that this guy was in fact the background to Corgi Addict. Umm corgi in a lobster suit in a pot. Hell ya! It was just so serendipitous since I was waiting in line at Lobsta Love food truck. Well, this guy’s name is Edison and he likes to eat snowballs.

Edison was so adorable. I didn’t realize that I had my phone on video at first so I think he was a little confused with my holding it in face for it bit while trying to take a photo. He did not approve.

I snapped one last picture before they headed off. Such a lovely dog 🙂

Happy Friday!!

What are you up to this weekend?

We are busy with packing and finishing up misc things for our house closing on Monday(!) and meeting up with Pricer’s mom for her birthday.

1,2,3 Dance LO: Day 9- KP’s Sketchbook 4

April 26, 2012

{Day 9}

This might just be my favorite layout I have made in a while. I loved getting to pull out all different random pieces to work with this sketch. I have tons and tons of fun embellishments but I don’t use a lot on my pages for some reason. I have to shake that habit since it was a lot of fun to pull out all these brads, tags, stickers, and clips. It seems like I did a little bit of everything on this layout (except washi tape.. crazy!) , and I’m okay with that. I have the stuff… I should use it!

The biggest shocker to me was using such a dark solid piece of cardstock for the base of my layout. Softening up the color and adding some ‘pizzazz’ with the Mister Huey’s Opaque White really transformed it. I am getting hooked on Mister Huey’s… umm hello… I used it on all of these recent layouts that I have posted.

Little Boys Jump LO: Day 8- KP’s Sketchbook 4

April 25, 2012

{Day 8}

So I am skipping ahead in posting my Sketchbook 4 layouts. I have them done, but I just forgot to bring them into work to scan them so I’m just going to post this one and then go back for the rest starting tomorrow.

I could def see myself using this sketch again as it allows me to use a lot of photos on a layout. I was happy I put 10 (!!) photos of Price’s nephews playing around last summer. (They are just so adorable!) I liked the linear look to the sketch as well. I was tempted to put the strips on an angle but I figured I would let all the ‘movement’ come from the jumping in the photos. Expect to see layouts like this pop up again the future!

Beef and Mushroom Hot Pot

April 24, 2012

I love my slow cooker. It has been there to pull me out of some tough weeks when I don’t have the time to cook but don’t want to get take out. I realized that I was neglecting it this year so I pulled out the Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker Recipes 2 and went right to a recipe I had bookmarked for a while now. I was always drawn to it because it was affordable, quick, and flavorful… sign me up!

I really enjoyed this slow cooker meal. I know I’ll make it again because it was so flavorful and was so simple. I made some changes to the recipe to suit out palate and what we had on hand. For example, since we always have carrots around I used fresh instead of the frozen as specified. My advice for the recipe to come out well is use low-sodium beef broth and to not cook it for too long. The broth concentrates so it would be way too salty if you use regular broth. Because of my schedule I actually had to cook it for 10 hours. I wish I could simply tell work I need to leave early to manage me slow cooker… imagine! ha! The rice was a bit gummy/mushy at the bottom. It didn’t ruin the meal at all but just something I noticed comparing the rice at the top verse the rice at the bottom.

Beef and Mushroom Hot Pot

Serves 6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 pounds stew meat, cut into small pieces
1 pound of mushrooms, sliced (2 80z packages)
4 carrots, cleaned and sliced into 1/4″ thick rounds
1 box (6 oz) of wild rice blend
2 14 oz cans of low sodium beef broth
1 tablespoon ground black pepper

Process

In a small bowl combine the Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Mix together well and set aside.
In a 5-6 quart slow cooker, combine all of the ingredients together.
Set slow cooker for 6-8 hours.
Mix halfway through, if the mixtures looks like it is drying out or too soft in areas.
Enjoy!

My Instagram Birthday LO: Day 4- KP’s Sketchbook 4

April 23, 2012

{Day 4}

I’ve been struggling with printing photos lately. In fact, I created this layout a good week before adding the photos in. I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Blocking in place holders so I can keep working and when I have the time to crop, edit, and print photos I just slap them on the layout.

I had no idea what to do with the sketch when I first saw it. The circles and circular design had me scratching my head. I knew that circles would not work for me so I decided to focus more on the overall layout and keep going. So I pulled out some big stamps I had just gotten decided they would represent the circles in the original sketch. I used the stamp as a frame for each of the photos I would use. Since it was basically a square image I decided to use square photos and the first thing that came to mind was using Instagram photos. Whala!!! I just didn’t feel like doing any journaling. I wanted the photos to tell the story vs having text do it.

On Guard

April 20, 2012

So if you happen to follow me on Twitter you might have noticed yesterday morning that I was venting about how one of my coworkers scared the bejeezus out of me when came over to check on the status on a project. I startle VERY easily so it’s not hard to scare me to death I am in the zone and listening to music. I was tweaking out since I was afraid of it happening it again so I figured something would have to be done to prevent another heart attack. I didn’t want to change the configuration of my desk so I came up with a solution.

Behold!

I hoped over to Amazon and ordered these nifty 1.5″ Convex Round Blind Spot Mini Safety Mirrors. Yes, these are normally used for your side mirrors to reduce your blind spot but I figured they would do. A little Amazon Prime Overnight Upgrade and ta-da (!!) I had them this morning and put them into use today.