Holiday Wrap-up

So yeah, I kinda took a bit of a blogging break there, huh? After a crazy Fall, I tried to keep December as stress-free as possible and that basically meant that sewing and blogging got to take a backseat to all of the other holiday activities. While I may not have been sewing, I was spending enough time in the kitchen to more than make up for it.

This year, I spent a full 3 day weekend baking and making sweet treats for co-workers and other friends and family. The goodies were packed into individual boxes and delivered over several days. I think I made somewhere around 600+ white chocolate pretzels snacks, 5 dozen gingerbread snowflakes, 20 dozen cakeballs, 5 dozen gingerbread cakes and a tray of brownies. Yeah, it was nuts. Pictures from the kitchen madness:

Two weeks later, we had my mom and brother over for a small Christmas Eve dinner before we opened gifts and generally made merry. I grabbed the ham from Honey Baked Ham shop so I could focus on the sides - slow cooker gratin potatoes, creamed spinach, roasted carrots with dill and roasted asparagus. For dessert, homemade pumpkin pie.

Add to that a ton of beer, wine and other spirits and we had a great night.

The next morning, Jim and I were up super early to head off to his parent's house for Christmas breakfast and more gift opening. The breakfast spread is always yummy and expansive including pancakes, breakfast casserole, fruit, muffins, bacon, eggs and a variety of beverages. That afternoon, we had the rest of the extended family (including my mom and brother) over for a full Christmas dinner. The average group is 40+ folks and I'm always amazed that we're able to get everyone seated in the house. See?

I had been asked to make a couple of appetizers, so I made mini caprese bites and a gigantor cheeseball (thanks again Winnie!).

The cheeseball was the hit of the pre-dinner hour. That sucker was gobbled up and only a few dregs were left by the end of the night. Guess I'll file that one in the "tried and true" favorites box. ;) Another rollicking good time was had by everyone, but I was pretty much exhausted by the end of the weekend. It had been a looong month.

We were the definition of boring for NYE, hanging out at the house with a homemade dinner, a bottle of wine and the countdown on television. Even though it wasn't terribly exciting, it was just what we needed. We managed to catch up on some sleep and get the house all put back together before returning to work that Monday, so I'm calling it a win.

And now, here we are in 2011. Crazy! I'm not one for resolutions, but this feels like it's going to be a good year. I figure if it's anywhere close to as awesome as 2010 was, then I will be more than thrilled. I'm back in the sewing room, which I missed terribly and am happy to be back to a normal schedule. Hope the holidays treated everyone well and that 2011 is starting off on the right foot for ya!

Ad Hoc at [my] Home

Not too much sewing going on 'round these parts, mostly because I've been living in my kitchen instead of the sewing room. Last weekend I hosted my first dinner cooked entirely from the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook - I'm affectionately calling these dinners, which I hope to become a monthly or bi-monthly deal, Ad Hoc at [my] Home. For the inaugural feast, I invited over a few fellow Thomas Keller groupies and got to work planning the menu. For those of you who are not familiar with Ad Hoc, a single fixed 4 course menu is served nightly - salad, entree, cheese and dessert. This menu is posted on the website each morning, changes daily and is based on what is fresh locally. I did let my guests know most of the menu ahead of time as they were bringing over drinks to complement the food.

Since I was busy scurrying around the kitchen, WeezerMonkey was kind enough to grab my camera and document the food and prep. I'm so happy she took these pictures as they are way more artistic than what I could have done and are a great way to remember this first dinner.

First course: Green Bean and Potato Salad with Proscuitto

Second course: Santa Maria Style Tri-Tip, Creamed Spinach and Brioche

Third course: Camembert, honey, pecans and water crackers

Fourth course: Vanilla ice cream, Strawberry coulis and Bouchons

I think that everything turned out pretty well, with the glaring exception of the bread. I somehow completely forgot to add the salt to the dough. Did you know that bread without salt tastes like ass? No joke. All that work and it looked beautiful, but tasted so very icky. :/ Otherwise, I'd say the food was two thumbs up! I had a lot of fun prepping, cooking and then being able to sit down for a relaxed dinner filled with great conversation and tons of laughs.

The more I make from this cookbook, the more I fall in love with it. And I can't wait sharing more its wonderful dishes with friends and family throughout the year. :)

Perfect Weekend

They're rare, but sometimes the weekend shapes up to be the perfect blend of the necessary stuff and the fun stuff. This weekend definitely qualified as such.

Errands and such: We got the last few holiday returns completed and I made one large grocery run to get us through the weekend. I also caught up on all of the laundry and straigtened up the house a bit. Boring, but needed.

Reading: Finished Will Grayson, Will Grayson, thanks to Jessica who has organized an ARC Tour of the book amongst a group of us book nerds. I'll be doing a guest post on her blog about the book soon, but the short version is that it's awesome and I haven't laughed that hard while reading in a long time.

Cooking: OMG, we ate really well this weekend. And I'm not even including the impromtu breakfast I threw together Sunday morning. I'm really trying to get more mileage out of my fun cookbooks, so I'm making a point to make at least one "fancy" meal a weekend. This weekend, though, I eeked out two!

First up, T-Bone Fiorentina with Sauteed Spinach from Mario Batali Italian Grill. I couldn't find the huge 3" T-bone steak that is called for, but we made due with a smaller steak instead. I unfortunately over-salted the meat a bit (still edible, but not perfect), but the spinach was fabulous. We both agreed that we need to try it all again with the correct cut of beef.

For dessert, I tried out my new mini chocolate fondue pot and we had a little fondue spread. Simple, but yummy.
The second dinner was the Chicken Pot Pie from the Ad Hoc at Home cookbook. This was a much more labor-intensive meal than the roasted chicken I made earlier this month - the pie crust and bechamel sauce are both from scratch and each vegetable is cooked individually before being added to the pie - but it's so worth all the time and effort.

This was AH-MAZ-ING! And Jim whole-heartedly agrees. He had a whole bowl of it and then went back for seconds. We were thrilled that there were leftovers the next day.

If you have this cookbook, set aside a day and make this dish - you can thank me later. ;)

Working out: Took a circuit class and a step class - both taught by the owner of my gym, who I just love. The circuit class was a zoo, like folks actually had to be turned away, but it was still a lot of fun. I'm getting my exercise groove back and it feels really good.

Sewing: I finally used my new cutting table and it was like the angels came out singing. ;) It makes this whole sewing thing that much more enjoyable and I was thrilled to be able to spend a large part of my weekend in my sewing room*. I finished two skirts (one just needed a hem), cut out some sleep shorts and got about halfway through a cardi-wrap for a friend's mom. More detailed posts once I have pictures of stuff to share.

If only every weekend could be as fun and relaxing as this one....

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* Nanette had asked me for pictures of my sewing room and I will share them as soon as I finish getting myself organized. Right now I have no good place for my fabric stash - which has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few months - so it's all just in piles on the floor. So ugly. I plan on getting it in check later this month and then I'll post pics. :)