Three-Pepper Quesadillas

The usual jam-packed weekend. We spent Saturday morning doing house drive-bys in the Tewksbury area, and found some reason to be encouraged, though most of the ones we saw were in pretty bad shape on the outside or in awkward locations. We got lunch at a pizza joint in Billerica called Sal's (passable slices, but the TV was tuned to a Pauly Shore movie), drove by a couple more houses, and then made our way home.

In the afternoon we took turns running errands. We had decided to finally see Surf's Up, a movie L loves to watch Youtube clips of, so I had to make something that could be eaten in front of the TV. Normally I do pizza, but we had pizza for lunch, so I decided to stick with the flatbread theme and make quesadillas. I looked at what was in the pan and decided that it needed more heft -- as written it would probably make a fine addition to a menu, but as the only course, I chucked in some black beans (added bonus, L eats those). The movie turned out to be very entertaining, though L cried a bit at unexpected points, which I chalked up to over-excitement.

Sunday I spent the morning cleaning the kitchen and L's room, including packing away a bunch of her old clothes for eventual transport to the thrift store. It needs to be done, obviously, but it always makes me feel wistful.

In the evening we drove through one of the apparently never-ended rainstorms the summer is giving us, to Allora Ristorante in Marlboro, for dinner with my supper club buddies. In sum: excellent food, service could use some work. The bruschetta was like nothing I had ever seen, hefty triangles of toasted bread smothered in chunks of fresh tomato and balsamic vinegar, scattered with cheese. Fabulous, and much too much for one person. Then the organic greens salad with pears and walnuts, which was quite good, and the pesto chicken, which I somehow managed to eat all of, somewhat to my own surprise. One of my fellows got the osso buco and practically licked his plate clean.

It was not a cheap evening in terms of money or calories, but I'd definitely give the place another try and see if our waiter was just having an off night, or what. JJ behaved marvelously, L less so, but they had us in a private room so it didn't matter too much that she was running around (and under the table) for most of the evening.