The Poor Student's Search For Poutine in Boston

In case it's not abundantly obvious, the Poor Student is Canadian. One of Canada's contributions to the world in the culinary world is poutine, which consists of freshly cut fries, squeaky cheese curds, and gravy (preferably made from scratch). In Boston, even putting gravy on your fries is considered strange. Growing up in Toronto, fries with gravy was a something to be had at least once or twice a week in the school cafeteria. The cheese curds were an addition thought up by the French-Canadians in Quebec, where good food is a religion. If you're ever in Montreal, make sure you stop by La Banquise or if you're on a tight budget, La Belle Province for some authentically awesome poutine.

In Boston, there are at least three places where poutine is available: Saus (near Union Oyster House), Grass Fed (in Jamaica Plain), and All Star Sandwich (in Cambridge). Romano's in Roslindale has a version of poutine but they don't use cheese curds and they add bits of steak to it. Not bad though. Actually, Grass Fed didn't use curds either. The last time I tried to find cheese curds at a grocery store, I was unsuccessful. The lady at Roche Brothers in West Roxbury told me that they have 10-pound bags of curds and they use that to make their fresh mozzarella. I just could't imagine how I would use a 10-pound bag of curds!

Saus specializes in Belgian street food place and if you've ever been to Belgium, you'll know that they're famous for fries. Moule et frites (mussels and fries) is a very popular dish there. If you get fries on their own, they are usually served in a paper cone, which is what Saus does too. However, if you get the poutine, it's not served in a cone because that would be outrageously messy. The cheese curds are actually curds and the gravy is pretty tasty. Since they serve beer, you might as well have a beer with the poutine.

I haven't tried the poutine at All Star yet, so if anyone has, please leave a comment and let us know how it is!

For more places to find poutine, check out CBS's page:
http://boston.cbslocal.com/top-lists/bostons-best-poutine/

Food Club Frozen Pepperoni Pizza Review

Frozen pizza has come a long way! The Food Club frozen pepperoni pizza from Roche Brothers (in the Boston area) is only $3.99 and it's worth it. I prefer to make my own dough but if if I can't be bothered to wait for the dough to mix in my bread machine, the Food Club pizza is actually a great alternative. Recently, I put up a video on how you can add a few extra ingredients to make it even better:

The Food Club brand is Roche Brothers' store brand and that's why the pizza is significantly cheaper than the other self-rising crust pizza brands. I've actually never tried the other brands, so I can't really say whether Food Club's pizza is better. However, I found that the crust had a pleasing soft bread texture and the pepperoni tasted pretty good. I added fresh mozzarella, sliced mushrooms, and a clove of finely diced garlic. You can add whatever you want and make the pizza taste gourmet. Try sliced olives, spinach, and maybe some feta to make it taste like a Greek pizza. Think of the frozen pizza as a basic canvas for whatever pizza creation you can imagine. The important thing is that the dough is good and whatever you add to it will make it even better.

Haymarket - Boston

For the poor student, Haymarket is the place that will keep you eating well without constantly asking your parents for money. There are a few of catches though:

1. Some vendors are a little rude.
2. The produce might be ripe, so you need it eat it soon.
3. It's only open on Fridays and Saturdays.

Catches #1 and #3 cannot be changed. However, if you become a regular customer, the vendors will probably eventually recognize you and share a joke with you every week. For example, the potato guy recognizes me and knows that I like the purple spuds. As for the days that haymarket is open, you'll want to go at about 4:30 or 5 p.m. to get the best prices because that's when they're trying to get rid of their inventory. However, if you want the best quality stuff, early in the day is better. Either way, you'll still get better prices than at the supermarket.

The ripeness of the produce is something that you can't really change but if you're willing to invest about $50 for a good dehydrator, you can create dried fruits and vegetables that can be stored for months in sealed plastic bags or air-tight containers. Keep your fruit in the fridge if possible. Dried fruit can be eaten as snacks or used for baking cakes. If you check the prices of dried fruit at the store, you'll see that you can create dried fruit for less with haymarket fruit. However, if you buy fruit at a regular store, it might be cheaper to buy dried fruit. For more information about this, see my blog post on dehydrating fruit.

Dehydrating your veggies is a good way to save space in your kitchen and can be rehydrated and used for soups and stews. You'll notice that the flavors are more concentrated and can make your own soup mixes to take to work. Mushrooms that are reconstituted with hot water will produce a nice flavorful and aromatic broth for cooking.

Positive things about Haymarket:
1. The food is very cheap!
This is probably the most important reason to shop here on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. Even if you get one or two duds in your bag, you'll still be saving a lot of money and eating healthier than if you bought your fruits and vegetables at a regular store. A lot of the produce is perfectly good and can be preserved by either dehydrating it or putting it in the fridge. Vegetables and fish can easily be cut up and frozen in plastic bags.

2. Easy to find and convenient
Haymarket is accessible by public transit on either the orange or green line. If you go out the orange line exit, it's just outside the station. Walk past the t-shirt vendor and turn left when you get to the corner. The stalls start a few steps away and cover about a block.

3. Interesting people (who are not students)
Let's face it, if you're a student, you probably see the same people all week. It's refreshing to see a bunch of non-students once in a while, isn't it? Haymarket has a very multi-cultural mix of people and the tourists will come by to check out the place too, on their way to Faneuil Hall. Besides, where else can you see a sign like this:

4. Interesting products in the stores

In addition to the stands filled with cheap fruits and vegetables, there are a few stores with a lot of products that you probably won't find at your local grocery store. Goat meat, Middle-Eastern foods, and a great variety of spices await you in the stores down the steps. You can also get very reasonably priced fish in those stores! We're talking less than $5 a pound of tuna or salmon, depending on availability. If you need a whole salmon, they might have that at only $3.99 a pound. At the cheese place, they have a different variety of cheese each week. For the more adventurous, it's fun to try a couple of cheeses each week and it'll cost you only $5 for two chunks. The thing about cheese is that it's already aged - what's another couple of weeks gonna do?

Virtual YouTube Tour of Boston

The Poor Student has linked all of the Scootin' in Boston videos with annotations to let you see Boston in a "choose your own adventure" kind of way. Let's say you're watching the video of Hammond Street and would like to go straight on Beacon Street to see Boston College, instead of turning onto to Hammond Street. Just click on the annotation and a new window will open with the video of that ride. Of course we haven't covered all of Boston yet, so the coverage right now is limited. However, you can see quite a lot of Boston from the comfort of your desk, in case you're getting ready to visit Boston or maybe you're just nervous about driving around the non-parallel streets in Boston.
(Scroll down to see a map of some of the routes that have already been covered by The Poor Student.)

Playlist of all Scootin' in Boston videos:

Here is one of the annotated videos:

Scootin' in Boston - Scootin' around Boston area colleges

This is the playlist for the Poor Student's new series, "Boston area school tours". There are 4 parts:

1. Schools in the Jamaica Plain area (includes Roxbury Community College, Northeastern University, Museum School, and Mass Art)
2. MIT and Harvard (in Cambridge, MA)
3. Boston College (Chestnut Hill)
4. Berklee College of Music and Emerson College (art schools in Back Bay and Downtown Boston)

Enjoy!

Twinkie alternative - "dreamies"

When Hostess went bankrupt and Twinkies flew off the shelves, people freaked out and Twinkies started becoming a rare commodity. Yeah, what a first-world problem - we no longer had these sugar and carb-filled treats to contribute to our obesity epidemic any more. However, the latest rumor is that the Twinkie might make a return to store shelves in September of 2013, at the earliest.

On my latest trip to the Save-a-lot in Roslindale (near Boston, MA), I noticed a box of treats that looked pretty close to the Twinkie: the dreamie. In case you really can't wait, look for these dreamies instead. They cost $1.99 for a box of 6 individually-wrapped treats and they're basically imitation Twinkies that taste pretty darn close to the real thing. Having said that, I'm not an expert on Twinkies because my dad never let me eat this crap when I was growing up. So, all I'm suggesting is that you spend less than $2 to try them yourself. If you don't like them, then wait until later this year.

In case you're into other types of packaged pastries too, Mrs. Freshley's also makes chocolate cupcakes with the white cream in the middle, which look very similar to the ones Hostess (or some other company) used to make. I actually like those.

If you eat this crap on a regular basis, I'm pretty sure you're not on a diet. However, in case you're wondering, one dreamie is 140 calories. You're welcome...
;)

Making Radish Cake

Radish cake is one of those dishes that Chinese people almost always order when they are having dim sum. That and "har gow" (shrimp dumpling) and shu mai (pork dumpling) are pretty common. While it's easy to find plenty of dumplings in the freezer section of any Asian market, radish cake (or "turnip cake") is something that has to be made from scratch. There are plenty of recipes online, such as this one (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Turnip-Cake-Law-Bock-Gow-100779), but they look like they take a ridiculous amount of time to make. So, the Poor Student has created a video to make the whole process easier. There are other videos on youtube that show you how to make radish cake, so check those out too, in case you want a second opinion...

Basically, you need 2 cups rice flour, 1.5 cups water, 6 shitake mushrooms, around 3 lbs daikon (Japanese radish), and 2 Chinese sausages (or other kind of sausage). Other things you can add are scallions and dried shrimp. The base of the recipe is rice flour, water, and radish. All of the other stuff is just for adding flavour. To make the process easier, you can use a grater to grate the daikon or a food processor (instead of dicing the daikon with a knife). Chop or process everything, cook the daikon with the flavouring ingredients, mix the water with the rice flour, and throw it all together in a loaf pan. Steam it for an hour. Cool it for several hours, slice it, and pan fry it. While you're waiting for it to cook, go do your homework and set an alarm to tell you when to do the next step. The recipe is time consuming mainly because of the time it takes to cook the daikon, steam it, and cool it. The rest of the steps are pretty quick.

Making this dish is like making polenta but perhaps with a bit more chopping involved. It's kinda time consuming but one batch will yield about 10 large slices, which can be stored in the fridge until you're ready to fry one up.

Fancy-Pants Sausage Squash Soup/Stew

Normally, I wouldn't bother making a fancy soup that involves putting the soup into the blender and back into the pot. However, I tried it recently and realized that it is worth the few minutes it takes to transform a simple squash soup into something similar to what I would get at a restaurant. When you puree the squash, it looks like a creamy soup even though you didn't add any cream or milk. Some people would insist on adding cream or dairy to make it richer but honestly, I don't think it was necessary. So, for vegans, this might be a good way to have a fancy soup that suits your diet needs. As a bonus, according to MyFinessPal, this recipe is loaded with Vitamin A and Vitamin C. Eat a bowl of this and you'll have enough of those vitamins for the day. Eat a big bowl of this and you'll be overdosing on those vitamins, which is not such a bad thing to do.

The ingredients can vary according to whatever you like but you definitely need some winter squash to create a creamy-looking soup, whether it's acorn squash, butternut, or whatever's on sale at the market. Pureeing at least some of the potatoes and chickpeas with the squash will also make the soup a little thicker.

Ingredients:
(serves 6 to 10 people, depending on their appetites and whether this is the meal itself or an appetizer)

1 package of Turkey smoked sausage sliced into thin coins (e.g. 14 oz Butterball) (leave out if you're vegetarian and add something else that has salt and spices in it)
A bunch of kale (or whatever green stuff you have in the fridge) chopped
3 to 6 cloves of garlic (as you like) chopped
2 to 3 tomatoes (diced)
1 to 2 onions (diced)
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 medium potatoes (diced)
2 small winter squash or 1 medium/large winter squash (cubed)
2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 cup of water
possible seasonings: cumin, soy sauce, finely diced jalapenos, Frank's hot sauce, black pepper, nutmeg

After everything is chopped and sliced, put it all into a slow cooker for about 4 hours at around 150F. If you have time and would like to be extra fancy, saute the garlic and onion in olive oil before adding to the pot. If you don't, just dump it all into the pot. At the end of the 4 hours, put the squash and vegetables into a blender with some liquid. Leave the sausage in the pot. There should be plenty of liquid in there because the vegetables give off a lot of moisture in addition to the cup of water that you added at the start. The trick is to let the soup cook and to avoid opening the cooker while the soup is cooking. Puree the squash and liquid in a couple of batches. The soup is hot, so if you put too much in, the blender top might fly off. Put the pureed soup back into the pot to warm until it's time to eat.

Also, you don't have to puree all of the squash and veggies. It's nice to have a few chunks in there for texture. Actually, I like leaving most of the potato in there in chunk form. The chickpeas also add some interesting texture to the dish. If you're trying to impress someone, drizzle some olive oil on top of the soup when you serve it.

JP Kitchen - in Jamaica Plain

The first time I went to JP Kitchen, I ordered the seafood special. It came with a bread roll instead of rice. Whatever. When I got home, I was a little surprised to see that it was deep fried, which is not a bad thing but I was expecting that it was cooked in a wok. Whatever. There were a few chunks of fake crab and the jalapenos kinda threw me off. I liked the squid and shrimp though. It was tasty but I wanted to try something else. This is the kind of dish that needs another dish to go with it.

Salt & Pepper Seafood

A couple of days later, I tried their combo #34. It included lobster sauce, which is actually made of pork. I really liked the fact that it came in a separate container with a lid, within the box. At some places, they just  put it in one of the dividers of the box so it spills all over the place. JP Kitchen's lobster sauce is also unique because there are scallops in the sauce! At first, I was wondering what that round white thing was and was pleasantly surprised to find not just one, but 3 scallops! The rice was good and had plenty of shrimp. Not too salty either. I'm usually ambivalent about crab rangoon but these were actually quite good. I'd actually order this combo again in the future. As you can tell in the picture below, it's a lot of food and enough for at least two meals. You might want to add some sauteed veggies to make it a healthier meal though.

Combo #34 - shrimp fried rice, crab rangoon, and lobster sauce

The lobster sauce has scallops in it!

If you can't finish the lobster sauce, save it to use for cooking some vegetables such as Chinese cabbage or spinach. It's a tasty sauce that you can put in a frying pan, add your chopped veggies, and make a nice side dish in about 10 minutes or less. Or, if you're just really lazy, make some rice and pour the sauce on top for a meal.

More dishes from subsequent visits (to be updated with each visit):

 Click on the pictures for a larger image.

Scootin' in Boston - Searching for Ribena

In this episode of Scootin' in Boston, the Poor Student rides from Route 9 to Kiki's Kwik-Mart (in Brighton) via Washington Street. For those of you who are not familiar with Ribena, it's a British black currant syrup that used to be available in Asian markets. However, the only place in town that carries it in Boston now is Kiki's in Brighton. If anyone knows of other places that carry Ribena, please leave a comment.

The video footage was from a Sunday afternoon ride at the end of August, before the students moved back to Boston. There was very little traffic and it was nice ride.

Mac & Cheese

Mac & Cheese is a dish that's almost as convenient as packaged ramen noodles. It requires a little more time than ramen noodles but is probably a little closer to "comfort food" than the ramen. However, a box of mac & cheese is basically a box of carbs and you need to add some stuff to it if you want to make a healthier and more balanced meal. It's a pretty flexible meal, so whatever is in your fridge will probably be a nice addition to the cheese sauce. Some examples are: a handful of frozen vegetables, mushrooms, bacon & diced onion, or egg & scallion. If you want to be extra fancy, dump the finished mac & cheese into a baking pan, sprinkle some crushed potato chips and shredded cheese over it, and broil it until the cheese is golden brown.

O'Day's brand, only 50 cents at the Save-a lot!

Once you mix in some veggies, bacon, other meat, and whatever, the taste of the mac & cheese will not be very important in the overall dish. So, if you're planning on using mac & cheese as a "foundation" for the rest of your meal, just get the cheap stuff. Make it healthy by adding veggies and beans. Actually, bean chili is a tasty addition and you'll get your daily intake of fibre quite easily.

Mac & Cheese brands: O'Day's, Trader Joe's, and CVS

How different are these brands of mac & cheese? See for yourself:

Nutrition labels for O'Day's, Trader Joe's, and CVS brands

Coconut milk: the next big trend!

It seems that Americans are finally discovering that coconut milk is a great alternative to dairy, which seems kinda weird to consume, considering the fact that cows generally do not drink human milk, right? However, this does not mean that I am against dairy products. I actually use milk in my coffee sometimes and in baking but only in small amounts because of that pesky lactose intolerance issue. Coconut milk, almond milk, and soy milk are all friendlier to my stomach. The coconut water that has recently become popular is kinda weird-tasting. The coconut milk that comes in the milk cartons is also kinda boring. The good stuff is the coconut milk that comes in cans.

Read the nutrition label!
When you pick up a can of coconut milk, it's important to read the label because the lighter stuff will be good for a lot of recipes but if you want to make some richer tasting things like chocolate coconut whipped cream, you need the full fat stuff. Some of the Asian brands have cans that look quite similar. For example, Chaukoh and Chaudoc have similarly designed cans (see pictures below). However, Chaukoh is the full fat version and Chaudoc is the light version. They label both cans "coconut milk". By the way, these are great brands and you can find them at Super 88/Hong Kong Supermarket in Allston. You can also find both the light and full fat versions at Trader Joe's under their labels. All of the coconut milk shown in the pictures below come from Thailand. However, if you compare the full fat versions, the Trader Joe's brand actually has a more calories per serving (1/3 cup) and it is labeled as "coconut cream" to make it extra obvious. There is only one extra gram of saturated fat in the Trader Joe's version (over Chaukoh) though.

(Click on the pictures to see larger images)

Can you see the difference?

Check the nutrition labels!

The Trader Joe brands

Light on the left, Full fat on the right

The Light brands

The Full fat brands

Chaudoc Coconut Milk (full fat)

Nutrition label for Chaokoh coconut milk (full fat)

Nutrition label for Chaudoc coconut milk (light)

Ice cream

The lighter stuff will generally be a bit cheaper and is pretty good for most things, including ice cream. Just make sure you churn it long enough to get the air into the ice cream so it doesn't freeze solid. In Boston, JP Licks has recently been offering a few coconut milk flavors, in case you'd like to try it before attempting to make it at home. Coconut is a great complement to chocolate. Check out my post on making dairy-free ice cream. It really takes only 3 ingredients: coconut milk, sugar, and cocoa. If you're planning on freezing some for later, add a tiny bit of vanilla extract near the end of the churning time because the alcohol will prevent the cream from freezing solid.

If you use Dutch cocoa with honey (instead of sugar), and full fat coconut milk, the result will be pretty close to premium ice-cream quality. This is where you might want to use the coconut cream with the highest fat content, such as the Trader Joe's brand. A can of coconut milk is usually somewhere between $1.70 to $2 and it will make at least a pint of ice cream. You might never buy factory-produced ice cream ever again!

Chocolate ice cream made with 3 ingredients:
coconut cream Dutch cocoa, and raw honey

Coffee Creamer
One thing that hasn't caught on yet is using coconut milk as a coffee creamer. It's a great alternative to soy milk and dairy milk. If you use the full fat stuff, it's as rich as (or maybe even richer than) half and half. However, because coconut oil solidifies at cold temperatures, the full fat coconut cream is ideal for hot drinks and might not work so well in iced drinks. The lighter coconut milk seems to work well in iced coffee. Some people don't like the "bean-y" taste of soy milk. Perhaps the coconut flavor won't be as weird for them.

Places to buy coconut milk:
Cans of coconut milk are readily available in most Latino stores, Asian markets, and even CVS. The Goya brand is probably the most popular one in the U.S. However, if you sample several brands, you'll find that some brands will have different characteristics. For instance, the Chaokoh brand does not separate as cleanly as some other brands. I put a can of Chaokoh (full fat) coconut milk in the fridge over night to let the coconut cream separate from the liquid. The liquid part was actually thick enough to be coconut milk (it was white and not clear) and the coconut cream was not solid but had the consistency of runny whipped cream. With other brands, you might get a thick layer of nearly solid coconut fat on top of what looks like clear coconut water. Depending on what you're going to do with it, you might want that layer of coconut fat. I used the Chaokoh to make the ice cream you see in the pictures above.

Franklin Park - Jamaica Plain

Franklin Park is where the Franklin Park Zoo and a large public golf course are located. It's also a great place to jog, take a walk, or have a picnic. A lot of people go there on holiday weekends. If you'd like a more peaceful place to see, check out the Forest Hills Cemetery, on the other side of Morton Street.

Circuit Drive/Jewish War Veterans Drive runs through the park and goes around much of the golf course. However, about a third of Circuit Drive is closed to vehicles. In this episode of Scootin' in Boston, the Poor Student rides around the park and shows you the golf course and the entrance to the zoo. The tour starts at the usual location, the corner of Forest Hills St. and Williams St.

Map of the ride, starting on Forest Hills Street, ending at Blue Hill Avenue

Broiling tuna steak in the toaster oven

Tuna steak has become more popular in recent years, shortly after sushi became a normal thing to eat in North America. Usually, tuna steak is seared on the outside and left raw in the middle. Another way to prepare tuna steak is in the toaster oven. There's less clean-up and no need to watch a frying pan. All you need to do is line a baking try with aluminum foil or parchment paper, season your tuna steak with olive oil, salt, and your favorite spices. Put the baking rack on the highest level in your toaster oven and set it to the broil function. Because toaster ovens vary in how hot they get, try a lower temperature (e.g. 350 F) the first time you do this and flip it after 5 minutes. Broil on the second side for 5 minutes. If the fish is too raw, pop it back in for another couple of minutes.

Here's a video of the Poor Student broiling tuna steak:

Scootin' in Boston - Route 20 and Brookline Avenue

In this episode of Scootin' in Boston, we scoot along Route 20 and then turn right onto Brookline Avenue. We go through Allston, Boston University territory, Fenway, Longwood hospital area, and end up at Route 9. The route is very simple but we pass by a lot of landmarks along the way.

See route map below

Scootin' in Boston - Amory Street

In this episode of Scootin' in Boston, we go up Amory street starting from the north (turning of Columbus Ave.) and ending up at around English High in Jamaica Plain, by Doyle's Cafe. Enjoy!

Scootin' in Boston - Arboretum and Allandale Farm

In this episode of Scootin' in Boston, the Poor Student starts at the entrance of the Arboretum at Washington Street (by Forest Hills Station) and goes west, through the Arboretum, turns right onto Centre Street, and left onto Allandale Street. Allandale Farm is a working farm with a farmstand (store) and a CSA program. They also carry baked goods from Clear Flour Bread Bakery (Brookline) and Canto 6 (Jamaica Plain).

At Grove Street, we turn left to get onto the Roxbury Parkway via a rotary and then head back to Centre Street via Veterans of Foreign Wars Parkway. Finally, we go through the Arboretum again to get back to our starting point (at Forest Hills Station on Washington Street).

This route generally has less traffic than Washington Street. For the most part, the roads are well paved with only a few bumps along the way.

Scootin' in Boston Series - JP to Roslindale Village

The Poor Student scoots from Franklin Park in Jamaica Plain to Roslindale Village and back to Jamaica Plain. Roslindale Village is a cool shopping area with an interesting mix of restaurants, shops, and businesses. Check out the bakeries and small restaurants there! Here's the route:

Here's the video of the ride:

Scootin' in Boston - JP to Cambridge (MIT)

Here's the route:

Here's the video:

Save-a-lot - American Legion Highway, Roslindale

One of the places that I wasn't able to reach easily before I had a scooter was the Save-a-lot on American Legion Highway in Roslindale. There's a strip mall there and if you're in the mood for Popeye's Chicken after getting your groceries, you're in luck! Popeye's is usually busy and I've never seen it completely empty. The staff there are very friendly too.

Anyway, the point of this post is the Save-a-lot. It's not the best supermarket in the area but I bet it's the cheapest. They have everything you need but not necessarily brands you'd see at Roche Bros or Stop & Shop. However, they also have some cool things you might not find easily elsewhere too. For example, they sell plantains and plantain chips. They also always seem to have habanero peppers there, if you can handle that level of heat. If you want to try goat meat but don't want to trek down to haymarket, Save-a-lot also carries goat chunks (ready for stewing) sometimes. I've never had any problems with the meat there. They have all the standard stuff you'd find elsewhere but don't have fancy things like filet mignon or stuff like that. I've gotten a pork loin there and it was great.

Frankly, I go there mainly for the produce and meat. If I remember, I'll get some plantain chips. The frozen foods there are also good deals and there's plenty of cheap bread too. If you're a poor student, this is a good supermarket to load up on basic pantry items. If you need mac & cheese, they carry a brand called "O'day's" for about 50 cents a box or less, depending if it's on sale or not.

Last note: remember to bring your own plastic bags because they will charge you 11 cents for one.

Here's a video that show you how to get there from Forest Hills:

Update: (July 2012) They have repaired Walk Hill St. and it's a nice ride now.