Worms? No Thanks...I'm a Vegetarian.

I hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful one and for everyone else, I hope you had a lovely weekend. I spent Thanksgiving with my fiance's family this year...one of several beautiful family get-togethers I've been fortunate enough to participate in. Don't get me wrong...I love my quiet, simple dinners with my immediate family, but with my mom from the Philippines and my dad from the north, we don't have a lot of "other family" near-by. We used to celebrate with some cousins of ours but haven't been able to connect as of late, but hopefully, we'll all get together soon. Anywho, every once in awhile, (maybe it's just me) but, I look forward to one of those big family celebrations with lots of friends and family everywhere. Very holiday-esque, no? My family has always celebrated traditional American holidays, but the older I get, the more I want to celebrate the holidays. The more I want to decorate, to bake, to cook, to gift wrap. I can't wait till my SO and I get a house so I can really get started decorating and maybe even host a holiday dinner. I'm taking notes from my Martha Stewart library...just in case.


We celebrated a traditional Thanksgiving with Turkey, dressing, gravy, dry dressing (a secret family recipe), macaroni & cheese, green been casserole, mashed potatoes, salad, rolls...am I forgetting anything? I mean, obviously, we had dessert (my fave part of any meal): pumpkin gooey-butter cake, brownies, ice cream, and apple pie. If you can't tell from the photo, I celebrated Thanksgiving with quite a few of my SO's family - his aunt & uncle (the hosts) and their two sons, his mom, his brother & his son, his sister & her husband & their son & daughter.

I had a funny conversation with one of my SO's nephews, Alex, while he was playing with this fish toy that had a worm on a pully that when you pulled made the fish's tail swim while the worm moved closer towards the fish's mouth. The conversation went something like this:

Me: What's that in the fish's mouth?
Alex: A worm.
Me: What's the fish doing with the worm?
Alex: He's eating it.
Me: Do you eat worms?
Alex: NOOOO! I'm a veg-e-TAR-ian! I don't eat meat!

It wasn't the answer I was expecting, but it was really too cute.



The weather was a bit chilly, but beautiful. The fire-colored leaves looked so brilliant against the blue-blue sky.



Bailey is really loving all the leaves. He loves to eat them...or pick them up in his mouth at least...



...even leaves waaaay bigger than his head, which is pretty cute.



Oh yea...and he likes sticks, too.



When we got back home from visiting my SO's family, we had a simple soup...gotta eat healthy after chowing down on all that turkey, right? This is the Chicken Provencal "Stoup" by Rachael Ray (click here for recipe). I thought the recipe was pretty good, but if you try it, be sure to get the olive tapenade. I was hesitant to buy it because I don't like olives, but a teaspoon-full stirred into my soup added a lot of flavor, and it didn't really make the soup taste too much like olives. It just added depth to the flavor overall.

Oh, and did I mention that we also got to celebrate my SO's mom's b-day? Happy birthday, you-know-who!

Halloween Dinner Party

As I mentioned when I made my pumpkin favors, I decided to have my first official "dinner party" with a Halloween theme - primarily themed with the color black. Although it was lots of work and took up most of my weekend, I really enjoyed putting this together. Here are some shots from the evening:



I decided to make a nice, cold-weather comfort food, with a nice red tomato-juice-based sauce to resemble blood (just a bit...nothing realistic). It's the Brisket with Carrots & Onions by Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa. I also served it with spinach dip (from The Fresh Market) and roasted potatoes:

Roasted Potatoes Recipe
1-3 lbs small, red-skinned potatoes
4 garlic cloves
1 TBSP Italian seasoning (or other dried herb of choice)
2 TSP salt
1 TSP pepper
4-5 TBSP olive oil

Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees Farenheit. Peel rough parts of skin and eyes from potatoes (I like a little skin left on, but feel free to peel the whole thing). Slice potatoes into 1/2-1" chunks (the smaller the chunks, the faster they'll cook). Put potatoes in baking dish. Top with garlic, spices, salt, pepper, and drizzle olive oil on top. Toss potatoes to cover and distribute seasoning and oil. Potatoes should be lightly covered. Bake for 40-60 minutes until to desired tenderness.



I went with an all black table setting...well, except for the plates. A black, sparkly table cloth from target, 3 black candles, & the black flowers/vases I crafted earlier



A closer look



An armoire in the living area got a scary makeover with these Michael's skull luminaries, red/black candies, and black web-covered branch



I wanted to do a themed dessert since the dinner wasn't too scary looking, so I chose the spider "creep-cakes" from the Martha Stewart mag and re-created them without the fangs.



Unfortunately, one snuck away and we haven't seen him since.



We even had some "Witches Brew" complete with spooky dry ice effects. The dry ice didn't last long though...I'll have to get a bigger piece for next year. Anywho, if you check out the recipe, I subbed Kool-Aid for the soda packets, and I opted for the dry ice effects over the "frozen hand"...I'm sure either is scary. The spiders seemed to enjoy the special effects, watching carefully with their beady, red eyes.



This rustic, hearty dinner was served on a candle-lit table.



I even had time to make little name cards for each place setting.



After dinner was over, the spiders were served up. Unfortunately, the black sugar on top turned everyone's mouths black (lips, teeth, tongue), but them seemed to think it was pretty funny, even reaching for a second spider snack. Hey, it could be a good prank if you want to get one of your friends.



All in all, I'd say it was a successful dinner thanks to special help from my honey. Thanks babe. Hope everyone enjoyed.

Deliciously Unique Dessert at PF Changs

I took my honey for dinner to PF Changs (after he took me to see Pirates of the Caribbean - which was so-so) as a "let's end our vacation / kick off the new week with a treat" treat. I don't know why, but we hardly ever even glance at the dessert menu there. However, this past Monday, we decided to split a couple appetizers and an entree to save room for dessert (guess we were on vacation mode still...lol). We got Wonton Soup, Peking Dumplings (aka Potstickers), Moo Goo Gai Pan, and this fabulousness:

It's called the Lucky 8 and my SO and I were feeling pretty lucky we had ordered it. It's basically Phyllo dough brushed with chocolate, rolled up, deep-fried and served with gooey toffee and heath bar crumbles. You dip the chocolately sticks in the toffee, roll them around in the candy crumbles and voila! A deliciously unique dessert.

Now, I'm a pretty big dessert connoisseur...not so much that I claim to have expertise in the area, but I've eaten out at a lot of restaurants over my lifetime, and I have a huge sweet tooth, so I've seen my fair share of good desserts. Let me tell you, this is one of the best and most unique I think I've ever had...off the top of my head, this is in my Top 5, and that says a lot for anyone who knows me pretty well. For anyone headed to PF Changs any time soon, you simply must try this. If you don't think you can finish it all, our waiter told us (after we had him box two sticks up for us) that we could have ordered a half-order. Oh well...you live, you learn, right?

His V-Day Dinner

Just so you all don't think I got the short end of the stick this year...we usually both do celebratory dinners, regardless of whose "night" it is for dinner. I usually cook...he usually takes us out somewhere nice. We went to a little local Italian restaurant, run by a real Italian family w/ a real Italian chef, so the food is absolutely top-notch.

I love how they do their bread here. Slices of fresh bread with a bean/garlic/herb concoction...delicious!


Fabulous entrees...he got a buccatini pasta with cherry tomato sauce, large shrimp, a half lobster tail. I had veal with a mushroom demi-glaze sauce (sp? wish I had the menu to check) served with the starch and veg of the day - roast potatoes and a julienne vegetable medley.


Any how could we not do dessert? Homemade tirimisu with a super frothy cafe latte...mmmm

V-Day Cookie, Darling?

I've started a new job today...sorta. I'm a consultant, so my company sends me on various projects, and I've just started a new one at Wachovia in uptown Charlotte. It's a whole new ballgame - most of the projects I've worked on were at small companies, which usually had no more than a couple hundred employees. Now, I'm working at the headquarters for Wachovia, right on the trading floor, so things are going to be quite busy for awhile. The good news is that I don't have to travel, as some people are sent off to Boston or Miami, and I'm still within driving range, but it's very, very different.

Anywho, the bank hours are quite long...or maybe just late? I used to leave work around 4 or 4:30 PM (because I got to work so early), but now I'll be at the bank until 6 PM or later...ugh. Oh well, I like to think of myself as a dedicated worker so I'm going to make myself love this new schedule. Maybe I'll have time for some blogging or crafting in the AM? Either way, I'm sure I'll adjust soon enough, but the extended hours certainly didn't help my planning dinner tonight. I fully intended to look up a nice recipe and try to do something fancy - maybe something from Barefoot Contessa or Everyday Italian - but I was so tired, I ended up just making tacos...boo on me. I hope I made up for the not-so-romantic dinner with these:


I tried getting the dough rolled out and ready to bake before one of my fave shows, Bones, came on...


I only missed a couple minutes, but was super happy to find out that these cookies only took about 5 min to bake. Yea...I made them from a dry mix...I cheated a little, but at least I kinda handmade them...lol


Ok, cookies are baked and ready to get prettied up


Anyone out there subscribe to Martha Stewart Living? If you do, you may recognize these heart-shaped marshmellows...ok, so they aren't the best-shaped hearts, but I guess either my cutter was too big or my marshmellows were too small, b/c I didn't have any outline leftover after I cut the heart out, and I barely got that part done!


Day-licious-O! Happy Valentines everyone!

La Galette du Roi

I've loved the French language since I was a teenager. My dad tried to get me to learn Spanish, articulately explaining how that would be the more useful language to learn, but being the stubborn teen I was, I explained to him that I really wanted to learn French. I took many French classes in high school, which led to me being one of the first students of my high school to participate in a new program - a foreign exchange to France. It was exciting, nerve-wrecking, gleeful, and exhausting all in one, but it was an experience that I wouldn't trade for the world.

I stayed with a French family with a girl named Maude and they lived au centre-ville (downtown) in the city of Besancon. I lived with the family for almost 2 weeks and had the pleasure of experiencing true French culture first hand. I ate what they ate, went where they went - even school. One of my favorite experiences was taking part in a celebration with a "Galette du Roi." Actually, quite a few galettes as the family cooked one nearly every night I was there. I wasn't about to complain - this tasty goodness was to die for, and now that I have the money and capability to bake, I plan on baking one of these every year to celebrate (read eat really good cake).

Now, this ain't your grandma's cake - there's no Betty Crocker mix - no sugary sweet icing...nope! This is a flaky pastry dough filled with a sweet and creamy almond mixture and though it's super simply in it's ingrediants, the taste would say otherwise.

It turns out that my neighbor's dad is actually French, so she's fluent in the French language and though her mom is American, she has grown up with many French traditions, including the Galette du Roi. It made perfect sense, to me at least, that we get together around the beginning of the year to bake one of these bad boys for ourselves. We didn't make the actual day for celebration, but we did manage to get together this past weekend to put together this tasty treat. Wouldn't our parents be proud?

Here's another site with more info on the actual festival and some more yummy shots

Gourmet Dessert With Panettone

I first heard about panettone on the Food Network when my fave chef, Giada deLaurentis, made a Panettone Trifle dessert. Intrigued with this new cooking component, I thought surely I'd never find a panettone in the south. Yet, lo and behold, I am grabbing lunch at one of my fave lil Italian-styled eateries when I notice a whole wall full of panettones...it must have been a sign. I looked up the panettone trifle recipe online, but when I heard about the panettone bread pudding with amaretto cream sauce, I was sold! I had a friend over for dinner and while we went low key with dinner - just spagetti with meat sauce - I decided to go upscale with dessert:


Mmmm...look at all those candied fruit pieces...they add an extra sweet bite in the pudding!


All Chopped up


Soaking up a bit


Baked and ready to be served with some yummy amaretto cream sauce


The dessert came out delicious...the sauce was amazing, but I do recommend, as the reviews mentioned, to bake the bread pudding an extra 15 minutes. The panettone is not only expensive, but it's seasonal, as well, so I highly recommend saving this recipe for your next Christmas holiday or New Year's eve celebration.

Click here to see the recipe on FoodNetwork.com

Food Day

Every year, my company has a Food Day, usually around Christmas time, and everyone brings in a different dish - storebought or homemade. Needless to say, it's a delicious day of stuffing your face with yummy treats and all-day grazing over any leftovers



I was super happy to see my taco ring, a la Pampered Chef, fly off the table in record speed.



At the end of lunch time, there was one lonely piece, which I was going to wrap up for my sweetheart to take care of after work. But, when I went back to collect my scraps, the lone piece had been accounted for, and all I had were lettuce strips and crumbs...not such a bad thing...the worst is when your food is still sitting there at the end.