Meaghan Barry

Meaghan is a former finance professional, turned stay-at-home mom.

Posted by Meaghan Barry on March 10, 2010

Here is the look I am going for this spring…flowery shirt, cardigans, ballet flats, and scarves:

Items in this set:
Women’s new arrivals – sweaters – Cashmere open cardigan – J.Crew, $200
Women’s new arrivals – tees & knits – Flouncy flowers scoopneck tee -…, $40
Women – knits – Tissue garland tank – J.Crew, $36
J Crew Favorite-fit stretch wool trouser, $140
Women’s Apparel: Nylon trench: new arrivals | Banana Republic, $130

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on March 7, 2010

Although it is still not quite spring here in Boston, the slightly warmer weather and longer days are making me thing ahead to spring. There are definitely a number of things I am looking forward to with the warm weather around the corner. I wanted to share my favorite spring activities in Boston (in no particular order):

1. Walking around Castle Island each evening before dinner

2. Planting my herb garden on my back porch

3. Red Sox game at Fenway

4. Walking around the Back Bay during lunch to window shop and check out spring flowers during lunch

5. Reading on the roof deck

6. Sleeping with the windows open

7. Walking through the Boston Public Garden to check out the flowers and ducklings

8. First boat ride of the season in Boston Harbor

9. Outside brunch/dinner in Boston

10. Copley Square Farmer’s Market

What are some of your favorite Spring activities in your respective cities?

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on March 6, 2010

Living in South Boston, we usually end up throwing a St. Patrick’s day party for the annual parade. Over the years, I’ve tried out serving different types of food for the event. I’ve never tried making corned beef and cabbage, as that sounds like a truly terrible dish to me. I like to stick with brunch ideas as the festivities usually start around 11 or 12 on a Sunday. Here are some ideas:

-Make-Your-Own Omelette Bar: This is pretty easy to put together. Gather a number of small bowls and fill them up with things that people might want to put in their omelette: mushrooms, green peppers, tomatoes, spinach, ham, shredded cheese, etc. Also, in a large bowl, crack a few cartons of eggs and whisk together a large batch of egg mix. Everyone can pick exactly what they want in their omelettes and everyone is happy.

-Breakfast Sandwiches: Cook a couple packages of bacon in the oven at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. Put the bacon on paper towels to soak up the grease afterwards. Cut a couple packages of English muffins in half, put on a cookie sheet, and toast under the broiler. In the meanwhile, start cooking eggs sunny-side up. About 30 seconds before they are done, put a slice of cheese on top of each egg and allow to melt. Put one egg on each English muffin bottom, top with bacon and the other half of the English muffin.

-On the side, I like to make a large fruit salad and have a couple of pitchers of beverages. While most people stick to beer on St. Patty’s day, I like to make Bloody Mary’s and a sparkling pomegranate juice for the non-drinkers. In small cups, put limes, lemons, and celery for people to add to their drinks.

Happy St. Patty’s Day!

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on March 5, 2010

I have made two excellent recipes this week that I wanted to pass along:

1. Pioneer Woman’s Spaghetti and Meatballs– A pretty standard thing to make, but I thought this was the best I ever had. The husband gave it a 100 (very rare).

Photo courtesy of jsjw

2. Chana Masala and Garlic Naan– It was amazing. I may have to make this every week.

Photo courtesy of paul goyette

Happy weekend!

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on March 2, 2010

This past weekend, my husband and I took a quick weekend getaway to Miami for my 30th birthday. My actual birthday is February 29th, making me a leap day baby. So technically, I was celebrating my 7 1/2th birthday. This is a terrible time of year for a birthday in my opinion because it is still in the dead of winter and everyone is beyond sick of the weather. My younger sisters all had summer birthdays, and therefore were able to have huge pool parties. Not I…always an indoor party for poor little me (my sisters are definitely going to be rolling their eyes as they read this!)

Before we went on a cruise 2 years ago, we stayed at the South Beach Marriott overnight before we embarked. We really enjoyed our stay there and have always thought about going back. My 30th/7.5 birthday seemed like the perfect opportunity. We were able to fly directly to Ft. Lauderdale after a series of mishaps with Jet Blue. Our plane getting into Boston was delayed an hour, the Jet Blue systems went down and they grounded all flights for an hour, and then a plane on the Ft. Lauderdale runway lost communications with air control and we had to suddenly avert our landing and circle again. Fortunately, our dinner reservations were for pretty late….it’s Miami!

On Friday night, we had dinner at Nobu, a famous sushi chain. It was really delicious food, but our meal got cut a bit short when our tables got cleared and we were given dessert menus (we had been planning on ordering a bit more sushi). Afterwards, we hit up the Sky Bar which was outdoors and was very nicely decorated. They also had gas lamps, which I parked under all night as it did get a bit cool.

The next morning, we grabbed brunch at a place right around the corner from our hotel called The Big Pink. We hit up the beach after and we were pretty much the only people for the 4 hours we hung out there. It was a bit windy and overcast, but we got occasional bursts of sun. It was really relaxing to just read, talk with my husband, and watch the water. One of my friends from college, who now lives about an hour from Miami, met us up in the afternoon and we grabbed drinks and apps at the hotel bar. It started to downpour while we were there and the whole crowd watched in dismay (ok, slight amusement) as the wedding decorations set up in the area adjacent to the outdoor bar all blew over and fell into the hotel’s water fountain!

For dinner that night, I had done some researching on OpenTable and Yelp and decided to try out Wish. The food was excellent and they had menus that actually lit up as you opened them. The back garden was closed due to the weather, but we were still able to eat outside. On Sunday morning, we woke up on the early side to sit out at the beach for an hour. We then got ready, checked out of our room, and hit up the Sunday brunch downstairs. Here is the view from the South Beach Marriott:

We then headed to the airport and we were back in Boston by 6. It was definitely a very fun birthday and one I will always remember!

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on February 25, 2010

Since I am officially turning the big 3-0 this weekend, I wanted to follow-up on my goals for the year before I embark on the next decade of my life:

M’s 2010 Goals:
1. Start letterpress printing! This involves getting my new poco press cleaned up and ready to go. I need to make a trip out to Chicopee, MA to a warehouse called Letterpress Things to stock up on tools, inks, and cleaners. I also need to buy a base and determine what software I need on my computer to start designing plates- Done, I did everything here and just need to start designing some plates, ordering them, and then start printing!
2. Try yoga again – Took one beginner class. Purchased a series of 10 classes off of Gilt for Exhale Spa…just need to actually use them now.
3. Cook more meals and do more prep on the weekend– Kind of…I’ve been cooking a lot, but not necessarily doing more prep on the weekend.
4. Organize my kitchen -Done, bought a ton of wooden crates (maybe too many) off E-Bay. Found kitchen cabinet hooks at the Home Depot and installed them this weekend.
5. Read more books off the NY Times Best Seller list– Done…new book review of past 5 books coming soon. I have about 30 books on hold at the library as well.
6. Spend less money on clothes– Done…haven’t really been in much of a shopping mood for clothes at all lately. This probably has more to do with the fact that all the stores are showing spring clothes, none of which will be wearable in Boston until about June.
7. Take more classes at the Boston Center for Adult Education. I am currently thinking about taking a digital photography class and an Adobe design class- Done…took Adobe Illustrator class, signed up for digital photography and 2 other classes.
8. Buy a headboard for our master bedroom- Still working on this.
9. Finish painting our master bathroom or hire someone to finish it.– Decided to install crown molding instead…still need to find a contractor to do this.
10. Post on a regular basis to this new blog! – Getting better at it…definitely room for improvement on content and frequency!

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on February 24, 2010

The other night, I took a class at the BCAE to help learn Adobe Illustrator. A couple of weeks ago, I had downloaded a trial run of the Adobe Creative Suite to create digital photopolymer plates to make letterpress prints. After a few minutes of playing around with Illustrator, I quickly realized I had no idea of what I was doing. While I pretty much know every Excel trick in the book after 8 years in Corporate Finance, I have never used any type of graphic design program.

After doing a few on-line searches, I realized the least expensive classroom option to learn Illustrator would be at the Boston Center for Adult Education. In the past, Husband M and I have taken wine classes there. I also took a beginning sewing class there as well two summers ago. The facility is pretty close to my work so it’s really easy to take evening classes there.

The class turned out to be just what I needed. The teacher, who I thought was really funny throughout the class, was really good at going over the basics of Illustrator. Not surprisingly, she told us at the end of the class that she was a stand-up comedian when she wasn’t doing graphic design. Her personality really kept the class interesting because three hours of software training can sometimes become boring quickly. When I had initially been playing around with the software at home, there were a few things that had I had no idea what was going on…I was able to quickly learn what I had been doing wrong and found new tools to help create what I was hoping to.

Overall, I thought the class was definitely worth my time and I plan on utilizing my new skills over the next couple of weeks to design the letterpress plates. It’s kind of funny how interesting it is to head back to a classroom setting to learn new things once you are no longer in school on a daily basis. Over the next month, I’m signed up for classes about blogging, kitchen knives skills, and digital photography. I’ll definitely keep you posted on how they go…

-m

Posted by Meaghan Barry on February 23, 2010

For the Super Bowl, I also made Guacamole (as did our Mom…I guess it’s a family trend). Sister K has a very good recipe that she has made for me before (for recipe, click here.) I was searching around for a new variation and I found this one by Alton Brown on the Food Network website.

Ingredients
-3 Haas avocados, halved, seeded and peeled
-1 lime, juiced (I was out of limes and half a lemon worked just fine in this recipe)
-1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
-1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 medium onion, diced (I prefer red onion for this recipe)
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro (omit if serving for a crowd…a lot of people do not like cilantro)
1 clove garlic, minced

Directions

In a large bowl place the scooped avocado pulp and lime juice, toss to coat. Drain, and reserve the lime juice, after all of the avocados have been coated. Using a potato masher add the salt, cumin, and cayenne and mash. Then, fold in the onions, tomatoes, cilantro, and garlic. Add 1 tablespoon of the reserved lime juice. Let sit at room temperature for 1 hour and then serve.

A good trick I learned somewhere is to stick the avocado pits into the guacamole while it is sitting out. Remove them before serving. In addition to the lime/lemon juice, this prevents the guacamole from browning.

-Sister M

Posted by Meaghan Barry on February 22, 2010

Following my belated Valentine’s Day dinner, I made Molten Chocolate Cake for dessert. Although it sounds intimidating to make (and isn’t this the dessert you have to pre-order before your meal at most restaurants?!), it was actually pretty easy to make. I got this recipe from the blog Closet Cooking:

Molten Chocolate Cake

(makes 4 servings)
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup sugar
3 egg whites

Directions:
1. Lightly grease 4 ramekins with butter.
2. Melt the chocolate into the butter in a double boiler and let cool a bit.
3. Beat the egg yolks and sugar and mix into the chocolate.
4. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until they form soft peaks.
5. Fold the chocolate into the egg whites.
6. Pour the batter into the ramekins, no more than 2/3rds full.
7. Bake in a preheated 400F oven for 7-10 minutes. The outside will be set and possibly crack and the inside will still be liquid.
8. Let cool for a few minutes and then run a knife around the edges and tip onto a plate. (Optional; Feel free to eat it right out of the ramekin with a spoon.)

I sifted a little powdered sugar on top and ate it straight from the ramekin (I think this was the first time I have actually even used my ramekins!) Husband M recommends adding a couple raspberries to the top as well.

-Sister M

Posted by Meaghan Barry on February 21, 2010

I finally got around to making a special Valentine’s Day dinner, albeit about a week late (last Sunday, neither one of us felt like going grocery shopping and we just ended up getting Indian take-out). For starters, I made hummus, toasted pita chips, and warm olives with za’atar. For the actual dinner, I used Ana Sortun’s cookbook Spice (chef of Oleana…my hands down favorite restaurant in Boston and her husband runs the best farmer’s market stand, Siena Farms, in Copley Square during the summer months). I made the Seared Salmon with Egyptian Garlic and Coriander Sauce, Rice Cake, and Sister K’s Roasted Asparagus. The salmon was very good…it browned very nicely in this recipe. I made way too much of the tomato sauce as I forgot to halve the recipe. I did get to practice my new cooking skill of peeling tomatoes that I learned in my French cooking class. Basically, you cut off the top, cut an x from top to bottom of the tomato and place in boiling water for 1 minute. Put in an ice bath afterwards and the peel practically falls off. The rice cake were delicious…scoops of rice that get a great crusty top when you cook them and then bake them. Here is the recipe slightly abridged for time for quantity (check out the cookbook for the full recipe):

Rice Cakes:

Ingredients
-1 cup basmati rice
-2 eggs
-1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 tblsp canola oil
-1 tsp butter

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil over high heat. Add rice and reduce the heat to medium. Simmer for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Drain the rice and allow to cool for 20 minutes. Preheat over to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs with the yogurt until smooth. Stir in rice and season with salt.

Heat a medium ovenproof saute pan over high heat and add oil and butter. Once the butter is brown, scoop the rice in 1/2 cup measuring container and drop into pan (should make 4-6 scoops). Cook over medium heat until the bottoms brown (around 6-10 minutes). Place this pan in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. The bottoms should have a nice crust and the tops should still be soft. Serve with the crust side up.

I thought this made a great side dish and was not very difficult to make. I am definitely going to make this one again.

-Sister M