Nothing Says Thanksgiving Like A Diorama!

I did something kind of out of character for me this Thanksgiving - I didnt really cook. I didnt slack and offer no help whatsoever, but I took a break from concoctions and experiments and made something very simple: Apricot Cranberry Sauce. We attended a 30 person meal so there was no lack of food around the table that day, luckily!

Apricot Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients
4 Cups of cranberries. (frozen ok, but thaw).

2 cups of water.

1/2 jar of Apricot Preserves
1 Cup of Sugar

Bring cranberries, water and sugar to boil. Stir in apricot preserves, let boil for 10 minutes until cranberry skins pop. Will thicken once removed from burner. Serve hot or cold.

Delish!

Other amazingly notable things from the weekend were:

1. The "Pilgims and Indians" Thanksgiving Diorama Shawn and I made for the party! It took 3 hours and tested our personalities. Yeah for crafting! Boo for crafting with your partner. Man, if you can get through hot glue guns and exacto knives - you're set for life!

2. The Bloody Mary Bar at Thanksgiving was a hit! Bloody Marys are the only reason getting up for 10am football was acceptable for me. Favorite new combination: pickle juice & chipotle sauce!

3. Crab Legs & Rack Of Lamb. All originally meant for Thanksgiving day, these treasures were cooked up Saturday night and enjoyed with 10 bottles of wine and a rousing game of celebrity and drinking jenga. Sexy legs there, Josh! I mean sexy CRAB legs. :)

4. Our own Thanksgiving! As if we didnt eat enough on Thursday, we decided to make the most of our roaster and make our own mini Thanksgiving Sunday night while watching Freaks & Geeks and setting up the Christmas tree. I have to say, I made killer stuffing! Although, really it was just onions, bread and turkey stock (thanks, nat!)

5. Josh's homemade bread and Leslie's Sausage & Biscuits! Shawn's Turducken.

6. David bringing VooDoo Donuts from Portland!

There are so many things to be thankful for this year, I cant wait to make another year of things to thank you for!

4th Annual Tapas & Trivia!

<------------- this picture represents alot about Saturday night, as my good friends (besties Jenny & Aaron) drove up from Los Angeles to surprise me! Heart beats, heart stops, gushing. It was a fantastic thought and I felt super loved. I love love! Of course they swept in and ended up winning the whole shebang on team "Full Metal Nutsack". There were oh so many surprises on Saturday night as well - but the rest were all culinary. I have listed a few of my favorites -

1. Shawns homemade Country Ham & Cheddar stuffed pretzels. The amount of work he put into these was astonishing. I was jealous at his patience and idea....kudos.

http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2009/10/country-ham-and-cheddar-pretzel-bites-with-jalapeno-mustard

2. Erin and Josh brought these adorable little hollowed out pumpkins to serve butternut squash soup with - and even topped it with homemade toasted pumpkin seeds. A for effort!

3. Espresso Cream Cheese Brownie Bites! (all. shawn.).

4. My own (tooting horn, thanks!) Pancetta Chicken Meatballs with Saffron Aoili. This was modified from a Smitten Kitchen recipe for baked meatballs but I added the pancetta and kicked ass!

5. Michael's not pictured) lamb lettuce and tzatiki rollups. I am on Team Lamb these days. (+nats spiced chickpeas!)

6. Darcy's Vegan Sherry Sesame cookies.

7. I tried to recreate a drink I love at Ramblas - a basil and lemonade vodka drink - yum!

In a pitcher combine 3 cups vodka, 3 lemons + their juice, simple syrup and 3 bunches of basil. Refrigerate for 3 hours, then when guests arrive - pour in 2 bottles of lemon sparkling water. Serve over ice!

I'd say my only fails this time around were: no one really ate the sage shortbread i made (taken from a friends olive oil blog) and the plantain chips should have been served HOT and did not really survive the day and got soggy.

I just wanted to thank every one for attending - Team Jihad, The Rod Beldings, 8675309 , Team Titty Fuck and Hold Me Closer Tony Danza. I love that all your support will make a next year be year 5!

Just Some Good Old Fashioned Goddamn Good Food

After many months of social pressure and snide side comments about other people getting to go to Alex & Morinda's for dinner (wisco crew)- they finally took a hint and had us over! What better a bond to friendship than guilt and pushiness? I know how I roll and I DO not apologize.

(Alex happens to be a CIA trained chef, beeteebubs. hence the love affair with chatting him up.)

New friends, new food - great night. You MUST see the fruits of his labor to full grasp the deliciousness. We missed the hours of prep so I couldnt even begin to tell you the process but behold the Lobster Pad Thai and Roasted Pork Belly Green Curry.

I even ate leftovers!!

Food For Ya Brain.

Last night was the 2nd meeting of Paperbacks & Pinot (although, ironic this book did not come in paperback, it was hardcore hardcover). It was hosted at my apartment - and we read Baking Cakes In Kigali. Although, the general consensus of whether the book was good or not was split down the middle - one thing is for sure - this book club knows how to bake.

I mean dont even try! These ladies (+Stephen) are ferocious!

Dont. EVEN. Get. Me. Started.

I believe the spread (not pictured) included:
-Vegan Ginger Cupcakes.
-Choco Chip Pumpkin Bread.
-Choco Strawberry 2 Layer Cake.
-Banana Cake.
-Baked Brie w/walnuts.

It was certainly a belly full of sugar by the end of the night! I made an attempt to make a recipe I saw on Smittenkitchen.com for a Sweet Potato Swiss Chard Gratin but substituted the chard for spinach. It was altogether uninspiring as I forgot to add nutmeg to the bechamel sauce and I didnt dry out the spinach as well as I thought, so it was watery. I wouldnt make it again, but I every once in a while I like to pull up the pretty picture online and look wistfully at what could have been.

For your reference:

THIS IS NOT HUMMUS

I have been getting good lately tailoring specific meals to different people. Vegans. Gluten Frees. Lactose Intolerant. I forgot however - Jenny doesnt like hummus, or hummus like things. I guess i didnt forget so much as "never know". but all the same, I felt bad.

Friday night my close friends Jenny and Evie from college and Los Angeles came into town for the weekend and I decided a quiet night in and a homemade dinner over wine was in order. Evie cant eat too much cheese - so I decided a nice appetizer would be a chickpea spread, not unlike the kind you get when you have dinner at Firefly. I forgot to take pictures of it (MISSED BLOGGGING OPPORTUNITY ALERT) - but I made Almond Encrusted Chicken over Lemony Pomegranate Spinach for dinner. I think it was too healthy in the end to be overly wow-able.

We had a fantastic weekend in the sunshine, though. Saturday we had breakfast at Tartine (on Gough), lunch was sandwiches from Bi-Rite and then people watching in Dolores park. For dinner and the BEST margarita in town we went to El Toreadore in West Portal - and then a nice Mission goodbye breakfast at The Pork Store.

Sadly, I didnt take any pictures this weekend :( but enjoy the recipe!

Curried Chickpea Spread
Ingredients
2 cans of chickpeas, drained
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
2 cups chicken broth (can be made veggie).
5 sun dried tomatoes, chopped.
1/4 cup olive oil.
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 teaspoons curry powder
1 juiced, + zest

Step One: Heat a pan over medium heat with the chopped garlic. Add broth. Simmer the chickpeas and sun dried tomato covered for 15 minutes or until soft. Let cool for 10 minutes or until warm, but not steaming hot.

Step Two: Transfer to the food processor.(I needed two batches as I have a tiny tiny one) - and pulse until mashed then stream in the olive oil. Once removed from the machine - add in the smoked paprika, the curry powder and the lemon juice + some zest.

Step Three: Refrigerate for minimum two hours and serve cold.

Thanks!

FAIL

If you look closer at the human experience, I think you will find sometimes there is the same pleasure in watching someone succeed as watching someone fail. I'm not saying you want your friend not to pass the bar, or your neighbor to take a dive off his bicycle handle bars and eat shit -but the mere existence of failure can sometimes be motivation to do better and to feel like its not just you that can be borderline incompetent.

This is why I share with you an EPIC fail. I hope you laugh at me secretly behind my back, smugly profess you would never fail this large and maybe, just maybe - learn from my mistakes.

A close friend of mine was just recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease so I decided I would whip up a batch of Vegan/Gluten Free Choco Chip Cookies to send to her. Then I realized the next night we were going to Kris & Darcy's for dinner - so I could kill two birds with one stone! Half to my friend, half to a vegan. And.....what.....transpired, my friends ,was chalky cookie soup. Indigestible by even my enemies! I guess I'll take the curiosity of where I went wrong to the grave....but I hope this never happens again. Never again.

Fin.

The Veggie Sneak

As most of you know, its a very large struggle to get Shawn to eat vegetables. He claims they taste too bitter to be consumed enjoyably, but I'm calling weak sauce for the rest of our lives! I will never stop thinking that he just hasnt had them cooked correctly. Please dont play into his theory that its a medical condition -until its documented OUTSIDE the Internet, its not real. Anyhow, I wanted to make these little darlings as a side last night and first checked with Shawn online to see if he'd be game....how could you turn down these golden delicious cakes of love? Crispy, salty, bite sized and a great alternative to a carb laden latke. Success! Shawn loved them so much he did a little dance. I mean, we did top them with a delicious (non healthy) Sour Cream & Chive dollop - but I am not going to downplay that something GREEN went down his gullet.

Crispy Parmesan Zucchini Cakes
Ingredients
1 large zucchini grated, excess water removed (Note: To do this, after you grate the zucchini, put the grated zucchini into paper towels and squeeze to release the water)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 clove garlic, minced
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste
1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Step One: Combine all ingredients, except olive oil, in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Using a heaping tablespoon form the mixture into 8 patties.

Step Two: Heat olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Once heated, add patties and cook until golden brown. About 3-4 minutes per side. Serve.