Dinner for 7 and Deja-vu of Hypnobirthing Class

Last night we had friends (+kids) over for dinner, they were also our Hypnobirthing teachers and sadly the last time they were over was when I was 9 months pregnant. Its nice to reconnect with friends you haven't spent time with in a while. On the menu for the evening was: comfort food, which consisted of Beef Bourguinon, mashed potatoes (with exessive amounts of butter) a chopped salad with a homemade honey-dijon dressing and baked butternut squash with butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. Our guests brought a homemade plum/peach tart which was very pretty!

Tonight we are heading to our friends adorable downtown condo for dinner, I'm bringing dessert, which I'm very excited about. It's a Chocolate Bourbon Peacan Pie, the recipe is from Charlie Trotter's Home Cooking cookbook. It is cooling in the fridge as I type, and I cannot wait to see how it turned out. My favourite part of the recipe is the crust, it's made up of unsalted butter, cream cheese and 4oz of flour, it is supposed to be incredibly flaky and delicious! I've also never made a pecan pie which called for Bourbon, I used Bulleit Bourbon..pronounced bullet..which is my personal choice of Bourbon.

I've had a headache all day.

I just looked at this picture, and feel slightly better. My little girl wearing my riding helmet yesterday after my lesson.

My next adventure will be to learn how to make authentic Hungarian Paprikas, jó étel! I'm excited about making this spicy dish!

Peanut Butter disasters

A few days ago I wrote about my Peanut Butter cookie flop, well here is proof that they turned out flat, lifeless and just plain dull. If any of you darling readers has a go-to PB cookie recipe, I want it! thanks! xo

wish it were sunday...(cuz) thats my funday!

Tickets Booked. Check.

Heart palpitations and nervous stomach feeling. Check!

I really am not looking forward to being away from B for 3 whole weeks. Iam, however, very happy to be going to Colorado to visit my sisters. On the downside, I will miss cooking dinners while I'm there, and riding. Boo :( speaking of boo, Haloween is coming up and im trying to figure out what kind of costume I want to get for the wee one. Currently she has a thing for D-d-d-d-d-DORA, and she sings her name, just like that (without sounding like she has a speech impediment)

I spent the better part of Friday cooking and baking up a storm, and for no particular reason other than to work my way up to becoming a domestic goddess a la Nigella Lawson . Originally I planned on making a quiche of some sort, but when I asked husband, he lovingly told me he was not a fan of Quiche. He suggested I make the Spaghetti Bacon Carbonara we saw when we watched this episode of Oprah that I pvr'd. Tom Cruise's version looks utterly horrible, but the ingredients looked promising so I decided to give it a shot. I was very nervous about adding the 4 raw eggs into the cooked pasta, but I made sure the noodles were piping hot when I put the raw eggs in. It worked, the hot pasta cooked the eggs perfectly in a matter of seconds. The original recipe called for Italian bacon, which I was unable to find at my local grocery store, so instead I used President's Choice all natural Old Fashioned thick sliced bacon. Mr. Cruise did not specify what type of spaghetti noodles to use so I made use of a few packages of the Rizopia brown rice pasta I had in the pantry. I must say this dish was a success, and the leftovers tasted even better (i know right, leftover pasta is usually yuck!) Will definitely make this again. The "nest" that the eggs are resting on in image #2 is actually 2 cups of freshly shredded Parmaggano Reggiano.

Even though my Quiche idea got the kabosh, I still really wanted to make something with a flaky pie crust, so I whipped up a cherry pie (B's favourite after pecan pie) I've always wanted to do the whole lattice top thing, and this was a perfect oppourtunity. I made 2 pastrys and let them chill in the fridge for an hour, then i rolled them out and started getting creative. The pie turned out so pretty and B said it tasted even better. I have to give credit where credit is due though, during the whole cherry pie process, i called my mom a zillion times with questions: "Mom, do I bake the pie crust before I put the cherry filling in?" um....... im no better crocker. (the answer is NO, by the way)

I spent Saturday afternoon at Hikari with good friends, not my first choice for sushi, but everything else was closed for some reason. It's a beautiful establishement, but the sushi is just mediocre, my favourites would have to be Iguana and The Sushi California . They never fail to deliver amazing sushi every single time we go. After sushi I met up with B and we took the toddler for a hike in the woods near by. She is the happiest little thing when she's outside but I really hope she doesn't start begging us to take her camping anytime soon (or EVER!) I've never been and to be honest, have no deisre to sleep on the ground and have mosquitos buzzing in my ears all night.

The basement is officially FINISHED! No more unsightly grey concrete floors, and most importantly, i don't have to look at 50 something year old workers with their shirts off and their nipples pierced.

Husband couldn't find his keys this morning, so i reluctantly gave him my car for the day. Normally by this time, if I haven't left the house I would be going crazy, but it's been a blustery, dreary, rainy day, so I really don't mind being shut-in.

Cookies, Korma, Horsies, OH MY!

My mouth is a little on fire. still. Chicken Korma was on the dinner menu, from scratch, might I add, and it turned out fabulous! I got the recipe from allrecipes.com, which i find to be a very useful site because of the reviews people leave once they've tried the recipe. B and I love our food extra spicy, his excuse is that he's half Hungarian and my excuse is, i just love it and don't feel like i need to justify the fact that I can handle some serious heat when it comes to my food. Anyway, I had a feeling the original recipe wouldn't be spicy enough, so I doubled up on all the spices: tumeric (which stained my wok and countertops yellow), cumin, garam masala, coriander seed, and most importantly Indian chili powder (ok, so I may have tripled the amount of that one). I served the Korma with Basmati rice and butter paratha. YUM! The recipe made a ton of food so we invited a few friends of ours over on a whim to help us enjoy it and so we weren't the only ones who's mouths were deliciously on fire. I will definitely make this again, i have no choice as my pantry is now full of oversized quantities of Indian spices.

Baby W "talked" to my mom on the phone today and they discussed baking cookies, and other things you can talk about with an 18 month old. For the rest of the day, W kept saying "mama, COOKIEEE" so i decided to pull out my "The 250 best Cookie Recipes" cookbook by Esther Brody which I recieved as a wedding gift from a family friend back in 2005. Traditional Peanut Butter cookie is what I chose, they were so easy to whip up, but the outcome was less than peanut buttery goodness. They were flat, bland, and when they cooled, they were...unsightly pieces of yuck! As you may know, darling readers, I enjoy baking and i usually don't have issues with my finished product, which has now led me to believe this cookbook does not contain the 250 best cookie recipes. B has, on several occasions tried to persuade me to throw the book out, but i keep hoping one day I will find a worthy recipe that lives up to the title of the book.

Tomorrow is another one of my beloved riding lessons with Sammy, the beautiful horse I ride every week. Last week we worked on 2 point which was easy, but I always have difficulty getting into it after not riding for a whole week. B and I agreed that I will start riding 3x per week for the next little while. This worries me, as I've become so attached to the stables and being around horses, that I can totally picture myself asking for a horse next Christmas ;)

~toodles!

The shrill of a squaking squirrel

Even though we haven't left the house yet, it's been a fine day. We had a morning chock-full of giggles, photo ops, dress-up and a certain little someone decided she was actually hungry today. hungry! this makes mama happy.

Several months ago I decided it was time to vamp up my domestic skills. Off i went to Chapters and purchased 2 new cookbooks which I now use on a weekly basis. Charlie Trotter's Home Cooking and Perfect Salads by Linda Doeser. I've also been using recipes from blogs written by, in my opinion, culinary geniuses. Recently I've discovered that I no longer loathe cooking and have learned to embrace it because until I get that maid i've been longing for, im the sole cook in this joint. I was always so afraid to venture out and try new recipes and ingredients, but I knew my husband and child could not live off Quinoa alone..but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God...so i started incorporating more meat, potatoes, and BUTTER! Once in a while ill whip up a scant albiet scrumptious salad, last night was a feta, strawberry and mint salad, no mint and added brown rice fusilli. Tonight im going to make Asian Lettuce wraps, the recipe is from a blog i enjoy reading called alexandra's kitchen. Her meals and photos are phennomenal!

The house is quiet, the dust has (somewhat) settled and life is good.

happy rainy monday and i got the blahs!

this basement-finishing project has turned our house into a haven for tiny dust particles from all the sanding and puttsing thats been going on below ground level. its rather maddening when you lightly drag your finger across every surface in the house and see how sneaky the stuff can be..it's everywhere. i hate to think what our lungs look like.

on a happier note, the day is drawing closer when darling husband will be going to Cambridge, MA to continue his studies at Harvard Business School. The quicker he leaves, the sooner he will be back. (is this how one remains optimistic?.. i have no idea anymore). I also have no idea where i'll be spending the 3 weeks while he's away. I would love to just stay home and clean (is that pathetic?) but due to my fear of being kidnapped, broken into, or pank called at 3am with with heavy breathing on the other end of the line, i cannot and will not stay home alone. wimp.

2 paragraphs and im already itching, pun intended, to get off the computer and start dusting, sweeping, mopping, and perhaps force feed the wee one who oh-so-adorably refuses to eat.