Boston, an amazing City! With the recent death of two firefighters and the soon to be one year anniversary of the marathon bombings, I thought I’d take some time out and post about our day in this wonderful City. Living so close, we spent last Sunday watching the Boston Red Sox at Fenway park! We have been to Boston many times, sadly much of our time spent there has been for various doctors appointments for both of our kids. Most of our time being spent at Boston Children’s Hospital. We are VERY fortunate to live so close to some of the most talented doctors in the world. They saved Robby’s life when he was a freshman in high school. He had a staph infection and was treated by the emergency room staff along with the orthopedic doctors and a brain surgeon. Robby had to have fluid drained from both sides of his spine and this was done by the brain surgeon. After five nights at the hospital, Robby was treated at home with a visiting nurse team and many more trips to Boston over the next eight weeks! Boston Children’s Hospital also diagnosed Amanda 7 years ago with Ehler’s Danlos Disease after spending many days/weeks/months/years locally trying to find an answer. Thankfully, we are not making THOSE visits as often as we used to! I have the highest respect for ALL of the Boston hospitals. They are all truly amazing with the best staff you could ever imagine! Our visit to Boston last Sunday was to Fenway Park with my brother-in-law Paul, and his wife Cindy! Sunday was a gorgeous day! The sun was out, but it was a little windy but we were okay with that as it seemed as Spring had finally arrived in the New England area!!!
So, since this is a food blog, I have to tell you about some of the food at Fenway park! When you get into the park area there are street vendors with roasted peanuts, pistachios and cashews. Then there are various vendors selling fish and chips, but OUR favorite was the sausage with peppers and onions and what goes best with sausage…a cold beer! 
There are also many street performers, stilt walkers playing with the kids, small bands playing and lots of photographers ready to take your picture! We also made out way into one of the OFFICIAL stores of the Boston Red Sox. They have everything you can imagine or possibly want! Cindy and I both found a Red Sox shirt for the minimal price of $90.00 (sorry Jim and Paul , it was a must have! ) In all fairness, Jim did pick the shirt out!! After our little shopping extravaganza we made our way to our seats! Our seats were great. We had swivel chairs and a table in front of us and we could see the game and players without any problem! Behind us we had a deck area along with a food vending area! Not too shabby! The one and only downside of the seats was that we were in the SHADE! So being in the shade with a little wind it was chilly! They serve a lot of food in the park. Chicken fingers, fries, pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, sausage, peanuts and the famous LOBSTER ROLL! Between Jim and Paul they ate their way through the menu that day! Not a crumb could be found!
We watched the game with great sadness as the Red Sox were not playing well and never pulled out of it. They lost 4 – 0! UGH! That is okay, we love our Red Sox and look forward to a great season ahead! As I close this post, please take some time to think about those in Boston that have been effected by the recent fire, last year’s bombing and ALL of the police, firefighters and hospital personnel that helped all of these people and others each day. Thank your local police and firefighters for the work they do for us too!
I am not sure this even qualifies as a recipe as it is only TWO ingredients, so simple and so delicious! I had planned on making this recipe one evening, so I put the sauce on the shrimp to marinade that morning, well …..I did not make the shrimp that night but made it the next evening, I was worried that the sauce would completely overwhelm the shrimp, but that was not the case! The shrimp were so good… I cannot wait to make them again!
INGREDIENTS
1 pound large shrimp, peeled, deveined (tail on or off)
1 bottle Frank’s Red Hot Sweet Chili Sauce
Skewers, that have been soaked in water
DIRECTIONS
Place the shrimp in a container and cover with the sauce. I used about half of the bottle. Let marinate for up to 24 hours. When getting ready to grill, skewer the shrimp and grill over medium heat until the shrimp turn pink. Take off the grill and Enjoy!
This is the only way I make shrimp cocktail! I make this for every and all occasions as it is so good! NO soggy watered down shrimp cocktail here! I found this recipe in 2008 from the Barefoot Contessa. I make it the same way every time!
INGREDIENTS
2 pounds large, shelled and deveined shrimp (12-15 count)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Salt
Pepper
SAUCE
1/2 cup chili sauce (I use Heinz)
1/2 cup ketchup
3 Tablespoons of prepared horseradish
2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/4 teaspoon of hot sauce
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix ALL of the sauce ingredients together and set aside or put in the refrigerator. This can be made a day ahead. Place shrimp on a baking sheet, add olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix well using your hands. Spread them in a single layer and roast in the oven for 8-10 minutes or until they just turn pink and firm. Place on a serving platter and serve with sauce.
Enjoy,
This is the best cornbread recipe I have ever made. This comes from the website allrecipes.com. I have been making this for over five years now and cannot be happier with the results. This is a simple recipe that takes about ten minutes to put together then 30-40 minutes in the oven, sounds simple right? Well, it is ! The biggest and only suggestion I would give you, and I would strongly suggest it, is to have ALL of your ingredients measured and ready to go as this is a very quick working recipe! Try it , I know you will enjoy it, so much better than the box stuff and just as simple to make!
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter (no salt)
2/3 cup white sugar
2 eggs (beaten)
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8 inch square pan. Melt butter in a LARGE. Remove skillet from heat and stir in sugar. Quickly stir in eggs and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into mixture Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended. Some lumps will remain. Pour batter into prepared 8×8 pan. Bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (mine took 32 minutes).
Enjoy,
I know everyone has their own favorite rib recipe and to be honest this is more of a method than a recipe! This is the ONLY way I make ribs. They are just that good! I have tried this recipe a few different ways with different ingredients and I ALWAYS get a very grumpy look from everyone in the family. My family does not like change with a recipe they already love! I will caution we like a lot of flavor and you get A LOT of flavor with the rub. It adds some serious heat, so if you don’t like heat with your ribs please use your own spice mix and certainly feel free to change up the BBQ sauce . Like I said it is really the method more than the ingredients.
INGREDIENTS
2 slabs of baby back ribs
1 large bottle of Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey BBQ sauce
1 tin of Nantucket off shore Rasta Rub (use sparingly)
DIRECTIONS
The night before you want to cook them I take one slab at a time and rub both side with the rub (using as much or as little as you like knowing it adds a lot of flavor and heat!) . I then slice the ribs into three even portions and place in large heavy duty Ziploc bags. I do this with both slabs.
When you have everything portioned into the Ziploc bags I squeeze a good amount of the BBQ sauce into each bag rubbing the sauce all through the ribs making sure the ribs are well coated with the sauce. I refrigerate these overnight.
When you are ready to cook them preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Line a large baking sheet with foil. Cut six pieces of tin foil large enough to wrap each individual rib piece. Wrap one rib section in one piece of foil and place on baking sheet and continue until all of the rib portions are wrapped. Bake for 2 1/2 hours. Take the ribs out of the oven, unwrap the ribs from the foil. Discard foil and place the ribs back onto the same baking sheet. Using the same BBQ sauce, coat each baby back rib with a nice slather of sauce. Move the oven rack to the top portion of the oven. Turn oven to broil, leaving the door open just slightly.
Place ribs back in oven on broil and cook for 10 to 15 minutes watching carefully as they can burn at this point. You want the sauce on top to get thick and caramelized without burning!!!
Enjoy,
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