Week Two

Sunday-It is house blessing season and ours was tonight. We garnished the blessing with chili, kendra's homemade bread, Sally's cornbread, and my biscuits. As well as some classic carrot and raisin salad (charlotte's new favorite). There were lots of people around to enjoy the feast so both Ed and I made a batch of chili. Mine turned out super yummy and extra spicy. Ed's turned out super yummy and nice and meaty. Everyone was happy.


Monday-My intended Red Beans and Rice dish was postponed due to too much fun playing at the beach today. After lunch at Rogue, shopping at the Bay, and playing in the sand we had to opt for leftover chili and cornbread. It was totally worth it!

Tuesday-Lasagna and Rum cake at a friend's house for her house blessing. It was a nice dinner especially after such a crummy day-the day's highlight of course being locking my keys in the truck...in the bus lane...nice work eh? The quote of the dinner was "i don't like alcohol and i don't like cake, but i love rum cake!"

Wednesday-The much anticipated red beans and rice. The smells were fabulous and the taste was good. I did feel that the smell and taste ratio was disproportionate and that always bothers me. That sometimes happens with tea and that always bums me out. Smells amazing but then somehow the taste is not as full bodied. I felt that happened with the beans and rice but it was very good none the less and i am prepared to make some helpful adjustments next time. The recipe came from my Cooks Illustrated cook book that i LOVE. If you want the recipe i would be happy to share-it is definitely worth having!


Thursday-Deck the Halls, it is Christmas in Charlottesville. Before opening our stack of presents under the very secret blankets we had our Christmas dinner: homemade macaroni and cheese and broccoli. Delish. There were two selections of macs and cheese for this particular Christmas feast. One was the more traditional dish: a four cheese dish baked to perfect crispiness. The second dish, also a four cheese macaroni, had bacon on top and was spiced up with cayenne and red pepper flakes. Both were fantastic. "tis the season"...at least on our mountain.


Friday-Second home meet for the OSU gymnastics team, currently undefeated. OSU! Before heading to the meet, mom and I visited our local pasta joint, Pastini, for dinner. We both had their small salad. Salads are not always worth mentioning but I believe this one is. It is a perfect pre-dinner salad. It is a small salad (though not too small) with perfectly crisp greens, and, they are not just crisp but flavorful including the spicy lettuce I always enjoy. The salad includes a light vineagarette as well as cucumbers, mushrooms, and radish. What a good vegetable combination. The salad is fresh and fulfilling. For just $.99 you can add gorgonzola cheese, which i believe is completely necessary. The cheese is the perfect top to the salad. Additionally, the salad is filling enough to then only eat half of your pasta and save the rest for lunch the following day, also a favorite of mine. We both had overly satisfying pasta dishes and left with extras for later. Plus, we had to save room for popcorn...


Saturday-Trench diggers need hearty, warm, comfort food. So, we trench diggers had stroganoff for dinner. I believe that the key to great stroganoff is lots of mushroom and black pepper. It was warm and very filling. Charlotte, who has a case of the sniffles, opted for her comfort food as well...nanas. She passed on the stroganoff and filled up on bananas and cozy-shack, yum for everyone.

Sunday-Braised Short Ribs with Carrots and mashed potatoes. It was lovely; rich in flavor. I believe that was mostly due to the carmelized onion, tomato, red wine combination that had an intoxicating smell. Then the carrots and other spices were mixed in with the already browned ribs to stew for a couple of hours. It was so good. We made mashed potatoes and green beans to compliment the dish and it was quite the compliment. We thoroughly enjoyed it. We finished off the meal with a warm chocolate cake from the oven. Winter meals are so cozy.

Week One

Sunday-Hot Buttered Rum and homemade meat sauce. After a day of sledding and playing in    the snow we drank Spencer's amazing hot buttered rum and ed made us some fabulous, chunky meat sauce. yum.


Monday-Calzones. Using this crust, stuffed with veggies, cheeses and meat. I changed the flour on the crust to be 2 cups bread flour, 1 cup wheat flour, and 1 cup all purpose flour. A perfect combination. I also glazed the top with oil and salt before baking. It was delish. Another perfect ending for a snowy day.


Tuesday-Baked chicken, rice pilaf, canned spinach. The chicken was baked with italian spices and was super tasty. I long for the day when I make my own rice pilaf. I think that would be a good move. But, i won't give up the canned spinach-so tasty! We watched Antiques Roadshow while we ate and someone had a statue worth $100,000.00 CRAZY!


Wednesday-Dinner with a good friend at McMenamins on Monroe. I really enjoy the set up in this particular venue. I need to not order burgers there any more though, i am never satisfied, and this restaurant does not offer some of the other fun McMenamin dishes that I like, like the chicken/blue cheese/bacon yummy something. But, i did have a big basket of delicious tots-making it all worth while. The company was best though, it was fulfilling in multiple ways
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Thursday-Flooded in Pea soup and biscuits. The biscuits didn't rise well, mostly due to my hurried mixing and not being diligent about the order of adding ingredients. But, they turned out yummy and charlotte seems to enjoy them lots!


Friday-Still flooded in garden burgers and home fries. The burgers were good. Smothered in pickles and mayo. But, what was especially pleasing were the homefries. A recipe from this past Cooks Illustrated. This link only takes you to the page where you can subscribe to the online recipe. So i will just tell you what makes it amazing. Par-cooking the potato cubes with a 1/2-1 teaspoon (depending on how much potato) of baking soda. Next, mixing it with your desired spices and oil then cooking them at 500 with regular flipping. The recipe also calls for cooking them with onions (towards the end) but we didn't do that and they were still very good. The baking soda breaks down the sides of the potato cubes making for perfect crisping in the oven. They are spot on!


Saturday-First, pepperoni pizza. Second, deliciousness from Market of Choice Bakery. Joan is in town from PA and it was her birthday. We ate our pizza, mostly to create a good landing spot for the cake. I will describe each one (6, 3 inch x 3 inch square, cakes). A chocolate, peanut butter layered dream. Each layer full of flavor, small in size so that each bite might contain multiple layers. A carrot cake, simple only in title. The flavors were rich but the cake was light. The frosting was sweet and buttery, only glazed on, with a perfect dusting of cinnamon. yum. Lemon. Pure lemon. Purely perfect. A pink champagne. It was a definite party cake. The color was a light pink and the flavor was bursting, like uncorking a champagne bottle, i pictured confetti...in my mouth. German chocolate. The only one I passed, but it received rave reviews. It looked decadent, with the frosting drooping over the sides, as though each bite would be almost fudgy. Lastly, but most importantly, a poppyseed with marionberry. Wow. The hint of almond was addicting, for those who love almond. I snuck a second sliver, it was too good.