All Over The Internet

I haven't been posting much.  It's a pet peeve of mine when people apologize for that because it makes it seem like someone cares, and really the writer should just move on to their post. So I'm not apologetic, but I will tell you what you've missed since I haven't been posting it here.  However, I want to note that if you follow me on Twitter and Instagram, you probably haven't missed much, but my characters have been limited (which is probably a good thing. Too bad in real life I have more than 140 each time I open my mouth).

So, time passes.  We celebrated a birthday, an anniversary, anticipated a friend's baby, went to a wedding, and had a bunch of visitors.  Mostly, I cooked or assembled.  Sometimes we went out.

I was still all over the internet.  I'm in love with these Shiba Inu puppies. And a few of these Call Me Maybes.  This makes me laugh.  And of course, I was posting on Instagram and Twitter all this time.

ICYMI:

 This photo is from Memorial Day weekend, when we had two friends stay over on Friday, a sister and grandparents on Saturday and Sunday, and parents on Tuesday (on their way up north).

We went to an awesome wedding, and a friend we've known since we were 5 and 6 years old literally rode in on a white horse and married his beautiful bride.

 For two weeks straight I was addicted to knitting this blanket in all of my free time.  One of those weeks I was home alone with pup and knitting time was fairly short, but I fit it in whenever I could.

3/4 of us had chicken and waffle (singular) at Hattie's, plus one crabcake eggs benedict.  The poached eggs were hard inside but they were happy to make them pretty quickly.  Sitting on the covered patio is really relaxing and there was no wait for brunch.  

 We took Henry hiking for the first time, a short one in Thacher Park.  Not one, but two people told us he looked "just like" another dog they knew.  He was bringing back memories left and right.

The rest of the summer is going to be great. Another boating day on Lake George, two more weddings, a bachelorette party (whooooa watch out), and many more meals.

I hope you're enjoying this unbelievable weather week and that you had a great weekend!

What's Making Me Happy

If you listen to the NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour then you might enjoy the last segment, called "What's Making Me Happy This Week."  Well, here's what's making me happy this weekend.

On Friday we were low on dining ideas, so we ordered two pizzas from Bellini's.  We've never been to a Bellini's or ordered before, but I've heard about the deals they do for takeout from some parents in my office.  With pizza we figure we'll try almost anything once--very open-minded.   We ordered the meatball and ricotta pizza and the Da Nico (spinach, prosciutto, & goat cheese), and yes, I was also wondering why some had names and some were merely the name of the key ingredients.  The smaller size of each (12 inches) brought us to $31.  This becomes important later. 

We had plenty left over, which brings me to my favorite part about the pizza:  eating a slice of Da Nico from the toaster oven with over easy eggs on top for brunch after a long run, with a side of sliced pear and Nutella of course.  YUM.  

Saturday night we wanted to go out, and once we got soup dumplings in our mind there was no doubt we were off to Latham and Ala Shanghai.  When we were there last on Christmas Eve with family, some of our XLB were deflated and desoupified--the place was jamming, and we ate them anyway.  Last night each one was soupy and super hot.   But the star of the show was the eggplant in our eggplant and chicken dish.  I'm not sure why the eggplant tasted like magic, but it did.  I'm surprised we had any left over--when we were both admittedly full we continued to nab pieces of eggplant until it was getting ridiculous and we HAD to stop eating.  Soup dumplings and two large entrees brought us to $25, AND we had leftovers and complimentary tea.  Quality, value, and a truly delightful atmosphere are what keep me schlepping to Latham from south of the border.

Lastly, what's making me happy this weekend is a new-to-me hamantaschen dough recipe from Not Derby Pie that yielded 21 cookies, none of which flapped open.  NONE.  J says they are the best-looking hammies I've ever made.  I liked that they were really fast to make--no refrigerating for hours or overnight, a quick 30 minutes did the trick (I recommend cleaning in between....or making another batch of hammies).   I'm still making a batch of these from smitten kitchen (with the cream cheese) because I do really like the taste of that cookie, but I've had varying success with the shaping.

Lastly, but certainly not least, we watched most of Cool Runnings this weekend.  It had been way too long since we saw that movie, and we couldn't tear ourselves away.  Really brought us back to '93.

Cooking and Eating Over the Holidays

Holidays = guests = cooking.  Thanks, people, for showing up so I can make crazy quantities of stuff and not have to eat it for lunch and dinner myself every day! 

Chocolate chip banana bread muffins are important for breakfast, snack, or dessert.  The recipe is from my college roommate--she sent me a Word document of 5 recipes, some with applesauce replacing this or that, and I picked my favorite.  I make it about once per month; if you've got some browning bananas and the regular baking necessities, you've got this treat.

Banana Chocolate Chip Bread (as given to me,  my comments in italics)

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

3 mashed, ripe bananas, but if you have 2 or 4 you're all good.

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips, but I add more because it's good luck

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, then bananas. Add flour, baking soda, salt, mixing well. Stir in vanilla and chocolate chips. Pour into a greased loaf pan or muffin tin (fill to the very top) and bake for 60 - 70 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.  Take down the baking time if you decide to do mini muffins or mini loaves.

Pumpkin pancakes are also an important part of hosting. I eyeball the spices, use some pumpkin pie spice in place of small amounts of all that compose it, add chocolate chips, and often sub for white whole wheat flour, if I have it.  I add the choc chips once the batter is down in the pan, 3-5 per (small) pancake.  If I mixed them into the batter beforehand I'm pretty sure they'd just sink. 

We made pumpkin pancakes for our erev New Year's brunch guests, but our Chanukah guests still had some pumpkin in the form of the Whole Foods turkey pumpkin chili, this time whipped up by J.  Their brunch was strata-riffic, with both sweet and savory.  On erev Christmas we went to Ala Shanghai for a delicious meal.  The only disappointment that night was that our soup dumplings were mostly deflated (and thus unsouped). Also, I think I'd like to ask to keep the rest of the Peking duck after it's sliced up tableside onto the individual bun sandwiches. There seemed to be at least a sandwich of meat still on the bones, and our particular table would have enjoyed getting it!

On Christmas Day I took some silver tip (last cut of roast available at the kosher Chop early in the afternoon before the holy sabbath, a little leaner than I wanted), two cans of tomatoes, a beer, garlic, onion, and potato and bid it farewell for 8 hours on low in the slow cooker.  I baked challah with my aunt's recipe that I've been using forever, but in a Chanukah miracle, it came out lighter and fluffier than ever before.  I never measure the flour, so maybe my eyeballs did better this time than before.

Our Sisterfriend cooked the most delicious latkes I've had in years--one russet potato, two sweet potatoes, a handful of small onions, some egg and flour (I wasn't watching that closely...), salt, and pepper.  Parevized J&G soup (sans butter) with quinoa and salad started us off.  Below is our festive Chanukah table.  Thanks to our special non-relative guests for the red sparkly deliciousness.  

Happy January, everyone. I hope you cooked and/or ate some delicious things over the past few weeks.

Addictive Enchiladas, Etc

Don't let this week's weather get you down.  If we have to stay inside, we might as well do something.  Cook something.  Watch bread rise.

I was reminded recently by this post about the stages of learning to cook.  I'm in a place where for new things that I'm scared of (especially meat-related) I slavishly follow the recipe, at least with the cooking technique (time, temperature, vessel).  But when it comes to just about everything else I tend to experiment.  I'm not saying it always turns out well--we've had a few dinners where instead of dessert, we end up pouring massive bowls of cereal to make up for the rest of the food we don't want to eat.  Still, the majority of our dinners include tossing in whatever is around to make a meaty, vegetable-y, saucy bowl of yum.  J has been overheard to say "Why do you always want to put fruit in anything?"  You could also replace the word "fruit" with "frozen spinach."

This week's example is enchiladas.  I'd only made enchiladas twice before, and both times I followed this recipe from CSK--the second time I took some liberty and replaced the squash with sweet potatoes. 

This week we used what we had - whole wheat tortillas, ground turkey, one jar of TJ salsa verde, one jar of TJ regular red salsa, lots of shredded cheese, black beans, and tomatoes (canned diced, drained).  We laid down some salsa verde in a 9 x 13, made little burrito-like tortillas of the turkey (browned), cheese, beans, and tomatoes, got them all snug as a bug in a rug together, then covered in the rest of both salsas and cheese.  It was gooey and delicious.  I probably could have pulled a CSK and added some beer to the salsa to give it the liquid it needed without all the zazz of salsa, but I didn't have any beer I wanted to see in the oven. 


Next up: pancakes.  I probably haven't made pancakes in 5 years, at least.  You know I prefer eggs any day, with the occasional pancake or French toast slice on the side.  But this week was J's birthday, and I thought it would be nice if after he got back from his 34 mile bike ride the man could have some homemade pancakes.

[Yeah, that's real maple syrup.  Local, too!  Eat your heart out, people from places other than here.  Other items pictured include Jake Moon apple butter, hummus (served with cucumber, not pancakes, gross!) and strawberry jam that got ignored in favor for the aforementioned apple butter.]

I used this recipe from Martha Stewart.  I used skim milk, white whole wheat flour, and I sprayed Pam on the pan between pancake batches instead of butter (really, Martha!).  Also, the batter wasn't wowing me, so I mixed in a spoonful of Nutella.  I tend to do that.  It always works.  These pancakes were super easy and quick, and they made the house smell delicious for the whole day.

This weekend was our first one at home without visitors in quite a while. We've been and will continue to travel or host almost every weekend--no complaints here, though.  I am so grateful for our friends and family descending upon Albany, and I loooove heading out of town to see them and eat eggs in other states.  We'll tell you all about it soon.  I hope you had a great weekend!