I am very thankful..

Thanksgiving was a small affair at our home this year. Tina, Aaron, Maximus and I enjoyed dinner together and watched movies. I'm a bit of a tyrant in the kitchen and so I spent about 6 hours preparing dinner upstairs. I spent about 1/2 an hour downstairs with Tina and Aaron while they watched Fred Claus and then I went back upstairs to finish. I love cooking solo. I don't even mind helping out with dishes afterwards.

We had the regular dinner - turkey, mashed taters, cranberry sauce, stuffing, rolls and yams. I baked the yams in the skin, cored them and mashed the insides with some butter, put them back in the skins and put a couple of mini marshmallows on top to roast some more. They rocked. I made brussels sprouts casserole instead of green bean casserole. I don't like green beans that much but dig on brussels sprouts. And gravy. MMMM gravy. Max even got some turkey in his meal that night. He kept me company in the kitchen most of the day, so he earned it.

After dinner we watched Hellboy 2 and rested our bellies. Then it was dessert, with a homemade apple tart and a TJ's pumpkin pie. I don't like pumpkin or pie that much, so I prefer to just buy it. But the tart was yummy, especially with the homemade caramel sauce on the top. I could just eat that caramel sauce with a spoon, it's that good.

I hope you and your families and friends all had a great Thanksgiving. Much love to you all!

Thanksgiving appetizer

As an appetizer for Thanksgiving I thought I would try this recipe that I found on the web from the Ridiculous Food Society of Upstate New York. Bacon wrapped spam cracker sandwiches. Basically, you take club crackers (try the whole wheat ones...they're better for you!) put a slice of bacon flavored spam in between and wrap them with bacon. They suggested using thinly sliced bacon but all I had was hickory bacon from Costco. I think the thin sliced bacon would work much better.

They came out allright. A little salty for me, but tasty. I had to soak up the bacon grease several times during the baking. These are not low fat, nor heart healthy, even with the whole wheat crackers!

Food, glorious food!

Some of you may have noticed that I love food. I love savoring flavors on my tongue. I love to cook and I love cooking utensils and new pots and going grocery shopping.

This weekend, although productive, wasn't too exciting. There was the Friday night laundry, Saturday morning run and the putzing around/reading Twilight that evening. This morning I met a friend for crepes and hit the farmers market then did some gardening. Not a whole lot of gourmet cooking. Except I did prep for the gravy for Thanksgiving. I baked some turkey legs/wings/necks with some carrots/garlic/onions/celery and then boiled it all down into stock for the gravy. Max will get the meat parts with his dinners for the next few days.

My whole point is that because I live such an exciting life, I want to tell you about a meal that I had recently that was divine. And my beloved husband, Aaron, made it. He found a recipe for carbonara that Rachael Ray makes for her husband. You can find it here.



Here he is, tossing the egg in with the hot pasta.

Beautiful Carbonara

Look how pretty, with my cute plates and the Boudin bread and salad. We cooked up some shrimp separately because the pancetta wasn't enough protein. And because shrimp are good. Especially when cooked with butter and garlic. Now look at the fullness of the pasta pan. You should have seen it shortly thereafter. Tina and her boyfriend came home from the gym - a little late and that's why we didn't set the table for them. Between the four of us we pretty much killed the whole thing. Even the salad. I think there was a piece of bread left. Obviously, I'm not the only one at my house that loves to eat!!