popeye the sailorman

Last night I decided to use my leftover Thomas Keller chicken to make one of my favorite recipes from the Better Homes and Gardens red plaid cookbook. It is called Turkey and Phyllo pie. I don't really like phyllo in this pie (I made it once and it tasted greasy) so I use my mom's pie crust recipe and treat it like a pot pie. I also used chicken in this case because I had it on hand from the night before.

For fun, I always roll out a little extra dough and make shapes. Since Wednesday night is date night, I thought that hearts would be appropriate.

Here is how the pie turned out after 50 minutes in the oven. My red ruffle pie dish is looking so good! It was a present from Zizi and James last Christmas and I LOVE it.

The inside of the pie is quiche like because there is some egg and cheese in the filling. The ingredients include leeks, garlic, spinach, milk, eggs, mozzarella cheese, and parmesan cheese. It was delicious!

beets!

On Valentine's day, my fiance and I took a cooking class with his family up at Cakebread Winery up in Napa. Since then - we have made this beet appetizer probably 5 times! We subscribe to a CSA, so it is easy to request beets and because this appetizer is so good (and so simple) we find that we have made it over and over again (twice in the last two weeks). Bridget took this photo of our beet appetizer a week ago and I thought that this photo was too pretty (and too delicious) not to post. I plan to scan the recipe soon and will share it with you if you are interested! Just let me know by leaving a comment. :)

Thomas Keller chicken

About a year and a half ago, my coworker Kevin introduced me to the magic that is Thomas Keller's favorite chicken recipe. Thomas Keller is the chef of the French Laundry fame and this recipe is what he says that he makes for his family - simple, yet delicious.

The first meal that I ever cooked for Dave was this salty, crusty delicious chicken, mashed potatoes, and honeyed carrots. Tonight I surprised him by making it again. It was just as delicious as I remembered.

We ate about a fourth of the meat on this 5 lb chicken, and then took the rest to make chicken and leek pie tomorrow night for dinner. We then took the bones and boiled them with carrots and celery to make chicken stock. It is almost done now...

p.s. thanks Mrs. M for getting this oval dutch oven for Dave! My mom gave me the round one several years ago (also in red) and the oval one is a lovely addition to our le creuset family. :)

a spring lamb...

Every Easter when I was growing up, my mom made a cake shaped like a lamb. This year, as I was preparing to celebrate Easter with my fiance's family - I thought that it would be really cool to carry on this tradition with them. I was especially excited because my sister was visiting from New York and my brother was going to come down from SF with his girlfriend to help prepare the cakes. I bought two lamb cake molds - mostly because I didn't know which one would look better - and I thought it would be fun to make two of them with the 5 of us. The above shot shows the two molds.

Here is the first (larger) lamb just out of the pan. It was very hard to remove! I greased the pan, but I don't know what happened...

For the smaller cake, we decided to channel the movie "Steel Magnolias" and make a surprise red velvet lamb - that would look like a real lamb when it was cut into. This is definitely not part of the original family tradition, but Bridget and Dave were excited about making something playful. Here is the red velvet cake as it is hidden under cream cheese frosting.

After the icing was slathered on and the shredded coconut was applied - the smaller cake did indeed look like a lamb. However, the larger cake looked like a fluffy white lap dog.

Here are the lamb cakes at Easter dinner just about to be cut into. The family does not yet suspect that there is red cake hiding inside one of them. :)

The reveal! As Bridget cut off the head, there was a collective gasp! It was really funny.

Here are the two cakes halfway eaten! A success! By next year, hopefully they will look more like lambs and less like dogs. Happy Easter!

hoppy easter!

I will update with more pictures from our Easter celebration in Northern Cali soon. In the meantime, check out my sweet niece Cecilia finding Easter eggs in my backyard in New Orleans.

April flowers

Last weekend I went to the Palo Alto farmer's market with Julie and Julia and left with these gorgeous flowers. The top picture shows a bunch of ranunculus flowers and the bottom photo is of cherry blossom branches. The cherry blossom branches are very interesting because over the last week, they have sprouted leaves! I wonder if they realize that they are no longer attached to a tree. I love flowers to begin with, but with a wedding coming up, I am paying a lot more attention! I tend to love big floaty, flaky blossoms like peonys, antique roses, rinoculous, etc.

bon voyage

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” - Martin Buber

Today was a co-worker's last day. He is taking off to South America with his fiance for a year and then returning to go to grad school. Best of luck!

it's electric!

After many months of waiting, two weeks ago my co-worker's Tesla Roadster was delivered! Check out these pics from the parking lot! I didn't get a ride, but I did get to check out the enormous battery pack in the trunk area. Super cool!

double panes

This weekend I got an email about a video created by some students at Stanford, including a friend of mine. Check it out - it is so funny!

"This record's going LEED platinum

Got those skinny windows? Better fatten em."

bananas for breakfast

steel cut oatmeal + bananas + honey + coffee = heaven

have a good weekend!

New Orleans to San Francisco

This past weekend I had four friends from high school come to the Bay Area to visit Rachael and I. Rachael lives in San Francisco and is leaving soon to attend grad school at Tulane. The six of us had such a nice time together! We did lots of touristy things like chocolate sundaes at Ghiradelli Square, but we also did less touristy things like watching Steel Magnolias and eating our weight in cheese and fun fetti brownies. Rachael has a lovely (and very large) apartment in a neighborhood called nopa (north of the panhandle), so the 6 of us were very comfortable over the long weekend (I took Friday off of work).

One of the more memorable moments occured when we went to R Bar on Friday night - which also happened to be the last stop on a Snuggie bar crawl. Snuggies are basically blankets with arms. People got creative and we saw lots of snuggie costumes - snuggie Merlin, snuggie toga, snuggie princess, etc. If you look closely in the background of this picture, you will see some snuggie costumes.

Julia, Elizabeth, Lisa, and Emily - thanks for coming across the country to visit! This weekend was so fun.

UPDATE: see this SF Chronicle article on this very bar crawl

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/29/LVTI16LG23.DTL

arts and crafts

Since moving in with my fiance about a week ago, I have been SLOWLY integrating my stuff in with his stuff. The newest addition to our place is my Simon painting (see above). It is surrounded by corkboard tiles (from Ace Hardware). Over the next few months we plan to pin up things for our New Orleans wedding around this New Orleans painting - sort of a living inspiration/mood board. Then after the wedding, it can display cards, recipes, or whatever! I am pretty excited and we both really like the way it came out.

By the way, I gave my fiance his very own Simon painting for his birthday, which is also hung in the kitchen (see below). Simon doesn't have a website, but you can call him (he works out of an antique shop on Jackson Ave.) and he will pretty much paint whatever you want. His paintings are found all over New Orleans. As chance would have it, I actually have red beans cooking in a crock pot at home today. :)

I'm in heaven

Since I visited B in NYC in October of 2007, I have really wanted a pair of Frye Dorado boots.  However, as a student their price tag was always way too high to buy from Frye or Zappos or whoever.  After 1.5 years of an ebay saved search, I found a brand new pair for half-off the list price!  I have worn them almost every day since I got them in the mail on Friday.  Aren't they lovely?  

Frye was founded in 1863 and is the oldest continuously operating shoe company in the US. Frye boots were worn by Union and Confederate soldiers during America's Civil War, as well as soldiers in the Spanish- American War including Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. By mail order, the company supplied thousands of WWII servicemen with Frye Wellingtons, known as Jet Boots.  Frye boots traveled the world on the feet of U.S. soldiers during the war - even General Patton wore a pair. 

Looks like I now have a piece of history.  :)

bridget as a bride

Now might be a good time to mention that my sister Bridget does some modeling.  She has done lots of things, however my favorite Bridget photos are those she has taken for McCall's patterns.  My mom sent me this photo of B reminding me that we could always sew my wedding dress.  Although I have no intention of making my own dress, it always puts a smile on my face to see B lookin good on the cover of a pattern.  

p.s. B I tried to find the photo of you in the cat sweater, but had no luck.  I love you!

benterprises

Last week, one of my best friends from college Ben made the long trip out from Maryland to the Bay Area to give a presentation at NASA. Although I can't say that I am thrilled that NASA supports flying across the country for a day to deliver a 60 minute presentation (that could be done over VC), it was great to see Ben! I took him to Fraiche, a Palo Alto natural yogurt shop. It is very California and really good. I don't need any excuse to see my terps!

p.s. check out Ben the last time he visited in the fall of 2006 - has it really been that long?!? We went to Muir Woods and Ben played the trees... 

shamrock shenanigans

Last week at work, Kevin informed the group that we should take a run to get shamrock shakes at McDonalds.  Turns out there is a 2.5 week period every year when McDonald's makes a mint milkshake for St. Patrick's day.  Although my stomach churned a little that afternoon, overall I forgot how good McDonald's shakes could be.   So run out and get yours before it's too late... 

safety first

As my home heater was blasting the other day, I suddenly had a thought about carbon monoxide.  Carbon monoxide, a product of incomplete combustion, is a colorless and odorless gas that can be quite dangerous.  Wikipedia says that it is the most common type of fatal poisoning in some countries.  With detectors abount $25 each, carbon monoxide poisoning is preventable.  Although this post would have been more useful at the START of the winter season (closed up homes + natural gas heating  can equal trouble), it is never too late to get a monitor for your home.  I got mine at Ace Hardware.   

Have a good weekend!

red delicious

This year for Christmas, my brother Tommy and his lovely fiance gave me a gift certificate to Williams Sonoma.  I finally spent it two weeks ago on this beautiful Emile Henry red ceramic casserole dish.  I used to to make the roasted root vegetable pot pie for our friends Kelsey and Spencer last week. Thanks so much Tommy and Mallory!!  

p.s. My new dish perfectly matches the Emile Henry ruffle pie plate that I got from my secret santa (Zizi and James) for Christmas this year.  Thanks to them again!  Check out the lemon meringue pie we made with lemons from my fiance's (!!) meyer lemon tree.

summer in the light

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade."  - Charles Dickens

My mom sent me this lovely quote today and it seemed like an appropriate description for the weather over the weekend in Half Moon Bay. 

photo: half moon bay, ca

gonna get married!

I'm engaged! Check out my wonderful engagement ring!  

So it turns out that the plan was never to go shopping, plant roses, and play bananagrams on Saturday!  My boyfriend (now fiance!) was planning a surprise engagement - and believe me I was VERY surprised to hear "will you marry me" right before I went to take a big bite out of my eggplant sandwich!  He proposed on Stanford's campus near the red fountain where we had had one of our first dates.  It was wonderful and sweet and I was literally speechless for what felt like minutes!  Speechless! 

Meeting my boyfriend (now fiance) allowed me to believe that there was magic in the world.