Snacks!

So many thoughts.

Hello from Monday nightsville!

Rebecca took this shot yesterday morning; it will have to suffice as our sole maternity photo shoot.

In these final weeks of pregnancy I have a ton going through my head but I used today's holiday to actually not dwell on them or rush to accomplish too many things.

But I did...

1. Revel in how wonderful our weekend was for two reasons:

1a. My two pals from college made it out here and like I said yesterday it buoyed my heart and spirit to be with these ladies. We missed you Emily and I love you three dearly.

1b. Some other and just as nifty friends threw us an amazing baby shower; it was a blast! And an extremely deep and heartfelt thanks goes out to those two friends {& their little doggie whom we missed}.

4. Make chicken tortilla soup; yum!!

3. Watch a good Law & Order SVU with my hubby.

4. Do a wee bit of laundry.

5. Even sneak in a nap; I figure they are limited in their remaining number so I might as well take em if I can.

Oh I'm a happy girl tonight even though it's back to the real world {a.k.a alarm clock wake-ups} tomorrow {after a five-day weekend thanks to snow days} and I hope that there's a bit of proverbial {or real!!} sunshine in your life today/tonight/this week Reader.

xoxo, natty

It doesn't work.

One of the go-to dinners in our home is the tuna melt.

See how it just sits on top?

It's so easy and Mikey makes a good tuna and when we make a veggie on the side, it's a nice little dinner.

We were out of the usual shredded cheese we get at Costco and since we have a trip to the warehouse headquarters planned for this weekend I ran into Safeway the other night while on a walk to get some queso. We love smoked gouda and I thought it sounded like a delicious topper to our open-faced sandwiches.

And we found out tonight that gouda does not melt {at least ours didn't}. Nor does it top tuna well.

Live and learn.

And save the gouda for cheese plates.

xoxo, natty ♥

Another weeknight dish.

Macaroni and cheese!

And a happy Halloween to you!
xoxo, natty ♥

A taste of home.

I was running errands in Virginia today and started to feel a scratchy throat. Despite the 90 degrees weather I just wanted Pho.

There are tons of great restaurants in DC {so I hear, we're pretty frugal/too lazy to go out} but there aren't as many hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurants as we had in San Jose. Or it could be we just don't know about them?

Anyway, there's one pho place that we know of but it's a hike from where we live but luckily I was smack dab in the middle of a Vietnamese shopping center; it looked and felt like home.

 

And tasted it too.

 San Jose has a huge Vietnamese population and the food is something I've grown up around, as well as the people, obviously, so I was really happy to poke around this huge shopping center and enjoy a steaming bowl of pho {in the air conditioning}.

I hope that your Saturday was nice too! Tomorrow? Off to apple picking in more hot and humid weather {what is up with that October?}.

xoxo, natty ♥

Breaking it out and gearing up.

Today I brought out the crock pot for some green chili chicken verde {perhaps a forthcoming recipe to look forward to this week}.

THANK YOU to my in-laws, they gifted us with this beauty four years ago when Mike and I started co-habitating and it has done so much for us.

And I'm so glad I did.

The food was delicious and our apartment smelled great but we also get dinner for at least two more nights; I made rice and beans to beef it all up so there is quite a lot.

It's far too late for me to be up on a Sunday night but we watched the first half of the Patriot's game at my brother-in-law's place and now it's finally time for bed.

Here's to a good week!

xoxo, natty ❤

My favorite salad.

We're enjoying THIS lovely salad tonight; there were squash in our CSA the past two weeks - doesn't it seem early for that?

Can you believe it's almost Friday?!

xoxo, natty ♥

Sun.

Another warm day; yippee! I attempted a pool trip but was thwarted and then we enjoyed some Chinese carry-out - a good day!
xoxo, natty ♥

Backlog.

Oofdah.
I had a bunch of posts but hadn't pushed publish on them so here we go!

In other news, with some very sweet Chilean friends who are visiting we had our first go at Ethiopian food tonight.

It's kind of ridiculous since DC is know for this cuisine and there are several within a short walk of our home {as there were in California for that matter...} but Mikey and I try to be frugal and eat at home and anytime we decide to eat out it seems too adventurous to attempt something so new to us.

Not so much anymore! We had the traditional combination plate and shied away from the raw meat. I won't go into details but it's a lovely variety of about seven or eight separate dishes all presented on a large pizza sized piece of traditional Ethiopian bread which is spongey, ever so slightly acidic, and used in place of utensils. It was a yummy meal shared with some intrepid travelers and new friends.
Then we came home to a leaking waging machine {leaky valves?} and to get ready for my 7 AM flight back to California {yippee}.

Wish us all luck tonight and tomorrow morning.

xoxo, natty ♥ 

Le Lentil.

It's been rainy and cool here, but not entirely unpleasant, so the windows are open and airing out our little hovel.
In other news...
1. I made "French Lentil Soup" tonight, an old favorite and standby that hadn't graced our bowls in a long time.

It's not really French, it's Trader Joe-ian. 

I've always been a fan of TJ's and several years ago {5?!} a coworker showed me her Trader Joe's cookbook. It's made not by the grocery store chain but by Trader Joe's admirers and puts to use many of their unique products. There are actually many of these cookbooks out now but I treasure this {& a few others [Sag Paneer Lasagne!]} photocopied recipe from a several years past, thought it is so easy I actually know it by heart still. Recipe to come at a later date.

2} After several days of feeling nasty I got myself some Z-Pac action. Turns out I'm still allergy immune but still susceptible to sinus infections.

3 - Prom was fun! They had a yummy dessert table!

4...Our table {which is glass...shudder [this apartment came furnished]} has a fine layer of yellow pollen on it thanks to the sycamores that are all over our neighborhood and our love of a good cross breeze.

5) There's a scruffy dog, many friends around this country, beautiful family from whence we came, hilarious inside jokes, miles to be run, visits to be had, and so much more to be grateful for in this beautiful life.

I hope that today, two weeks out from a very bad day, you're looking up and ahead, seeing joy in your life, or at least enjoying a little bit of the day.

xoxo, natty ♥

Chili.

We had a little chili cook-off/pot luck dinner tonight.
One very full tummy later, I'm also a very happy girl - it had started to feel like a looooong time since we instigated some real socialization.
Thanks to everyone for coming over tonight!!!
xoxo, natty ♥ 

Seasoned.

We got a wonderful Christmas present this past December {thanks to those generous gifters!!!} : a reup of some Penzey's spices that seem to go way too quickly in our kitchen.
Lemon Pepper is my personal favorite.
Do you have any favorites?

xoxo, natty ♥

Because I know I'll forget if I don't write it down.

Last week Mike and I hosted our first Thanksgiving. I wrote about it HERE but I didn't talk too much about the menu because I'm not an expert home chef/photographer and there are restaurants and authentic food blogs for that kind of thing.
But.
I can be sappy and I'd like to chronicle what we had that night. It was a special evening with special people. The food was not burned and no one {that we know of} got sick so let's remember the menu.

Appetizers?

• We went classy: softened cream cheese covered in red pepper jelly with Ritz {Trader Joe's brand, actually} crackers to eat it with. SO good.
• There was also some swiss/gouda/white cheddar mix from our CSA that was eaten mid-day whilst we were cooking and watching football.
• A friend brought over home-made eggrolls that so did not survive even ten minutes on our coffee table.

Side note: Mike's family eats Thanksgiving dinner earlier in the day. My family always makes it more of a European dinner sometimes daring to dip down into 8 PM eating times. We compromised {kind of out of necessity because running a turkey trot and then setting in for some cooking does not make for an early meal time} which was great because I DO NOT appreciate an overly indulgent meal right before bed time {for many reasons} and we ended up sitting down at around 7; enough time for seconds of dessert right before bed {despite what I said above about not enjoying late meals...}.

Turkey
Our CSA had access to turkeys so we got one from there. It came from Joel Salatin's farm, if you know who he is. If not, don't worry about it. Just know that it was good. I brined it overnight and then loosely followed a Martha Stewart roasting recipe, though I did not stuff the bird or make her gravy.

I will say that though the brining was challenging because we don't own any large buckets {I placed the bird and its brine double-bagging-style into two oven baking bags [available in the aluminum foil area of the grocery store], tied it up, and placed the package in a large roasting pan in the refrigerator [to catch any leaks]} but it wasn't that much of a pain and I appreciate the results {fairly juicy and flavorful turkey}.

The roasting recipe includes soaking several pieces of cheesecloth in white wine and melted butter which was decadent but a} it helped keep the top of the bird moist {you drape it over Mr. Turkey for the first part of roasting} and b} you're supposed to go over-the-top on holidays, no?

I ripped off a piece of skin to taste-test it.

One other caveat; our bird was heirloomy in its turkiness {I actually just looked it up now...} and I think that paired with the brine, they may take a bit longer to cook than conventional fowl AND the extra salt almost cures the meat a bit so it takes on a pinkish hue which can be Very Alarming and Frustrating after four to five hours of cooking but do not make it cook for longer, it's just fine.

Brining recipe HERE.
Roasting suggestions HERE.
My Mother-in-law made her delicious gravy but I don't have the recipe right now...though I know where she lives.

The Main Courses

1. Turkey; see above.
2. Swiss Chard and Sweet Potato Gratin, though I used kale in place of Swiss chard. SO GOOD. Anything with this much Gruyére and Bechamel sauce can't be bad.
3. Turnip Gratin. SO GOOD. Again, anything with this much Gruyére and butter, even if it involves turnips, can't be bad.
4. My Mother-in-Law's Amish stuffing. SO GOOD. No recipe available though, like the gravy, I know where she lives. It involved bacon and sausage, another infallible combination.
5. Mashed taters. Yum!
6.  My Mother-in-Law's Mother's cranberry relish. SO GOOD.
7. My family's Ambrosia.
Not pictured: MIL's gravy {delish!} and Brother-in-Law's rolls {flaky and buttery!}.

To Imbibe
My in-laws spent several weeks in Italy in September, some of that time being in a villa that has its own wine cellar {poor things, they hated every minute of it} so they kindly sent ahead several bottles of red and white wine to us here in DC to save and enjoy together on Thanksgiving.

Dessert!
There aren't any pictures but here's what we had:

• Mother-in-Law made two pecan pies to appease the troops; it's a favorite in these parts.
• I made pumpkin cheesecake.
• A friend brought over pumpkin bread.
• Homemade whipped cream with a splash of vanilla.

Leftovers
The Depression Era Granny in me sometimes beats out the millennial-me-me-me Me and I ended up with two delicious dishes, though there were plenty of cold-salted turkey sandwiches and pie and cheesecake for breakfast.

1. Amish turkey noodle soup, thanks, again, to my multi-talented MIL. Yum. We ate it the night I made it and then I froze the left-overs in two batches so that's three whole dinners for you there {not counting the original turkey itself}.

2. Turkey and sweet potato Biryani. This was also quite tasty but not quite as plentiful as the soup and it gave us dinner, lunch, and a small dinner side the next night.

Plating
Also, we used our colorful wedding Fiesta Ware.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who showered us with love and bright eating pottery back when we were getting hitched.

I LOVE having generic yet incredibly aesthetically pleasing {to me, at least} plates that I can use for every ocasion. Again, Depression Era Granny in my {here-to-forth known as DEG} tells me that buying holiday-specific-things-that-are-supposed-to-be-useful {plates, for example} is a waste {she obviously hasn't been to Target recently}...was I REALLY born in the 1908s?

Woah. It was a glorious day and I'm so happy we hosted. I'm also so excited for future holidays together!
xoxo, natty ♥

Dinner; tomorrow!

Yippee skipee; I have things ready to go in the crock pot for tomorrow morning {take a guess as to what it might [hopefully] turn into}; gourmand I am NOT but when I get home from work tomorrow hungry and happy I WILL be!
How's your Tuesday Reader?

xoxo, natty ♥

Biryani.

Here I am on the other side of Big Holiday #1 {unless you count Halloween, in which case I would now be on the back side of Big Holiday #2} and I'm trying to remember what I was doing a week ago because the past ten-or-so days have gonebysuperdeeduperfast.

Brought to you by the annals of holiday card rejects.

But let's take a few minutes to be thankful.

1} Our Phoenix parents and my San Jose cousin-who-lives-in-rural-New-York and my brother in law {and a friend or two} came to us for Thanksgiving. It was glorious to have a week with family to do fun DC things. Everyone but my cousin has spent a lot of time in the DIstrict {or lives here} so it was neat to not feel rushed to pack in a bunch of sites in a few days but also cool to see old things through the eyes of a new visitor. THANK YOU family for a fabulous week.

2} I {& Mike!} hosted our first Thanksgiving. I made/roasted my first Turkey. We used the plates and serving ware and glasses we got for our wedding. We gathered with people in our home. It felt So Good to do this, I cannot even begin to describe how warm it makes me feel, even several days out. We are extremely thankful for the grace of our families and friends and what we've been given in life. 

3} Said bird came out quite nicely if I may say so myself! And I DO say so! I brined the thing overnight which resulted in some nasty spilled turkey-salt-water in and around our fridge but turned out for the best after a lot of soaking-up and sanitizing. I coated our wannabe-national-bird with butter and white wine which is a practically fail-safe procedure when it comes to anything edible {or non}. I am grateful it came out as well as it did and especially grateful to my mother-in-law {& everyone else!} for the support in the whole roast-a-thon-2012.

4} It's cold here but I still don't feel like I'm freezing my buns off; this is A Good Thing considering we have an entire Winter ahead of us. I wonder if a bit of the old Minnesota hardiness rooted itself inside of me?

5} I worked some culinary magic {to me and my tastebuds, at least} tonight and turned left-over turkey and a surplus of sweet potatoes {un-cooked; due to random circumstances we started out with ALOT} and a delectable combination of spices and coconut cream into some turkey and sweet potato biryani. 

Yum...saffron and turmeric - oh my!

One can find the recipe HERE though I made a few tweaks here and there and could say a thing or two about what I would do differently about this recipe. I will say here, though, that biryani is usually waaaaay too spicy for this girl when it's in a restaurant and that making it at home and thus controlling the crushed red pepper was a delight.

Delicious dish.

All-in-all it was a Winner {winner-chicken-turkey-dinner!} in my book and I will keep this in mind for the next time we decide to have excess turkey languishing in our fridge {over-under for the FIFTH [for reals, yo, Turkey Day is late next year] [and why they gotta go and actually PUT black Friday on the calendar YO? Really.] Friday of November 2013?}.

On similar note, I also made slightly-Amish turkey noodle soup {many thanks again to my dear mother-in-law♥!} with the majority of the left-overs this past weekend. Read about it HERE.

6) My sweet husband. I won't get sappy and I'll leave it at that; he's my Thanksgiving turkey and my Christmas tree and my Chanukah menorah. And then some. I love you so so very much sweetie.

Next up on my sneaky little agenda; getting Mike to agree to an all-out Christmas-Winter decorating spree which would include a real tree; I know I'll have great success.

Did you re-purpose any of your left-overs from last week? Do you strategically not bring any home so as to avoid the dilemma of trying to use them up before they've turned?

And, I hope that you spent a relaxing and full weekend wherever you where and with whomever you shared it; I certainly did.
xoxo, natty ♥

Let us make soup.

On Thanksgiving night, after the full-on eating died down a bit {but not completely}, I realized that something needed to be done with what was left of the poor bird.
My mother-in-law to the rescue! I asked her what to do and then sheepishly asked her to help me out do it for me.
She chopped up several onions and celery {& some carrots?}. Then she put everything {including the turkey remains} into a big pot, covered it with water, and let it simmer for the rest of the evening which turned out to be between two and four hours for us.
Then I refrigerated it and ignored it until today. Then:

• I took out the, ahem, carcass, from the soup and removed all the extra shreds of turkey meat and got rid of the bones. I put the meat back into the soup.
• I drained and added in a can of corn.
• I cooked a pound of noodles {egg noodles would be best but I had some fusilli and penne laying around so in they went!} and added them in as well.
• For good measure and because it seemed like the right thing to do, I squeezed in the juice of one lemon and some chopped-up parsley too.
• I let the whole thing heat-up to a boil and then enjoyed THREE bowls. As if I hadn't had a chorizo-fried egg-avocado burger with fries at brunch this morning. As if.

Thank you SO much dear Mother-in-Law for this delightful up-cycling of Thursday's dinner left-overs!

Ugh...I'm out of data with my Google account? So I can't upload pictures. Hmpfh. I'll Deal with this somehow...but no pictures for now! ---> UPDATE: I figured it out; has anyone else out there with a blog had this issue? I really don't like how they store all the pictures I post in my Picasa account even though I have them all on my computer. Hmmm.

What are YOU doing with your left-overs? Do you do a traditional turkey dinner or go hog wild with a ham? Perhaps you break habit and go for Thanksgiving tacos?
xoxo, natty ♥

International.

Today the weather warmed up at bit, back to normal supposedly, and we enjoyed some underwhelming Saturday activities.

Mike had a soccer game; Guinness watched intently.

Mike's school had an international evening; the various cultural clubs had a cook-off and it was DELICIOUS. I was and remain quite full but very happy.

Good weekend to you!

xoxo, natty ♥

What's a cheese crisp?

The easiest and yummiest snack.
Mike introduced these to me and I'm pretty sure they're a Phoenix/Arizona/southwest United States thing.
I'll maybe update this with pictures later but for right now...

Preheat oven to 400.
Sprinkle shredded cheese on a tortilla that's on a baking sheet.
Sprinkle some garlic powder onto the cheesy tortilla.
Bake until golden, super bubbly, and crispy {hence the "cheese CRISP"}; 10 minutes, more-or-less.
Spread salsa over the finished product.
Enjoy!

I use the Pioneer Woman's salsa recipe which is kinda my own now because I have it memorized and I make a few of my own tweaks; recipe at a later date.

Two to three cheese crisps with a side salad is one of my All Time Favorite dinners and I am very grateful to my husband for bringing them {and him} into my life.
xoxo, natty ♥

It's a cheese crisp!

xoxo, natty ♥

Dinner tonight, dinner tomorrow.

We made some easy-sloppy {from a can} enchiladas tonight. They were yummy and went very nicely with the football that had been on all day.
Since we had our extra hour, though, I tried to get ahead of things a bit. In our first CSA delivery I got a big bag of greens {chard, kale, etc.} as well as a large bunch of turnip greens. These poor verdant things had been languishing since then which is almost three weeks ago. Yikes.  Lucky for me these are some hardy leaves and they hold up quite well.

This last week I got a handful of sweet potatoes.

What to do?

Sweet potato and chard/greens gratin, that's what!

With some extra time and a dish that holds well overnight, I was able to get tomorrow night's dinner all ready to go, it just needs to be baked for a bit.

I LOVE when I can get things taken care of like this though it's certainly not as often as I'd like.

Did you have a nice weekend? I'm really saying a prayer and thinking some good thoughts for the folks up the east coast and being grateful for how we weathered the storm.
xoxo, natty ♥