liamsaunt

We visited Provincetown yesterday After a whale watch we had a late lunch/early dinner at Mac's Fish House. Drinks Fluke sushi Striped bass sushi Salmon handroll Fried clams with chili-lime salt Lobster roll More sushi Striped bass with barley, kale, cherries, chanterelles, and butternut squash Jerked striped bass Pea pesto pasta Tuna over panzanella

I spent two hours waiting in line for a beach sticker yesterday morning. Ugh. By the time that torture was complete, there was no parking at any of the beaches. We ended up giving up and bringing the cars back to the house and walking in to town for lunch. Boring but we went back to Winslows to enjoy the lovely shaded patio. Oysters Repeats for the kids of pear apple salad and burrata salad fig pizza scallop roll grilled chicken paillard Pulled pork sandwich salted caramel tart chocolate strega Later I grilled burgers for the kids. Bean burger on left, beef on right. The adults shared a grilled clam pizza. Part of it fell into the grill so no picture. What did not fall in was tasty. we did get to the beach eventually We are booked for a whale watch this afternoon.

More food. We got a little out of control at Chatham Candy Manor... Yesterday we had lunch at Winslows Tavern. It was surprisingly uncrowded. Drinks: Oysters (a few got poached from the plate before I got a picture) Pear apple salad Buratta salad with fennel and apricot Asparagus salad with smoked bluefish Burger with prosciutto and gorgonzola dolce Billtong pizza Crab cake burger Prosciutto-gruyere panino Soft shell crab Chocolate mousse I had originally planned to make clam pizza for dinner, but the market was sold out of littlenecks, so we ended up getting takeout sushi from Mac's Shack. Striped bass crudo Tuna poke Spicy tuna mango dip A special roll with fried cod, tuna, and salmon Big kahuna roll Crabby crunch and spotlight roll This morning we trekked to PB Boulangerie to get some baked goods for the next few days

yesterday brought us back to the Fairway for breakfast. Blueberry pancakes Cannoli-stuffed french toast Lobster fritatta Quinoa bowl with poached eggs We skipped lunch and had an early dinner at Karoo, a South African restaurant in Eastham. Drinks Peanut soup Y Hummus "Monkey" ribs (not monkey: Cod naan Pakoras Peri peri wings Falafel burger Peri peri chicken Salmon cakes Milktarte Halva pudding Later that evening there were lobster rolls And now we are packing up and heading to Wellfleet!

I'm back! I'll be on Cape Cod through next Saturday. My husband and I came out last with our teen niece and nephew, and will be spending two nights in a hotel in Eastham before moving to our rental house in Wellfleet. We will be joined my my sister and my husband's brother tonight, and then my brother is coming tomorrow. We came out on Thursday to try and avoid the famously bad traffic to the Cape on holiday weekends, and that turned out to be a great decision. Door to door was one hour, 45 minutes. At the urging of the teens, we had dinner last night at the Fairway. HUGE portions make this place appealing to the boundless appetites of teens. Not so much to me but oh well... Buffalo chicken egg rolls Mozzarella sticks Cheesy garlic bread (My nephew ate this whole thing himself. He is 6'2" and somehow a complete string bean. ) Niece opted for teriyaki chicken tenders and sweet potato fries Nephew had chicken parmesan (yes he ate the whole thing) Husband and I shared a clams casino pizza. We were not even able to eat half. Our hotel room has a kitchen so the copious leftovers are in the fridge for later tonight...

It's definitely true that meal kits don't work for everyone. I don't have the same amount of time that you say you do, and I find them convenient for weeknight cooking. If I did not work full time and commute, I would probably not be interested in meal kits. Last night's meal was to be a banh mi stuffed avocado over bamboo rice and black beans. I had some Faroe Island salmon from my fish share to use up, so instead opted to make the herby salmon cakes from Andrea Ngyuen's Banh Mi Cookbook, and serve the vegetables and sauce as a sandwich. I saved the beans and rice for another day. The inside: I'm skipping next week's box due to vacation.

I also made the TB12 charred poblano quesadilla last night. I did not take a picture of the ingredients, so am glad SJMitch did. I agree that the orange-peppadew salsa was great. I will definitely make that again. I hacked my ingredients into something different. I saved the pinto beans for another day, and instead added some Cajun-spiced sautéed sand dabs to the filling. I put the spices that were meant for the beans into the vegetable mixture. I also tossed the included tortillas (I was hoping they would be corn but they were not), and used regular flour tortillas from my freezer. Finally, I added sour cream on the side. Tonight's recipe is a banh-mi stuffed avocado on bamboo rice, and I am not using the ingredients the way the recipe calls for tonight either.

I have not. I did not cook this weekend. Saturday we hosted a dinner in a restaurant for my inlaws 50th anniversary, and yesterday we skipped dinner in favor of a U2 concert. If the veggies are still fresh I may make it this evening and serve it with scallops from my fish share.

The card I have calls for the cans of coconut milk. You add it when the card you linked to adds the water to the beets. The photo of the beets cooking is different than the one in your link. The nutritional data is also slightly different. How odd!

@SJMitch, I checked the recipe cards last night, and the cans of coconut milk were meant for the beet curry. Another TB12 meal this week: zucchini boats. The ingredients: Millet is cooked. Zucchini is halved and centers scraped out, then baked. Tomato and shallot are diced. Mint is chopped, peach is peeled, sliced, and placed in a hot bath of boiling water, rice vinegar and salt, then refrigerated. Garlic is sliced and combined with olive oil, mint is chopped. Yogurt is combined with sumac and salt. Okra is sliced and then charred in a hot skillet, then combined with the garlic/olive oil mix, sautéed briefly and then the millet, tomato, shallot and most of the mint are added. Baked zucchini is stuffed with this mixture and then topped with chopped peanuts, mint, pickled peaches, and sumac. Yogurt is served alongside. The dish: I forgot to add the pickled peaches. Oops!

Salad of leftover salmon from last night's dinner, chilled kale sautéed with onions (originally intended for inclusion in a frittata but something was very wrong with the eggs I picked up at the farmers market yesterday), and almonds for crunch

I assume so. I have gotten the coconut cloud powder before but this time received two cans of coconut milk. I have not looked at the receipt cards yet to see what they were meant for. Last night's TB12 ingredients: Brown rice is cooked and then tossed with hemp seeds. Cucumber and avocado are diced. Plantain is peeled and sautéed, then salted. Coconut chips are toasted. A dressing is made from coconut vinegar, guava paste, and sambal. All are plated with butter lettuce, topped with cabbage and macadamia nuts. You can eat it as a salad or as lettuce wraps. I added a piece of Faroe Island salmon from my fish share. Verdict: very tasty, and there's enough left for two lunches.

I have to admit that one of the appealing things about the TB12 boxes is that they are vegan, so I am not as concerned about food safety as I would be if there were meat or fish included. Obviously, temperature can still be an issue with vegan foods, but I think you have a little more wiggle room with kale than you do with beef. When I get home tonight I will take a temperature reading of this week's box and report that back. It does sit on my steps for about 8 hours before I get to it. I did find last week's box eventually. It was delivered to the door of a house on a nearby street that has the same house number as mine. The regular FedEx guy must be on vacation. I just happened to notice the box on their stoop when driving by on Tuesday. Knowing that the family at the other house has been traveling for a few months, and wanting to deal with the box before it completely rotted, I brought it back to my house and opened it up. At that point it had been sitting on their stoop for about 36 hours. The inside temperature of the box was 74 degrees. Given that it had been 92 the day before and was in the high 80s that day I was surprised it was as cool as it was. Of course, the produce was all wilted and had to be thrown away (with the exception of a beet and a mango). I was also able to salvage two cans of coconut milk, a box of Banza pasta, and a bag of brown rice. I'll be checking their stoop for my box when I drive in to my neighborhood this evening :-)

grilled swordfish with a Sicilian-style pasta

monkfish braised with fennel, tomatoes, and white beans from the Zuni Cafe cookbook

I heard back from Purple Carrot and got an apology and a refund. I'm still not sure what happened, but I suspect that my usual FedEx driver is on vacation and the box went to one of my neighbors houses. Of course, now I have to go food shopping. Luckily I have the day off for a doctor's appointment so it's not as much of an inconvenience as it normally would be.

Last post for this visit. We did not get to Pop + Dutch @weinoo but I'll be back for 10 days next month so I'll go then. Our last dinner was at Mews. Seafood sampler swordfish special. The light was really dim so hard to take photos. Other things ordered were lobster vindaloo and a lobster-sea scallop dish Sunset Monday we went to Winslows Tavern in Wellfleet on the way home and tried most of their new dishes for this season. Curried mussels Grilled littlenecks Peri peri chicken sandwich Lobster panino See you here next month

Well, here is the latest snafu with my Purple Carrot TB12 meal kit. I came home from work and there was no box! According to FedEx tracking it was delivered to the front door this morning. I suppose someone could have taken it, but I am skeptical. My house is on a cul de sac that is not off a main road and my driveway is so long that you can't even see the house from the street. It's pretty unlikely that someone looking to steal packages would have ventured up here. I have an email in to Purple Carrot and we will see what they say. So much for tonight's planned meal of kung pao noodles with charred pineapple. Luckily, I have scallops in the fridge that I was planning to add to the meal, so I will just make scallop rolls.

The completed bookcase. I now have lots of room for more cookbooks!

So yesterday for dinner we returned to Local 186. I don't normally repeat restaurants, but my brother and his girlfriend joined us and they both have extremely limited palates, so burgers work for them. Drinks Littlenecks Hot dog (brother's meal) Classic burger with bacon and cheddar Surf and turf burger Tuna burger No photo of brother's girlfriend's plain burger. Some sunset photos from last night Today we had lunch at Mac's Fish House. Drinks Steamed buns filled with fried oysters Lobster roll Swordfish reuben Panama red roll Rangoon roll

We are in Provincetown now, so I will stop in this weekend. We arrived in Provincetown pretty late last night and were starving, so burgers were in order. We went to Local 186. Drinks Guacamole Burger with foie gras Turkey burger with rosemary aioli and cartelized onions Turkey burger with cheddar, cartelized onions and bacon

And now I shall report on what might be one of the most disgusting things I have had the misfortune to put into my mouth--the last TB12 meal from this week's Purple Carrot box. Pizza bianca--a crust made from mung beans and garbanzo flour topped with vegan mozzarella and a salad of shaved asparagus and watercress with a balsamic vinaigrette. The salad was lovely. The "pizza crust," however, was vile. It was chewy and pasty and gluey and had nothing at all to recommend it. After one bite I scraped the salad off the "crust" and tossed it in the trash. We ate the salad with some scrambled eggs. That's it for me with experiments with gluten free substitutes for bread. Luckily next week's box is "bread" free

Dinner the other night: panko crusted fluke with cilantro lime aioli, mixed veggie slaw and rosemary fries

Last night's Purple Carrot TB12 meal was summer rolls with minted edamame and cashew sambal. The other filling ingredients were red bell pepper, cucumber, avocado, and basil. It was easy to make and the flavors were good, but the substitution of quinoa for rice noodles (I am guessing to up the protein content) combined with the crumbly texture of the chopped edamame-mint mix made for messy eating when dipped into the sauce. I used the leftover filling (there was tons left over) to make two good sized salads for lunch for me and for my husband to take to work today. Overall the salad was a lot easier to eat! Rolls Salad

Last night we had dinner at Blackfish in Truro. Cocktails My husband and I shared an appetizer of seared scallops with parmesan fonduta and then we both ordered the dish this restaurant is known for: tuna bolognese. So delicious! My nephew had a burger with gorgonzola cheese and allergy-friendly house fried chips We let him order two desserts, just because. Bread pudding with bourbon-bacon jam and vanilla ice cream pineapple upside down cake with coconut ice cream This morning we stopped at the Fairway in Eastham for breakfast on our way off the Cape. Husband had an egg sandwich which I forgot to photograph. I had the potato pancakes with poached eggs, bacon and toast Nephew had the blueberry pancakes That's it until the end of the week, when I head to Provincetown.