Big cooking weekend

After a traumatizing look at our grocery expenditures at mint.com, I’ve been on a mission to overhaul our grocery spending. Part of this mission involved using up some of the stuff we have in our kitchen. Since the container that contained the pumpkin I roasted and pureed for Thanksgiving was in a faulty container and in danger of freezer burn it was the first ingredient to find a use for. I came across this recipe on Cooking Light’s website for pumpkin gnocchi which sounded delicious, and for which we already had all of the other ingredients.

Sadly, we devoured it before I thought to take a picture, but it was delicious. I served it with some blanched broccolini from our veggie box, which complimented it nicely. It turns out that gnocchi is super easy to make, provided that you know that you will probably have to add more flour than the recipe calls for in order to get dough that you can roll into the correct shape. (You basically roll the dough into a long thin rope and then cut it into pieces – easy peasy!) Luckily, we had Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and our friend J’s experiences with gnocchi to draw on, so we figured it out pretty quickly.

Sunday, T made homemade scones with some of the unused heavy whipping cream from Thanksgiving. These I did manage to get a picture of:

And trust me, they tasted as good as they look! Then for dinner, I made a white bean and ham soup with dried white beans and ham hocks from the freezer. This was my first time soaking beans and then cooking them and I don’t know why it took me so long to try this. It’s ridiculously easy! I used Bittman’s quick soak method, where you bring the beans to a boil and then soak them for two hours before you cook them. I ended up soaking them for a little longer, as we went and ran some errands while they were soaking, but it didn’t seem to matter to the beans.

I didn’t think to take a picture of the soup either, but it was a very delicious dinner – perfect for the chilly winter evening. I did have to pick up a few ingredients for the soup, but for the most part the weekend’s entire menu came out of our freezer/cupboard/refrigerator, which totally rocks.

Just fondue it

M & J were gracious enough to invite us over for another J cooking experiment – this time fondue was on the agenda. M had set a lovely table, and I caught her in the act of setting up her shot:

T was in charge of burning the house down… I mean… lighting the burner:

And J presented the main star, a very delicious cheese fondue:

And voila, a beautiful dinner:

And trust me, it tasted as good as it looked!

All Hale Friday

Sorry for the long break in posting, life has been filled with non-blogworthy topics like working and training for hours on end. Today was a crazy hectic day at work, so much so that I decided some adult beverages were in order. Luckily, I can always count on my partner in crime M to help me out in these situations. First she brought over some champagne they had in the house. So, she and I shared a bottle of that while we waited for our respective husbands to be finished with work/what-have-you.

A few glasses of champagne later, we had the husbands and were all hungry. We decided to trek over the Hales Ales for some food/beer. We got a nice seat on the patio, as it was a really nice evening out. M took some pictures of J, much to his delight, as you can see here:

It’s not easy being the muse. I tried taking one of T, but my camera still hates him:

I was still feeling the effects of the champagne, so I got a tiny beer – a cream ale, which was very delicious. It looks like a normal glass:

But trust me, it’s teeny. There was a blurb on the menu about it having fascinating bubbles or some such, which M is scrutinizing here:

T was having a hard time deciding what to order, so M helped:

But T pulled the menu out from under her:

Such a brat…

All in all, it was a silly and fun Friday night.

How well do people know me?

Here’s what my friend M brought back after a visit to Poulsbo:

Okay, baked goods… excellent start. And what’s inside?

Words cannot describe how rad these cookies are. Thank you M for “getting me”

Bagels!

T. decided to step up his baking game and make homemade bagels. Armed with Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and advice from J, he prepped the dough and we invited M & J over for breakfast to taste (and critique) the results. Until M & J started making bagels, I had no idea of the whole process, so I shall share it with you here. First, the dough is made and the bagels are left to “retard” (Cue jokes about retarded bagels here… ) for a while, in our case – overnight.

Then, the bagels are boiled:

After this they are laid out on parchment:

and toppings are applied (not pictured) Then, they are baked and look something like this while they cool:

There’s disagreement within our household over the proper length of time for the cooling process. Apparently, for the best bagels you have to let them cool for an unacceptable length of time, so I tend to eat mine “too soon.” Since my bagel-palette is far too unrefined, I am willing to risk it.

The second batch wasn’t quite as lovely as the first, so we gave them nicknames while they cooled:

Unfortunate-looking as they were, they were still delicious and Todd’s first batch of bagels was declared a rousing success. The only naysayer was Wally, but we suspect that’s because his efforts to sneak a bagel off the table were thwarted by our vigilant watch:

Gourmand showdown

Our friends M & J are carriers of the “baking virus.” It started with J, learning how to make bagels, homemade english muffins and a variety of delicious breads. Then M became infected, making her own breads and pizza doughs and it’s migrated it’s way through other friends. Now, T has caught it. T. did a lot of cooking when we were first dating, but in the nearly 12 years of marriage, he’s definitely gotten out of the habit so I’m delighted about it. I am very much looking forward to finishing long runs or rides with a hot bagel/english muffin/loaf of bread.

I missed documenting the first bread, and the first pizza dough (made with lemon-infused olive oil – oops!) but here is the very lovely second bread:

And here’s T posing with his bread:

Meanwhile, M was attempting her first lasagna and invited us over for dinner to try it. Serendipity, right? With the added bonus of not having to think about what to have for dinner! Here’s M’s lasagna debut:

And of course, the obligatory posing shot:

The results of both were delicious and complimented each other very well. I contributed salad fixings, so I wasn’t a total mooch but I must say I like this precedent. Obviously, I’m going to have to do A LOT more training but I think it will be worth it!

Close to home

This weekend we had T’s mom Susan in town for a visit. She had to come up for some job training and came up on the train a few days early to hang out with us. It’s always fun to have Susan visit as she’s pretty low maintenance. She lives in a small town, so “big city life” is a novelty, but one that I think she gets tired of pretty quickly. This time, we kept things pretty low-key. A little errand running, a little actual running and a fair amount of eating. We stayed mostly in our area, ranging into Fremont for dinner at Brouwers and a nice Sunday brunch at Silence Heart Nest.

We hit up the Ballard Farmer’s Market and some of the local shops nearby where we scored some awesome new knee socks and the dogs got themselves a new toy. I had a ton of winter veggies from our veggie box, so I decided to put them to good use. On the agenda, some roasted chiogga/regular beets, a Moroccan winter squash & carrot stew with quinoa.

T’s dad joined us and we ended up having quite a good dinner, unfortunately eaten too quickly to get a picture. The only thing I’d adjust next time would be to get some fresher spices, or adjust the amounts because it was a little underspiced. We had some frozen raspberries in the freezer, that T turned into a nice little cobbler for dessert. All in all, a very nice weekend…

Friends & Meatballs

Yay, long weekends! In addition to the usual perks of sleeping in and hanging out with friends, the weather was actually sunny for a change. Sure, it wasn’t warm in the normal sense of the word, but compared to what we’ve been dealing with, it was heavenly. On Saturday night, we had our friends M & J over for some RockBand and various hanging out hijinks. J brought over stuff to make homemade meatballs, which were quite delicious:

Here’s the master chef inspecting his work:

Wally had his own ideas about who should be eating the meatballs:

As did Smokey Joe:

Afterwards, it was time for some RockBand and good ol’ fashioned kitty torture. Here’s M giving George a blowfish, doesn’t he look happy? Certainly, not as happy as M does…

Nothing warms you up for RockBand better than torturing a cat.

The Great Cupcake Caper

After a busy morning of tree-harvesting, I had a social engagement with some of my tri friends. We were meeting at a local cupcake bakery to chat in a nice relaxing, sugar filled environment. (Hey, it’s the off season, right?)

I’d met most of the ladies there before, some at training camp and some while I was volunteering for Ironman Canada. You might remember Erin from tri camp:

and Jenn from the drive up to Ironman Canada:

Also from my time up in Canada, Jess and her sister Lucy (Lucy is enjoying the Red Velvet cupcake, Jess is the lovely brunette in the green shirt)

Another shot of Jess:

Courtesy of Erin, here are a few more photos. First, here’s a better shot of Lucy sitting with yours truly…

We were also joined by Rebecca, who made the drive down from Bellingham to hang out with us, she’s in the front here:

And here’s one of the whole group:

It was a really fun afternoon. It was fun to catch up and have geeky tri-girl discussions about favorite drink mixes and whatnot (God help the poor folks at the table behind us… ) And given the freezing cold weather, it was especially nice of everyone to make the trip out. I’m looking forward to future gatherings, perhaps we’ll even add some running, biking or swimming into the mix…

Gobble, gobble…

After our awesome Turkey Trot, I had a few hours to shower and chill at home. T had to work at Safeway Starbucks (booooooooo!) so not only did he not get to go to the Turkey Trot, but he only had about an hour for shower/chilling before we had to head over to M & J’s for the Thanksgiving festivities. This was their first time cooking and hosting Thanksgiving dinner and I was excited to see what they’d come up with.

T & I arrived early to help with some of the prep work and hang out before the other guests arrived.

As expected, everything looked beautiful and smelled delicious.

M & J had been cooking for the past two days. J threw down some major bread-making skills:

There was also plenty of wine:

Fergus was also very helpful:

Soon enough, other guests started arriving and the flurry of activity in the last 45 minutes before dinner kept me too busy to take pictures. Suffice it to say, a mind-blowing array of food was prepared including stuffing, mashed potatoes, two kinds of sweet potatoes, a big green salad, three kinds of cranberries, green beans, carrots and artichoke hearts. And of course, J’s beautiful (and very trendy apparently) dry-brined turkey:

After some unconventional carving (vegetarians and the squeamish may want to avert their eyes… )

And then it was time for the eating to begin. Another shot of the beautiful table (taken before the madness began.)

So much delicious food! Plus the lively conversation with M & J, their friends Graham and Sarah, Graham’s sister Emily, her boyfriend Brian and their friend Brian. It was a good group of people, all of whom can cook their butts off! Afterward, we lay around in the living room digesting and chatting. Here are M, Sarah & Emily being goofy:

Graham and Sarah had brought some games along, so we played Catch Phrase for a while:

Somewhere in there was a flurry of pies and some homemade ice cream (courtesy of Graham and Sarah) I tried hard to not go too crazy, but I still ate a ton of food. Guess I’ll need to keep up the running! But overall, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving and a nice introduction to our Seattle holiday season.