Entries Tagged as 'erin'

Bhabi’s Kitchen

April 29th, 2009 · No Comments

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Pistachio Naan, Bhabi’s Kitchen, Rogers Park, Chicago

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Chicken Masala, Bhabi’s Kitchen, Rogers Park, Chicago

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Colorful Dining Room at Bhabi’s Kitchen, Rogers Park, Chicago

This month Erin and Cinnamon and I went to dinner up in Cinnamon’s neighborhood, Rogers Park. Cinnamon recommended Bhabi’s Kitchen, an Indian restaurant that I’ve heard a lot about but had never visited. I was excited to try Bhabi’s, but also excited just to eat Indian food. I love it and don’t get to eat it much in Chicago. In New York the Indian restaurants were disbursed around the city everywhere. In Chicago there are only a few that come to mind that are not very far north on Devon Avenue. Guess what, though? Devon is not that far when you have a car!

We tried the pakoda (chickpea flour nuggets with onion, fenugreek and spices) as an appetizer. Bite-sized fried pieces with three different sauces. Yum! For my entree I got my old favorite, chicken masala (chicken with a special spicy gravy). I’m used to the dish being prepared with a cream like yogurt mixed in the sauce and with boneless chicken. Here the dish is more of a red sauce and with whole chicken pieces.. so not my favorite preparation, but I still enjoyed the taste of the sauce a lot. Erin loved the bagarey balgan (fresh Indian eggplant cooked with secret spices). I tried a bit and it was delicious. Cinnamon got the saag paneer (fresh spinach cooked with spices and cheese cubes). I’m not a huge fan of spinach cooked down, but I think if you’re a saag paneer fan you’d like this dish. I tried a bit and it was good.

I especially enjoyed Bhabi’s Kitchen’s unique selection of breads. According to this Smithsonian Magazine article, there are 20 varieties of bread made with six different flours. We tried the makal corn flour bread and the pistachio naan (with mixed dried fruits and sprinkled with powdered sugar). We ordered the pistachio bread off a recommendation Erin had read in that same article. It was so good I wanted to eat the entire thing myself! The bread was sweet enough to be a dessert, but I found that their entrees tended to be pretty spicy, so eating them with the sweet bread cut the heat a bit. I want to go back just to try all of the breads. I think I say that every single time I go out for Indian food. I’m in love even with the most basic naan.

As always, dinner with Erin and Cinnamon was great. I enjoy hanging out with the ladies and am very grateful we make the time to get together on a regular basis. Every single time, no matter what, we sit and talk and talk until the restaurant closes and we are forced to leave. We have to be some of the most well connected people online and we still find a million things to talk about when we meet up.

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Only $1.00 Per Serving

April 8th, 2009 · 14 Comments

Erin had a great idea to have a potluck dinner party that was recession themed. The challenge was to spend only $15 and to make a dish that would feed a family of 4 adults for at least 2 meals. I planned my meal and bought groceries but then last minute, on the day of the party, for a variety of reasons, Erin had to cancel. I made the recipe anyway and I thought I’d share it here in case anyone wants to make a super yummy, super cheap dinner!

country_potatoes_au_gratin

I made Country Potatoes au Gratin and I have posted this recipe before, but I will repost it with the price of ingredients. A whole 13 x 9-inch pan (8 servings) of these potatoes only costs $8.06 to make, which is only about a buck per serving. Dallas and I ate these potatoes for several days, so it was a really low-cost meal for us every day that we had it.

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Country Potatoes au Gratin

2 teaspoons butter $0.10
1 medium onion (about 5 1/2 ounces), thinly sliced $0.68
3 garlic cloves, minced $0.30
4 cups 2% reduced-fat milk $0.74
1 teaspoon salt - -
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper - -
3 ounces all-purpose flour (about 2/3 cup) $0.20
6 ounces shredded sharp cheddar cheese (1 1/2 cups), divided $1.90
6 ounces diced ham (about 1 1/4 cups) $2.05
3 pounds peeled baking potatoes, cut into 1/8-inch-thick slices $2.09
Cooking spray - -
Total $8.06

Preheat oven to 350°.

Melt butter in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Combine milk, salt, pepper, and flour, stirring with a whisk. Add milk mixture to pan. Bring to a simmer; cook until slightly thick (about 2 minutes), stirring frequently. Add 4 ounces cheese and ham, stirring until cheese melts. Stir in potatoes.

Place the potato mixture in a 13 x 9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle potato mixture with remaining 2 ounces of cheese. Cover with foil coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 30 minutes or until lightly browned and potatoes are tender. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

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Irazu Costa Rican Restaurant

March 11th, 2009 · 6 Comments

I’ve wanted to try Irazu Costa Rican Restaurant for quite some time. The need became more urgent now that it is only one train stop or a quick bus ride away from where I live. Last month Erin and Cinnamon and I were talking about where to go to dinner and I suggested Irazu. They were both down, so we scheduled it.

The funny thing is, when I told Dallas where we were going to go for dinner he looked at their menu and their site online and saw that they deliver to our house. That very night we ordered a few things to try the restaurant out. We got:

  • Patacones (aka Tostones con Mojo) Double fried green plantains covered with roasted garlic oil with pureed black beans
  • Pepito Sandwich Rib eye steak, sauteed onions, cheese, pinto beans & Lizano sauce
  • Costa Rican Sandwich Thinly sliced beef on french bread served with cheese,lettuce, tomato,mayo, mustard & Lizano sauce
  • Onioned Steak Thin rib eye sauteed with TONS of onions served with yellow rice, pinto beans,fried green plantains (tostones) & cabbage salad

I loooved the pepito sandwich, but didn’t really like the Costa Rican sandwich at all. It was ok, but nothing extraordinary. Dallas liked the onioned steak. I liked the fried plantains with the garlic and beans. They’re not Dallas’ favorite preparation of plantains, he found them to be too dry.

Ok. So fast forward a few weeks. Erin and Cinnamon and I went to Irazu. Cinnamon suggested the avena shake (oatmeal shake) so we all got it. It was delicious. Light. I thought it was going to be some thick oatmeal sludge, but it wasn’t at all. I ordered the pepito sandwich again. This time with avocado on it too. Delicious. Loved it as much as the first time. AND the sandwich is only $4.95.

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Avena (Oatmeal) Shake, Irazu, Bucktown, Chicago

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Pepito Sandwich, Irazu, Bucktown, Chicago

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In Good Company

March 1st, 2009 · 3 Comments

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About a month ago I noticed I was getting referrals to my site from Glenn’s Diner. Glenn’s is a restaurant I really enjoy, but I didn’t know why I’d be getting hits from their site. Futher investigation revealled that I’m listed on their brag page, along with Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, Check, Please! and Chicago Magazine, to name a few. Flattering… now I need to figure out how to work this into a comp meal! :) Kidding!

If you haven’t been to Glenn’s, you should go. It’s a great casual seafood restaurant located at the Montrose Brown Line station. Every day they have 16 different kinds of seafood that are flown in fresh daily and they are always priced under $20. Dallas and I have recommended Glenn’s to everyone we know and have been there several times. Here are a few of our visits:

- When Cinnamon and Erin and I went for all-you-can-eat king crab legs (Tuesdays for $33.95)
- With Dallas, Jill, Brian and Kristin
- When Rob was in town to do the sailing Race to Mackinac with Killian we went along with Dallas, Liz and Christina

Dallas and I just watched the clip from when Glenn’s Diner was featured on Diners Drive-Ins, & Dives. Guy spent a lot of time with Executive Chef David Najman in the clip. When I met Cinnamon and Erin for dinner at Glenn’s I was really early so I sat at the bar and had a glass of wine. It was a bit of a wait to place my drink order because the restaurant was slammed. The guy that ended up serving me was Chef Najman. We chatted for quite some time. When Cinnamon and Erin arrived he got each of them a glass of wine as well. In the end we had to wait a little bit, not too long, for a table, and so Chef Najman didn’t charge us for our drinks. Totally unnecessary, but it was a nice touch. He also stopped by our table a couple times to make sure everything was good later on. So, as you can see, not only does Glenn’s have great food, but great service from the top down as well.

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Erin’s Wedding Not-a-Shower-Just-Girls-Getting-Together-For-Drinks-and-Food

October 18th, 2008 · 2 Comments


Erin & Rachelle, Old Town, Chicago

Erin and Scott are getting married next weekend. This is each of their second marriages and instead of going through all of the traditional wedding hoopla, like they did for their first weddings, they have decided to elope and get married on a tiny farm in Woodstock, VT. I think it’s romantic that they’re choosing to concentrate on the marriage and that for the wedding they will only be focused on each other and their vows. No need to worry about whether the wedding cake is pretty enough or if Uncle Joe had too much to drink. What really matters? The two of them. Who will be there? The two of them. Of course, because Erin and Scott spend just about waking moment online in some fashion, they have created a blog and will be keeping everyone up to date while they’re away. The unique nature of this wedding hasn’t gone unnoticed. This week both Time Out Chicago and Glamour Magazine wrote about it.

Erin and Scott met when they were both writing for Chicagoist and Margaret and I were the co-editors. When we first hired Erin, she and I had only written emails to each other and IMed. We finally met one night for dinner at Lula. Afterwards Erin offered to give me a ride home. She said to me “I think I have crush on Scott Smith.” I laughed and was like “Yeh!! Margaret and I do too! He’s awesome.” And then as time went by … “OH! You mean .. oh. … gotcha!” Scott tells the touching story of how it all happened here. I read it remembering being present at many of those events in the timeline. When they first came to Chicagoist. When they first met at Wishbone. A drunk happy hour at My Bar (on Chicagoist, on rachelleb.com).

Today some of Erin’s close girlfriends threw her a wedding shower party for all of the women in Erin’s life to get together for a few hours for lunch and drinks. (Olivia took this photo of Erin and I at the party.) The couple has requested no gifts for the wedding, but I couldn’t help but get them something small and sentimental. I hope they like it.

It has been a joy to see their relationship evolve. It’s had it’s ups and down’s like everyone’s but I think they truly were meant to be together. I know that they will have a beautiful life together. I wish them the best… this weekend and in life!

- Erin’s photos from the party.

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