Happy Halloween?
1 comment October 31st, 2008
Archive for October, 2008
On The Road: Montreal
I am aware that my posting has been a bit lax since I went back to work at the office. I seriously don’t understand how people do it 5 days a week and then have a life on top of that. It is exhausting! All the talking to people all day, and the matching outfits to shoes, and the subway. It’s enough to make a girl want to get in bed at 8 every night.
So that’s what I’ve been doing. Pretty much eating dinner and getting right into bed. Matthew was here all week but worked until midnight so I didn’t really see him, and then he left for Maryland. I’m free to do whatever I want all the time and that happens to be catching up on Pushing Daisies and Top Model.
Wha? Is anyone surprised?
Last weekend we did actually leave the house and drove to Montreal for my niece Liliane’s first birthday.
As expected there was quite a bit of this:
There was a also a bunch of this:
of COURSE some of this:
All leading up to this:
ahhhh,
“The Return of the Homemade Skillet Pizza – Francophone Version. Pizza Takes Montreal”
If only they made a really huge circular cast iron pizza skillet thingy we would really be in business. The teeny skillet is a little scary, well…for some people.
It took about 9 hours to make a bunch of mini pizzas that we all split when it came out of the oven, so you’d get 2 bites every 15 minutes. Thankfully we had some wine chilling for Liliane’s party. (Sorry that you didn’t get any delicious rosé Theresa’s friends, we had to wait a long time between pizzas!) All we did all night was make teeny tiny pizzas, wait the 10 minutes for the oven to heat back up and then 2 minutes for them to cook, shove them down and repeat, repeat, repeat. Lucky for us we had the idea to make a salad to go with it. Oh the salad. THE SALAD as it is now known. We did not get pictures of THE SALAD because we were too busy enjoying the act of taking multiple bites in a row but it was so amazing I have made it 2x since we’ve been home. Oh, its just a salad you say? Well you are wrong, its THE SALAD!
Don’t worry, I took some pics when I made it last night.
You’ll just have to wait.
1 comment October 27th, 2008
Peek-a-boo
Peek-a-boo! I’m still here…just crazy busy.
We went to Montreal last weekend and had a blast celebrating my niece Liliane’s first birthday. More to come…
1 comment October 24th, 2008
The Homemade Pizza Experiment
My new found semi-vegetarianism has led us to a few new recipes. Something I really wanted to try was homemade pizza because well…it’s got pizza in the title.
The Inspiration: We followed the cast iron skillet method.
The Skinny: Instead of making our own dough (ha) we went down the street to Anthony’s and got some from them. Then we sauteed mushrooms and onions and, cut up some fresh mozz and other veggies and defrosted sauce from the freezer.
The Verdict: The pizza was amazing! Each pizza only takes 2 minutes to cook. The annoying part was that we didnt know how it would come out so we did one small piece at a time. This is NOT the method to use at your next pizza party. Its very sloooowwwww. You have to wait a few minutes between for the oven to get hot again, or the crust will not be right. We basically stood in the kitchen eating our salads while waiting for the skillet to heat up. Also – we did not need most of the toppings, we are happy with mushrooms and a lil onion.
The always important upskirt:
Perfection! It was totally worth it! I think Fridays are going to be homemade pizza night at our house.
1 comment October 14th, 2008
Oh The Cheeks
This weekend Matthew and Adam went on their yearly pilgrimage to Great Adventure. When Christine asked if I’d take some photos of Maddie of course I jumped at the chance. It was a beautiful day so we took the opportunity to hang out in Prospect Park for the afternoon. Why can’t the weather be like this all the time?
Maddie is a really happy baby, constantly smiling and babbling. She’ll be 4 months old next week.
Here are some of my faves, raw and untouched but I wanted to get them up.
1 comment October 13th, 2008
A Little Vegetarian
Since Matthew’s been gone I realized that I don’t really need to cook meat. Like ever. Once I got back from Florida I decided I’d try to eat as little meat as I possibly can for a few different reasons. One, I don’t really like it, Two, its expensive and Three, Its not that great for you. Can I go meatless? – Yes of course. Am I 100% ready to give up my Mom’s chicken soup or Matthew’s grandmas roast on occasion, not so much.
So I have been doing a bit of experimenting to see if I can get a few more vegetarian dinners into the repertoire.
Dinner #1: Lentil Barley Soup
I read about 15 recipes for Lentil Barley Soup before just going for it.
Its basically this:
2 carrots, 2 celery stalks, 1 medium onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 medium potatoes
8 cups of veggie stock (or chicken if you want. I used non-chicken broth)
3/4 cup barley, 3/4 cup lentils
Sautee the onion, celery and carrots until cooked. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
I enjoyed the soup but will try this recipe again with the addition of spices. It was chock full of protein and really hearty. I just didn’t LOVE it.
Dinner #2: Vegetable Fried Rice
Holy crap the veggie rice was the best thing I have ever made on the first try. The. Best. Thing. Ever.
Vegetables
Rice
Shallots
Garlic
1 Egg
Cut up any veggies you want. I did 1 carrot, 1/2 a zucchini and 1/2 a broccoli because that is what was in the house. Throw them boiling water for 3 minutes.
Take 1 chopped shallot and 2 cloves of garlic, sliced into a pan with a tiny bit of vegetable oil
Add splash of soy sauce to color, after they’ve cooked a bit add the veggies and a little more soy sauce.
Move that whole mess to 1 side of the pan and add a scrambled up egg on the other side. Once that is cooked (30 seconds) chop it up and mix it in with the veggies
Dump 2 cups of cooked rice into the pan, add more soy sauce and stir it up.
Eat yummy deliciousness for dinner, then save the rest for lunch. It is that good.
Dinner #3: Veggie BLT and Salad
I wasn’t really in the mood to cook so I thought I’d just make a huge salad. At the store I came across soy bacon and bought a package to make fake BLTs.
I put the bread into the toaster and by the time it was ready so was the facon. I sliced up the yellow tomatoes I picked up at the far mar then made a big old salad to go with it. The entire meal took about 4 minutes to prepare and was very delicious, it totally hit the spot. Anyone who is scared of facon, get over it. You’ve be eating swine with no problem. Try the fake stuff, its different but tasty.
1 comment October 12th, 2008
Home Ec
Sophomore year of college I had to take a costume construction class as part of my theatre production curriculum. After weeks of learning to sew by machine and stitching by hand the final project was to create a bodice. If you weren’t skilled enough for the world of bodice making (boning! shiny fabrics! fasteners!) you got to end the semester with a pillow. The difference in effort between sewing together 2 pieces of fabric to make a pillow and constructing an entire bodice fit to form, as you can imagine, is enormous. For a pathetically unskilled and uninterested seamstress such as myself there was no question as to which I would be delivering. My pillow was green sweatshirt fabric with ivory trim. It was lumpy and awful. I did alright in the class due to false enthusiasm and charm but haven’t sewn anything since then, not even a repair or alteration. Tim was in that class too. HE did the bodice.
Fast forward to last week when I thought it was a good idea to take a sewing class at Home Ec. I don’t know why but I just really like to make stuff. I’m a piss-poor knitter, probably because I am easily frustrated and impatient. I’d rip out every imperfect stitch and it took me hours to create a few rows of a scarf. Then I’d get bored of the yarn and start something else. I was halfway decent at pottery, but again…impatient, easily frustrated, etc. So why not sewing? Yes, you need patience but I figured once you knew the basics the machine kind of does it for you. Right? Well I WAS right! All the patience-making stuff happens in the beginning but once its all cut and pinned its just sew, sew, sew.
I chose fabric, cut and sewed an entire tote bag during the class. Amazing!
The class was really well put together and interesting, and the instructor did a really great job. Highly recommended for people that have never sewn. I lo-lo-lo-loved it. Big time.
I am deciding which class to take next – probably the apron making one since I’m so domesticated now-a-days. Aaaaaand I usually just wipe stuff on my pants. *SHEEPISH GRIN*
2 comments October 7th, 2008
Twitter-Five!
I wish I was in a room with these fine people and a big old bag of marshmallows to throw at the TV last night.
Also – This is perfectly hilarious.
Add comment October 4th, 2008
A Sweet New Year
Since I had a show in Miami last Thursday I decided to celebrate 5769 at my parents house in South Florida. While perusing the internets I came across this recipe for a homemade honey cake and was thinking maybe I’d make my first ever cake from scratch.
What’s that?
Oh. 32 in March, why do you ask?
Yes I have a kitchen.
Um, yes, of course I like cake.
I DO SO have self-respect!
My family just doesn’t really bake, we always have carvel cakes for birthdays. I just never got into it, I don’t know. Also, I dislike using machines and I foolishly thought you needed to use mixers and stuff to make a cake, likely because my husband is the family baker and he is way into gadgets.
Now I knew the cake was going to be good because besides all the rave reviews on Smitten I got a real life review from my friend Jessica who was on the Miami show with me. A fellow chosen person, we were chatting about family traditions for the holidays and I sent her the link to the cake. She made it Sunday and called me Monday morning on her way to work saying that it was delicious and smells amazing. Then she sent me an email to follow up. Seriously! They loved this cake!
We ALWAYS have honey cake on the holiday, but its ALWAYS packaged and dry and boring and tasteless so making a cake from scratch (!) seemed kind of exciting. Plus the recipe looked super easy and its all stuff we usually have on hand at my house.
The Honey Cake Experiment
Step 1 – Make sure we have all the ingredients.
We have none of the ingredients. Except the honey. We have tons of honey.
Off to Target to pick up a cake pan because we didn’t have that either. Mom and I decided on a bundt for fun and smartly I asked if she had measuring cups and spoons. Good thing.
Then I loaded up the cart at Publix with every single ingredient on the list. My mother was apalled that I put cinnamon in the cart because OF COURSE WE HAVE CINNAMON!
Once we had all of the exotic hard to find ingredients we were good to go.
Step 2 – Mix all the stuff in a bowl. With a whisk! You don’t need a fancy mixer for honey cake people!
Step 3- Put it in the oven and make your house smell like a yankee candle
Step 4 – take it out and make sure it doesn’t all stick to the top. Whoops.
I really don’t know what happened. It was a non-stick pan with PAM. I served it anyway of course, we are not a family of Martha Stewarts.
The reviews:
Mom – “It’s delicious! Really delicious!”
Dad – “Its delicious! But maybe too much cinnamon? But delicious!”
Grandma – “You MADE this cake?”
Poppy – “Why isn’t it a loaf? Cut me another slice”
Me – There was too much cinnamon. I didn’t love the bundt.
Thanks for the good times honey cake! See you in 5770!
2 comments October 3rd, 2008