Thanksgiving leftovers!

Two weeks ago, my husband went to China for a week.  The night before he left, I made him a chicken pot pie to get him in the mood for Thanksgiving (which would happen less than a week after he got back from China).  When my mom made pot pies for us, she always decorated them with the leftover dough scraps (which I did as well).  

turkeys on a chicken pot pie

Although due to a technical difficulty, my crust cracked apart a bit in the lower right corner (covered so artfully by a leaf).  

yum yum

Chicken pot pie is one of my favorite dishes and it is so easy - a great way to use leftover chicken or turkey.  If only there was leftover turkey from Thanksgiving... although can you blame us when the turkeys looked this good?

Our two Thanksgiving turkeys

lazy winter Saturday

With two days off from work last week, this has been a wonderful four day weekend.  With the Christmas tree up and decorated, the next order of business was holiday cookies!  I had bought the 2010 Fine Cooking Cookies magazine as well as the 2010 Martha Stewart Cookies magazine and thought I'd start with Fine Cooking.

2010 Fine Cooking Cookies Magazine

I decided to attempt the cover recipe (gingersnap snowflakes) and classic lace cookies before heading to the Stanford football game at 4:30.

making the gingersnap dough

I think I was a little two ambitious because I was already elbow deep in flour before I realized that the gingersnap dough had to be refrigerated for 2 - 8 hours (which I didn't count on), so after all that - the dough is still in my fridge this morning.

half of the finished dough (which had to be refrigerated)

On the other hand, the lace cookies were super easy!  The recipe made just a little bit of dough, but it was enough for 24 cookies (less than the 36 it estimated, but maybe mine were bigger than they should have been).

lace cookies - just sugar, corn syrup, butter, flour, vanilla and almond flour

 The finished product were rich and crispy - perfect with a cup of tea in the afternoon.

golden brown

We then went to the Stanford game (got in for free with tickets Alison found online)!  It was a pretty great game for us - a complete shutout!  Where was good Stanford football when I was actually a student...

Go Card!

We came home after the third quarter to eat beef that had been slow cooking for hours.  Sorry this picture isn't that good looking (I realize that it must be pretty unappetizing), but it is all I could get before I ate 4 sandwiches worth.  DELICIOUS!  My husband bought two pot roasts, trimmed the fat, and then let them cook on low in our crockpot (thanks Julie and Julia!) in a bottle of costco BBQ sauce.

soooo goooood

We finished off the night with lace cookies and wine (Kelley and I watched A LOT of SportsCenter last night).  I will say that by 10pm that night, the cookies were losing their crispness!  Any suggestions on how to keep them from absorbing moisture?  Overall a good fall/winter day - cookies, beef, football. :)

Christmas is coming!

How is it already the end of November?

This year, my husband and I decided to get our tree the day after Thanksgiving. We busted out our Christmas decorations and headed down to the tree lot.  This year we'd thought we go big - like 8 feet big.

a big tree!

We brought it home and set up an area for it.  We just learned that a tree this big could drink up to a gallon of water a day!  That's a lot of water...

a tree skirt I got my husband a few years ago (before we were married)

We spent the next few hours putting on lights, ornaments, and the star at the top.  Then we watched Love Actually, my all time favorite holiday movie.

putting on the star!

Isn't it pretty?  It makes our house smell so good - and feel so cozy.  If only the month of December lasted a little longer.  At least now that Thanksgiving is over,  I can listen to my Mariah Carey "All I Want for Christmas is You" Pandora station guilt free. :)

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving!  For the second year running, I spent my Thanksgiving in California with my new in-law family.  They have a lot of fun traditions including assigning jobs to people (e.g. "god given grace giver" and "water waiter") that allow all the guests to pitch in and help prepare the meal, as well as watching National Lampoons Christmas Vacation while digesting dinner.  As it was last year, the food was amazing, the table settings were beautiful, and the opportunity to relax with extended family around a big meal (and later a movie) was really wonderful.  The only thing missing was my family (next year I'm going to put on the hard sell for California over Texas).

Since this was our first married Thanksgiving, I'd thought I bring some of my family traditions to my new family.  First and foremost, I'd thought I'd make my personal favorite part of Thanksgiving, my grandmother Memaw's cornbread dressing.  It is a family favorite and I am the third generation to make this dressing (others might call it stuffing).  It also makes the best leftovers when smothered in gravy.  Although there would already be two other kinds of stuffing at our Thanksgiving this year (stuffed onions and a stuffed turkey), can there ever be too much?

it starts with onions and celery 

and then you add butter...
(this would make three 13"x9" trays!)

yum... the smell of melting butter!

onions + celery + butter = the smell of my childhood
(or would that be the smell of bacon?)

get the dry ingredients ready - cornbread cubes and Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix

Mixing the wet and the dry
adding chicken and rice soup and a couple eggs

the finished (golden brown) product

The next family tradition to bring to the wilds of Northern California?  Cafe Brulot - a big time special occasion tradition in my family.

first I studded the peels of two lemons and two oranges with cloves

clove studded orange peels

next I added 4 cinnamon sticks, 2.5 cups brandy, 1.25 cups Grand Marnier and let it soak while we ate

Our silver Cafe Brulot set (thanks Aunt Donna!) and 12 brulo cups
(our cups feature the Antoine's devil, although we use a different recipe)

Cafe Brulot set to burn!

"don't burn off all the alcohol"

my dad showing us how it's done last Christmas

After you flame the alcoholic components - you add sweetened black coffee and serve.  It was very delicious - although I do blame the Cafe Brulot for my inability to clearly remember the end of the night...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Twas the night before Thanksgiving...

When my grandparents were still alive, we spent every Thanksgiving Eve eating Chinese food at a restaurant in New Orleans called Five Happiness.  Invariably the kids would fight over the meat on a stick that you rotate over the table top flame and rounds of shirley temples and roy rogers would be ordered with lots of maraschino cherries.  

These days my family no longer heads to the Five Happiness, but instead my cousin and his wife host a shrimp creole night on Thanksgiving Eve.  It is particularly special because they now live in the house where my grandparents lived.  This year they sent around the invite and included a picture of my cousin Zizi with my grandmother at what must have been a school Thanksgiving celebration (if you look closely at the picture you'll see that my grandmother is wearing a pilgrim hat).  

pilgrim grandmother and Indian cousin

This year I stayed in California (so no shrimp creole for me), but my husband and I upheld my family tradition by inviting over friends and eating Chinese take-out on the night before Thanksgiving.  I later talked to my parents and siblings (who spent the holiday in Houston) and realized that they ate Chinese food too.  Not sure how this tradition got started, but it is a fun way to stay connected through the years and across the miles. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

love actually is all around

It is almost the holiday season and every year I watch Love Actually (many times). One of my favorite lines is when Emma Thompson says "I love her, and true love lasts a lifetime."  She is talking about Joni Mitchell, but she could be talking about anything. It seems so simple.  True love lasts a lifetime.  I love my husband, my family, Chipotle burritos, my friends, Philz coffee, crawfish bread, etc.

I recently had the good fortune to spend a weekend with my college girlfriends in New Jersey - my Terps Laurie, Rachel, Christina, and Kelly.  There is nothing better than spending time with old friends.  It isn't often we get to spend time together, but when we do we make the most of it (including a major photo montage).

So this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for my lovely friends and family.

terptastic

fall in Vermont

About a month ago we went to a wedding in Stannard, Vermont for a wedding.  I had always wanted to go to New England in the fall and was VERY excited to see Jeff and Mona get married against a backdrop of fiery rolling hills.

First stop?  The original Ben and Jerry's in Waterbury, VT.  I usually don't like Ben and Jerry's as much as I like Bryers (mint chocolate chip) - but chocolate fudge brownie from time to time is pretty awesome.

taking in the historic New England landmarks

I thought this list of the top ten B&J's flavors was interesting.

the Top 10

Because Stannard is a pretty small town, we stayed in rented houses to share with 10 or 12 other friends. Check out our view from the front porch.  If you are wondering, it is much colder than it looks.

our view

 Jeff and Mona were married in a little church that her father helped restore.  It was built in the mid to late 1800's (can't remember the exact date).  It was really sparse on the inside, but I really liked it.

quaint country church

The flowers were a gorgeous mix of fall colors and textures (note the apples on the window sill).  You know I never go to a wedding without stopping to enjoy the flowers.

the flowers

The light fixture inside the church held oil lamps that had to be lit by hand.  The entire fixture then could be raised back toward the ceiling.

lamp lighting

Even though this wedding was an hour and a half away from Burlington, the entire college crew came for the occasion.  It was such a great weekend.  

getting the band back together...

Congratulations to the bride and groom!

Friday

Having taken the last month off of blogging, it's hard to know where to begin again when so much has happened!  I figure I would just share the most memorable stories, even if they were out of order and a bit disjointed.  Oh well!

I was looking over pictures from the past month and one made me laugh.  I was in Finland for work and eating lunch everyday in a cafeteria that was mostly feeding Finnish construction workers with big appetites.  My last day on-site, I was in line behind a Finnish work colleague.  To spare myself the trouble of having to communicate (i.e. mime my order) with the lunch ladies who didn't speak English, I asked this guy to just order me whatever he was having.  Imagine my surprise at this massive plate of potatoes and sausage (along with some rice and garlic oxtail).  It was very hearty.  VERY hearty.  

sausage and potatoes
with a side of garlic oxtail

While I'm on it, I will also mention what my Finnish co-worker drank with his meal.  Non-alcoholic beer is really popular, so of course he had near beer (as he called it).  However, he also drank cream - an entire glass of cream so think that the last drop from the carton left a little dent in the top.  So to recap, my co-worker ate an enormous plate of sausages and potatoes, and washed it down with a tall glass each of near beer and cream.  Definitely interesting.

All in a days work!

Today Maximillian Riedel (of Riedel wineglasses) was on hand to teach 50 or so of us about wine tasting.  Did I mention this happened at work?  It was really fun, although most of this wine ended up in the spittoon because I had to drive home (what a waste)!  I'm looking forward to using my 4 piece Riedel tasting set at home - where I won't have to use the spittoon!

4 piece Riedel XL tasting set

Maximillian is a bit of a character.  He is the 11th generation glass maker and says all kinds of funny things.  He is very serious about wine and the things that came out of his mouth made me laugh.  For example, he called the varietal specific wine glasses "messengers."  He also made us look at the wines for about 30 minutes before we could taste them - saying things like "Ladies and gentlemen, let's dive into the aroma" with a completely straight face.  It was a lot of fun - perfect way to end a long day.

I'm back!

So I have been a delinquent blogger over the last several weeks (almost a month)!  I have been all over the place (Vermont, Georgia, New Jersey, Belgium, Finland), battled a sneeze filled cold, hosted a Halloween party, and most important and life changing of all - the family welcomed our gorgeous niece Claire into the world.  Let me explain with photos.

The condition of my toe nails are a barometer for my mental health - and after all of the running around for the last month, they weren't pretty.  They were hooves.  My toe nails have been painted for a solid 15 years at this point - so you know things were busy when I get them get like this:

a hot mess

However, last week I was able to emerge from the fog and spend a very relaxing hour at the nail salon.  With my toes back in order, I've slowly gotten my head back on straight.

soooo much better

I've done loads of laundry, checked lots of email, and cleaned up the house (we still have halloween decorations out and Thanksgiving is next week).  I'm so happy next week is only three days!  I have so much still to tell you...

It gets better

I saw this video put together by Google employees and I thought it was really moving.  I think that the message is the same for most of what's painful about being a teenager (not just sexual orientation) - it gets better!  And it gets better over and over again as the guy in the video says.

Blog Action Day 2010: Water

It's that time of year again - Blog Action Day.  Today, bloggers around the world will write about water issues today.  When thinking about how to approach this topic, I thought about our dear friend Jake who two years ago founded an innovative social venture called Nuru International in Africa to address the roots of extreme poverty.  One of the five focus areas for Nuru is water and sanitation.  What they've been able to accomplish is staggering.  Check out some of their videos from the field.  So today on Blog Action Day - I'll let Jake and his Nuru team do the talking.


We Will Walk from Nuru International on Vimeo.


For more on Blog Action Day:

Change.org|Start Petition

my wedding Wednesday: changing my email address & tutorial

I should start by saying that I consider myself a super-user of most Google products (I have an obsession).  Anyway, I recently got the following email from a friend who had recently gotten married. 

Question:

I needed some help with Gmail and was hoping that you could help me.  How did you change your gmail address? Do I need to open a new account or could I link a new alias to my existing account.

She said my response was helpful, so I thought I would reprint the same tutorial here for others:

Response:

You have several options, so it depends on what you want to do.  The steps below will 1. get you a new account and 2. make it look like your email is sent from your new account, all while bringing it into your same inbox you have always used with your old account.  

 

Here are the steps for the route that I took:

1. Do you want a new email that includes your new name somehow (let's call this Mrs. S)?  
2. If you want a new email address, then go on gmail and open a new account with a new handle (e.g.mrs.S@gmail.com or LS@gmail or whatever you want).
3. Go into your new account and hit "settings" in the upper right corner
4. Then choose "forwarding and pop/imap"
5. Then under forwarding (the first box) - select "forward a copy of incoming mail to" and then follow the instructions from there.  You might not want to have the email in both accounts... so you can delete the copy in your new account, archive it, or keep a copy in your inbox, it is up to you.
6. Then come into your old account "miss.S@" and then click "settings"
7. Click "accounts and import"
8. Select "Send mail as" and enter your new address.

Does this make sense?  If you want to do a variation of this, feel free to ask! 

covering new ground

My husband loves to play the game The Settlers of Catan.  I used to make fun of tease him for it until I played it about two weeks ago with two other couples.  I have to say that now I am addicted.  It is simple to play, but complex enough to get under your skin.  I felt the same way when I played bananagrams and sodoku for the first time.  I'm slowly getting better at Catan (I force my hubby to play with me), but I have yet to win a game (of the 5 or so times I've played).   Baby steps... 

A losing game board for me (in red)... 

An interesting side note, I was reading the wikipedia page for The Settlers of Catan and smiled at this part: "The game is very popular among the technology crowd in Silicon Valley.^[8]" Who knew I was so trendy!

try to say no...

My sister-in-law is about to pop!  She is expecting her first child (a girl) very, very soon!  She had a baby shower last week and I was debating what to get for the baby who has everything (gorgeous accessories and clothing given by generous friends and family).  Then, I thought about the fact that she will be born in the month of October - and every baby/kid needs a halloween costume!  Done!  I take my aunt duties seriously - they can count on me for impractical gifts and ice cream. :)

I saw this pea pod infant costume at Target and couldn't help myself!  It is SO cute.  That curlicue on the hood is too much!  Now I just can't wait to meet her!

cutest costume ever

Although browsing the infant costume section of Target.com to find the link for this post, they have LOTS of amazing options.  I must say that if they had had this penguin costume at my local store it would have been tough to chose (her dad-to-be loves marine life).  To be honest, a baby in any costume is the height of cuteness regardless of which costume they are wearing. 

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

A dear friend of mine works for a law firm.  She sent this email to me last week and I thought it was worth sharing in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month:


I just returned from a really poignant conference on domestic violence today and since Friday marks the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness Month I thought it was important to share a few things.  I routinely represent clients who have experienced domestic violence ("DV") in their relationships with incidents ranging from repeated name calling to GPS stalking to rape.  And unfortunately, sometimes I feel that I have become numb to the horrors people endure in their most intimate relationships.  Today, the family of a victim that died in a murder-suicide in 2007 talked about the warning signs that they missed and the importance of educating women, particularly teenage girls, about how to form healthyrelationships.  It was a welcome reminder about how DV impacts not only the victim but the family and the community as a whole.  DV doesn't mean just physical abuse.  And the family today said that the first time the husband was physically abusive (or at least that they know about) is when he murdered his wife.  When I got home, I ran a Google search for an article about the crime, found one, and remembered being moved by this article a few years ago:

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/special_sections/domestic_violence/article.htm?storyID=75186


I was talking to one of the attorneys at the conference today who had just switched from working in a poorer county to a wealthier county.  She said that in the poorer county, you can easily tell who is the petitioner, who is the respondent, and who is the attorney in DV cases because of the way people dress and act.  She said that in the wealthier county, its harder to tell the difference and yet the same abusive behaviors happen in those households.  Appearances aren't everything and the most abusive individuals are often also the most outwardly charming.

With technology, DV victims are easily traceable.  Some things I learned/had my memory refreshed about today:

• there are companies that let you unblock "blocked" telephone numbers as well as record the call and if calling from a landline can reveal the caller's address (TrapCall); 
• there are companies that let you call someone and you can have the telephone number show up as any other number you want (ex. Billy calls Cindy but punches in a number that when Cindy looks at her phone she thinks its her mom instead of Billy) (Spoof Card; Phone Gangster); 
• computer software exists that not only spies on your keystrokes but can make your computer say things to you [good for making people think they are losing it]; 
• OnStar can never be completely disabled from your car once installed and can be used to open it w/o a key; 
• if you buy a pre-paid phone or calling card with a credit card and/or a store's "bonus card" your name may be linked to your phone or calling card and when you call someone, your name may appear; 
• some sites allow people to send emails that disappear after a certain period of time (selfdestructingemail.com);
•  you can send anonymous emails that bounce from country to country so the email is harder to track (revengemail.com and hidemyass.com);
•  there are "family locate" functions on many cellphones that can work like a GPS to track a person's whereabouts.  GPS are also small enough to be unobtrusively placed on the undercarriage of cars or in a purse; and
• if you think your technology is being monitored, change your passwords along with your password reset questions as well as voicemail passwords.

I have had at least one client get tracked via GPS on her phone and another client receive calls from her "mom" or "boyfriend" when really it was her ex using a SpoofCard-like software.  So it happens.  And some of the most unsettling cases I have had was where there wasn't a whole lot of physical abuse but the threats, controlling and/or stalking (appearing outside of her house, at her job, talking to her friends to find out what she had been up to and on and on) behavior made the opposing party far more unpredictable and made the client feel vulnerable.


I'm sending this email because DV impacts so, so, so many women and all of us have friends, sisters, mothers, aunts, etc. that may be affected by it and its important to look out for the warning signs.  Here are a few good websites:


http://www.nnedv.org/
http://dvam.vawnet.org/index.php
http://www.thehotline.org/  

opposites attract

My hubby likes skim and I like chocolate. Match made in heaven.

my wedding Wednesday: setting the mood

I love mood boards.  Of all the wedding stuff I saw, the board below is still at the top of the pile. It was put together by one of my favorite bloggers at Snippet and Ink and helped me to imagine our wedding during the planning process. I love everything about it - and chose navy and lavender to be our colors based on this image.  My friends Emily and Mike recently got engaged and as I sent her the link to this blog, I fell in love with it all over again.  

my favorite mood board from snippet and ink

Here is the caption from the original post on February 12, 2009 (just two weeks before we got engaged!):

"Top row from left: bouquet photo by Leigh Miller, photo from Navy & Lavender, garden table photo by Lisa Hubbard, plates via Toast & Tables
Row 2: church photo by Jenny Ebert, cake from Martha Stewart Weddings, lily of the valley boutonniere photo byLaura Negri via Southern Weddings, bouquet photo by Eleise Theuer
Row 3: bridesmaid dresses by Vera Wang, invitation by Hello! Lucky, flower girls photo by BB Photo
Row 4: Sascha dress from J.Crew, sweet pea bouquet from Brides, envelope from Martha Stewart Weddings

Congratulations!

Our friend Ben was recently on Oprah!  He is the principal and founder of the New Orleans Sci Academy, a charter school in New Orleans.  Oprah invited Ben and representatives from 5 other charter schools around the country to join in a discussion about the state of education in the US.  This discussion was prompted by the new documentary Waiting for Superman (I'll be seeing it this week!) about the US education system.  At the end of the show, these 6 schools were awarded $1,000,000 each from the Oprah Angel Network!

Check out this video of Ben receiving one BIG check!

Congrats to Ben and the New Orleans Sci Academy!!

my wedding Wednesday: our favors

While we're on the subject of sweets... I thought I would talk about the favors for our wedding guests.  We wanted to do something edible because often favors go unused or get tossed (once we got a split of wine we couldn't take on the plane - we try not to check bags).  We went through several idea iterations (look for more to come on those) before we settled on the classic New Orleans treat - the praline.   

our simple wedding favor

We played it safe and ordered one per guest that we anticipated coming (so about 3/4 of those invited).  However, we probably ended up with 1/3 of our order left over at the end of the night.  Oh well!  It was more for us!

In case you are wondering, we went with Leah's Pralines in the French Quarter.  They had the ability to do the custom sticker and were great to work with over the phone (the joys of living out of town). As an added bonus, we got last year's price schedule because their website hadn't been updated in a while when we place our order two months before the wedding. :)

Leah's Pralines

www.leahspralines.com

714 Saint Louis Street
New Orleans, LA 70130
(504) 523-5662