Apple Pie

Our Valentine's peach pie was such a success. It was not only delicious, but (I'm embarrassed to say that) we ate the WHOLE thing. We only gave away one slice. Obviously, the only natural thing to do next was bake another pie.

Lane requested Apple Pie. Last night I made the crust - which is a bazillion times easier in the food processor, and baked it in the morning. It's just sitting on the kitchen counter now, calling our names.

Happy Valentine's Day

On Sunday morning, Gabriela handed Lane the valentine she and I made for him while he was working on Friday. She was so sweet. She called, "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaddeeeeeee" and walked up and handed him his homemade I Love You card with heart stickers she artfully placed.

While Gabriela and I took a luxuriously long nap, Lane went to the grocery store, placed vases of tulips in different spots in the apartment, and started making a glorious Valentine's dinner.

Rib eye roast, yukon gold mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans and mushrooms and honey balsamic glazed butternut squash!!! Wow, am I proud of Lane and his amazing culinary skills! I was so bummed, I forgot to use our homemade heart placemats from my awesome sister-in-law, Meliss!

As much as I enjoyed eating a fabulous dinner without planning or cooking it, I started to feel funny about not having a job in the kitchen, so I decided to make dessert. Remember over the summer when we bought a 10 lb box of peaches? Well those frozen peaches came in handy in a delicious peach pie! I was especially proud of the crust - thank you very much, Cooks Illustrated. Having peach pie in the dead of winter convinced me to buy more peaches for freezing this summer.

As a follow up to our dinner date, we went on a movie date on Monday. Our dear friend Katie watched Gabriela while Lane and I went to the movies together for the first time since before she was born! It was a treat.

Gabriela Makes a Pizza

After reading a friend's post about recent homemade pizza making adventures, I was inspired to let Gabriela make her first pizza. When we were kids we always made pizza on the weekends and the kids made little personal sized pizzas with their own toppings.

Gabriela got her apron on, stood up on the chair, and was ready to start cooking. She concentrated very hard on spreading out the dough.

Then spread on the tomato sauce,

And spread out the dough some more.

Time for cheese!

Lots of cheese

And when you think Mom isn't looking, take a big bite of cheese!

Anxiously awaiting the finished product. Since Christmas, anything that goes in the oven is a COOKIE, according to Gabriela.

Ta-da! Gabriela's first pizza!

Enjoy!!

And, just for fun, here's the big-kid version.

Tamale Madness

The day after Christmas we got up bright and early to head down to California, MD for some post Christmas Tamale Madness with the Sylvester Family.

Chance and Jackson hanging out while Christianne is hard at work making a corn husk doll. She said Nana taught her how, and while we were there she made one for me, Cynthia, AND Jen!!
Cousins! Apparently, I should have been wearing an apron too! I'm all full of masa flour.
Believe it or not, I was the tamale teacher! Here is Jen with her first tamale!
Michele was a great helper! She grabbed the hojas for me and spooned on the masa.


Here's the finished product! We also feasted on rice and beans and some awesome corn chowder that Jen and Chris made. It was such a nice day with our cousins! We split the tamales and each took home a supply of masa flour, hojas, and prepared meat so we can make more at home.

The Very First Fakesgiving

In honor of our special family time together, including the surprise arrival of another guest, we decided to have Fakesgiving Dinner on Saturday. During Fakesgiving dinner preparations, Christianne and I agreed that it should be our tradition to always have Fakesgiving when we get together.

Since it was, after all, our very first Fakesgiving we all awoke and wished each other a happy Fakesgiving. We celebrated by letting Christianne have a (very tiny) slice of chocolate cake at breakfast time. Okay, fine - Gabriela had some too. Don't worry, it was followed by a real and very delicious pancake breakfast. Thanks, Lane and David!

I am pleased to report that the first Fakesgiving was a great success - and a team effort, at that! For starters, Lane took care of brining the turkey. We didn't have enough room for it in our fridge, so we just covered it and put it outside all night. It was sure cold enough out there! Christianne and I made the citrus herb paste to go under the turkey skin. She also stuffed the turkey and seasoned it on the outside. Cynthia made the delicious spinach gratin. I made my famous hippie stuffing, Lane whipped up some awesome mashed potatoes, and David made the gravy. On top of that, Cynthia and Christianne made the Apricot Almond Bars and Cynthia helped me make the chocolate roulade with an espresso marscapone filling and chocolate ganache. Basically, we feasted.

After dinner everyone went outside to play in the snow. I'll post more on that later.

We came back from the snow, watched The Christmas Story, all took little naps, played Jenga, and obviously, ate a little more.

What a fantastic first Fakesgiving!

Nachos

Okay, so we got a new camera and can't help but photograph everything.


Lane says, "these nachos are bomb. they are grover-style nachos. we don't mess around"

Gabriela isn't the only one who loved the ribs!

Hill Country BBQ

Sunday we had ourselves some serious BBQ at Hill Country BBQ. Feast your eyes on our pork ribs, beef ribs, bbq chicken, beef brisket, baked beans, corn pudding, cornbread, and bean salad!!! oh, and a bucket of beer. Did I mention it was 12:30 pm?

Here we all are. I can safely say that Gabriela is a fan of the ribs. See for yourself!!!

Otto

At Otto they start you out with brandied cherries, some crazy delicious honey, and another tray of apricots with red pepper flakes, breadsticks and lovely rustic bread. We immediately ordered a plate of Italian meats and selected several cheeses - a gorgonzola, a triple cream, a peppercorn goat cheese, you get the idea... Then you dip your bread and cheese in the sauces. Divine.

Here's a little sample of some of the side dishes we dined on - beets, muscles, green lentils, anchovies, octopus, shrimp and chickpeas, and one other dish that I can't remember. We also had some pasta and pizza. Our amazingly fresh Caprese salad. It was heavenly.

Gabriela sampled all sorts of dishes after she woke up from her nap. She tasted the sauce from the muscles, the beets, the anchovy croutons, pizza, chick peas, lentils, caprese salad, and she may have even tasted the octopus! Gabriela is quite the little foodie!But her favorite, hands down, was the gelato which Auntie Cynthia and Uncle David couldn't feed her enough of. They were her best friends that night!! I got sad puppy dog looks (from David) when I said she'd had enough dessert. Maybe I should have cut off dessert a little earlier because at bed time that night, Gabriela was standing up and shrieking in delight at I don't know what. I don't think she'd ever tasted dessert before then.

We all had a totally fabulous time together that night.

Yakitori Totto

Manhattan was gorgeous Friday night. It was a breezy-no-need-for sweaters kind of loveliness. Since Gabriela slept most of the bus ride up, we figured she'd be down for a late night dinner, New York style. So we walked a few blocks to Yakitori Totto. You know it's authentic when the menu and all the signs are in Japanese, and the place is full of Japanese people. There was no sushi at this restaurant. Lots of different grilled deliciousness on skewers. We had these teeny fried fish with green tea powder, grilled chicken meatballs in roasted jalapeño halves, grilled scallops, lamb chops, grilled skirt steak, cold udon noodles, asparagus wrapped in chicken breast, mushrooms wrapped in bacon, mmm.

oh yeah, and ginormous entire shrimp on a skewer.

Gabriela had a blast. She was talking and talking and tasted almost everything. Her favorites were the fried fish, the chicken meatballs and the lamb chop bone.

I'm not sure what she enjoyed more - the chicken meatballs, or chomping on the chopsticks.

Okay, so Gabriela was going a little crazy in this picture. I posted it because you can see her cute top tooth that made its debut just the other day.

All tuckered out by the end of the night.

Burger Madness

So we were tired after a day of walking all over DC. Gabriela and I decided to take a nap, and you cannot imagine how happy I was when I awoke to an apartment full of groceries that I didn't have to go shopping for, and two giddy boys with an amazing dinner plan up their sleeves.

It was pure heaven to enjoy a delicious dinner without having to work in the kitchen for it.

These boys were talking about their dinner idea all the way home on the metro. We dined on an assortment of MINI BURGERS. Four different varieties. YUM.

Presenting Burgers 1 & 2

Burger 1 - The roasted burger - oven roasted garlic, roasted jalapeños and cheddar cheese
Burger 2 - Maple bacon burger with gorgonzola cheese and grilled onions

Burger 3 - Avocado bacon burger with scrumptious Trader Joe's barbeque sauce

Burger 4 - Classic burger - spinach and tomato, drizzled with balsamic vinegar and melted cheddar cheese
Pair it with some roasted garlic and rosemary potato wedges, and you can't go wrong! These babies were out of this world!

They were so good, in fact, that the next morning, we continued the theme with some very similar BLT sandwiches. Lane whipped up a fabulous smoothie. We also had some fresh strawberries and coffee and left over potato wedges. YUM. And again, I didn’t cook a thing! - don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing I enjoy more than being in the kitchen, but this usually means non-gourmet dining.

Thanks for such a fabulous visit and for bringing your mad cooking skillz, David! We always have such a great time with you in DC!

The Big Kid Pizza

So dinner was a little late. We thought it would be a good idea to feed the girls first. This led to us waiting even longer, which resulted in us "sampling" the kid pizzas as we anxiously awaited our own.

The result - half fresh tomatoes and basil with goat cheese. The other half - fresh spinach with mushrooms sauteed in garlic, olive oil and red pepper flakes with grated parmesan cheese. it was heavenly.

Oh, and those little crumbs you see there are actually bits of pizza. Gabriela had her first taste and she seemed to enjoy it :-D