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Tag Archives: wine

Bouillabaisse

30 Tuesday Dec 2014

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Entertaining, Holidays, Main Dish, Seafood, Soups

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bouillabaisse, cioppino, clam juice, clams, crab, garlic, halibut, king crab, parsley, red bell pepper, salmon, seafood stew, shrimp, tomatoes, wine

Bouillabaisse

Here is what I know about Bouillabaisse: I don’t remember a Christmas Eve dinner where we ate something else. Sure, I know in my tyrant child days I wouldn’t touch the stuff, and I honestly probably ate dinner rolls and chocolate…but luckily I don’t remember those days all too well. I seriously can’t remember anything else we ever made for the day, and it’s time the recipe lives on.

Another thing: It’s always called Bouillabaisse, not Cioppino, not “Seafood Stew.” All are about the same thing, and my mom just chooses to call it the most fun and hardest to spell name of all.

Bouillabaisse

Typically, people throw scallops into their Bouillabaisse, but we have never been big on them in our family so we always leave them out and add more of the “good stuff.” Shrimp, Crab, Clams, and either halibut or salmon are usually our picks. You can treat this recipe as more of a guide than anything. We tweak our recipe a little bit each year – especially the time my dad dumped an ENTIRE jar of red pepper flakes into the soup…The lid wasn’t on tight enough…and some of our guests ended up eating Kraft Mac N Cheese. Shit happens…Especially on Christmas Eve. Continue reading →

Lays Cheesy Garlic Bread Chips: An Open Letter to Mahria and Erin

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Side Dish, Uncategorized

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cheesy garlic bread, cheesy garlic bread chips, lays, rose, wine

A classy way to celebrate.

A classy way to celebrate.

Erin and Mahria,

   What can I say? I guess I betrayed you both.* But what was I supposed to do when we were at the store in Oregon and found EVERY flavor of the new Lays? I guess I should have bought them all and then given them to you as presents upon my return. But I had already been drinking that day and I just wasn’t thinking straight, I swear! That explains why we chose the “Cheesy Garlic Bread” aka the most boring flavor ever. I’m blaming this on Jordan, the sober one.
   As a consolation, you weren’t missing that much except for the tasty Rose I paired with the chips. The “Cheesy Garlic Bread” just kind of tasted like…a chip that instantly gave you bad breath.** Seriously. Don’t even waste your time trying it. For the love of God, just make regular garlic bread that comes out crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
   I do, however, have high hopes for the other two flavors. If we track them down within a 10 mile radius of the office I promise I’ll bring them back to you. I’ll even throw in a classy bottle of Rose to even things out, or some watery beer…probably both.

Love,

Lauren

*Me, Erin, and Mahria have had an ongoing deal that if we found these special chips we would sample and rate them all, paired with some sort of (probably) shitty alcohol. FAIL FAIL FAIL. 

**Lays, please don’t be offended by this not-so-stellar review. I typically enjoy your brand, and I must say you really did a good job with your BLT flavored chips. Feel free to call me if you want me to be your spokesperson or something.

4/13/12 in Friday Harbor

02 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Restaurants, Travel, Uncategorized

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Tags

alpacas, birthday, Friday Harbor, Friday the 13th, halibut, oysters, San Juan Island, The Place, wine

This is a long overdue post. Let’s just say I had a wonderful Friday the 13th a few weeks ago…Beautiful weather, an awesome surprise at work, and having a blast with people I love. I left work early and went to Friday Harbor (big surprise!) where I continued to have a great weekend…

View from dinner at The Place in Friday Harbor.

To start off my wonderful evening, Jordan and I went to The Place for dinner. It’s a place (ha) we’ve saved for a special occasion, and it was worth the wait! Wonderful views, wonderful food, perfect atmosphere.

Flowers and wine were already at the table upon arrival…so awesome 🙂

Did I mention flowers and wine were already awaiting me when we sat down to the great view? Sigh, at this very second I wish I could go back to this night right now.

our meal started off with fresh oysters…always a favorite!

When I think back on it, this was a perfect meal. Not too heavy, fresh, local, light…and ended with a perfect surprise dessert (by then it was too dark for a picture, but if you must know if was lava cake with a salted caramel sauce, aka heaven).

mushroom & goat cheese appetizer

I seriously want to cry, writing this almost a month later. It was just so.good.

What I had…The special of the night. A halibut with a curry sauce.

The special that evening was halibut prepared two ways. One Thai style, one Italian style. I went with the Thai and Jordan went with the Italian. Both were so good – one of those things where you take a bite of one and say, “I think this one is better.” Then you take a bite of the other one and say, “No I think this one is better!” It was a total tie.

Jordan’s dish – Halibut “Italian Style.” Sorry about the blurry picture. A lot of wine had been consumed at this point.

Seriously. Such a great night. Several friends caught a later ferry and met up with us that night. We hit two (out of about 4 or 5) downtown Friday Harbor bars. Haley’s and China Pearl. I don’t really have any photos to share of that…unless you want to see lots of karaoke and shots of Fireball.

The next day we did the usual Island routine – driving around and exploring on a beautiful day. One great place to stop at is the Krystal Acres Alpaca Farm. Most people discover it by mistake when they drive by a field with tons of cute little Alpacas just hanging out in the grass. You can drive down, park, and see them up close. Plus there is a Country Store with goods made from Alpaca Fur…and then there is an interesting gun store next door which is totally weird. But don’t you want to go after seeing how cute the guy is below?

The Weekend

Dinner @ The Place

Drinking @ China Pearl and Haley’s

Exploring the island and stopping @ Krystal Acres Alpaca Farm

Seattle Happy Hour: Cicchetti

24 Friday Feb 2012

Posted by BakedNorthwest in Restaurants, Seattle

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Tags

anchovies, beef tartare, castelvetrano olives, cicchetti, cocktails, fried cheese, pecorino, pizza, popcorn, restaurants, saganaki, seattle, truffle, wine, wings

I feel like Cicchetti’s happy hour has been on my “list” of places to go FOREVER. Once I arrived, I knew I had been missing out. After getting our first few small plates, I mentally added it to my list of favorite Seattle Happy Hours.

The entrance to Cicchetti.

Cicchetti is the younger sibling to what many consider a Seattle classic, Serafina. It’s been years since I’ve been to Serafina, but it’s a great Italian place to bring a date to. Cicchetti felt more chill to me, it was a super relaxing happy hour. Now for the food…

The Happy Hour Menu, castelvetrano olives, and the "Pear-a-dise" cocktail.

To start, Castelvetrano (the BEST) olives, and the Pear-a-dise cocktail (for a Happy Hour cocktail, that shit was STRONG). Already in heaven right here.

Fried pecorino with green olive, red onion, parsley

Up next: Fried pecorino cheese. If you know me, you have heard 2390482094283 times that I have been to Greece and my favorite dish in the entire universe is Saganaki (a greek fried cheese). This may be my favorite happy hour plate EVER. It was so good. I mean, how can you go wrong with fried cheese? Then you add some olives on there…God, I can’t even handle it. I want to eat the above picture right now.

The special happy hour pizza of the day, truffle popcorn, and wings.

After my fried cheese binge, we ordered some more. At this point we had no natural daylight left and the bar got super dark. Please bear with this picture I tried to brighten up, it doesn’t do the food justice!

1. You can’t go wrong with $1 truffle popcorn.

2. Wings weren’t on the happy hour menu, but me and a certain someone find wings hard to resist. Especially when they are fancy wings with house made date molasses…

3. The happy hour pizza of the day…the blackboard said “local hedgehog…mushrooms, ricotta, fried sage.” Since hedgehog was written above mushrooms, I was secretly hoping to get REAL hedgehog on the pizza. When I asked the server if that’s what we were getting, she tried to be nice and said, “No…hedgehog mushrooms. But you’re not the first person to ask that…” Silly me.

4. Not pictured: Beef tartare (so good) and anchovies (so gross). My “anchovy connoisseur” friend said they were delish though. He made me try one. I hate anchovies. I was burping up salty fishy grossness an hour later when I really was hoping to be burping up the taste of hedgehog (mushrooms). TMI? yeah, probably…

Despite the minor anchovy debacle, still one of the best happy hours in town!

Cicchetti

121 E Boston St
Seattle WA, 98102

Happy hour Tue – Fri from 5PM – 6:30PM.
206.859.4155

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