Happy Halloween...and my neighbors suck!

Mitch came over the other day to carve some pumpkins. I made a skeleton...


Mitch (aka the "Master Carver" according to one of my neighbors), carved a cat sitting on a moon:


So adorable! And then while I struggled with my skull, she easily added a star and then a little spider off to the side:


Sadly, when I woke up this morning, I walked outside and saw that the pumpkin Mitch carved had been smashed. Not to pieces, but the top was all smashed in...I suspect my neighbor across the hall because she had a bunch of people over last night. And they like to sit on our front steps to smoke disgusting cigars and drink wine. The porch was a general mess this morning with cig butts everywhere, a broken wine bottle, and Mitch's ruined pumpkin. I haven't received any sort of apology and I'm pretty pist...ugh, people are so rude.

Anyway, Happy Halloween.

Roasted Garlic Bread

roasted garlic+butter+thyme...DELICIOUS!

Tomatoes, pizza, and skeletons!

I have some random things to share...

First, my Tiny Tim tomatoes are all grown up. Woo! They're very sweet and delicious...there are a few more ripening on the vine, so once those are picked, perhaps I will make something special with them. Or maybe I'll just eat them plain, since they're so yummy.


Second, we made some pizza on Friday night. We had leftover turkey sausage that we needed to use up, so we whipped up a pizza topped with caramelized onions, turkey sausage, gorgonzola, roasted red peppers, and basil. I also brushed the dough with some garlic/thyme/red chili pepper oil I made. G helped in the kitchen by making the dough...


Here's the oil simmering on the stove...


Before and after shots of the pizza:


I got a new pizza stone, which I used for the first time. Best purchase ever, the crust came out crisp and perfectly cooked!

Third random thing...don't mess with us or we'll hang you up on our door!


Random Halloween decorations from Target that now decorate the little window on our front door.


Now I'm off to eat some roasted garlic bread I made for dinner tonight! Pictures to come...

Papadums!

This is a month late...

We were super lucky to have gracious guests from across the pond prepare a homemade curry dinner! After hours of their hard labor... in no particular order, papadums, chicken, lamb curry, lentils, rice, cucumber & tomato salad, yogurt coconut mint sauce. YUM! I'm salivating as I post, waiting for tonights roast lamb dinner!

And I couldn't resist taking a picture of a meal G prepared last week. Baked salmon with Thai chili sauce, roasted asparagus and rice!

Sorry Blog...it's been a while!

Apologies for the long absence. It's been a busy few weeks, so it's been hard to post. Plus, I've been so tired after work that I was uninspired to cook for the past couple of weeks. So to make up for it, here's a mega post of random stuff I've made and/or eaten in the past few days...

We had a French-inspired Thursday night dinner a couple of weeks ago. I made some "French" mac & cheese that included fontina and goat cheese, grilled onions, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives. I forgot to take pictures of said pasta because we were hongry and gobbled it all up. But I made the same dish last week, with some roasted rosemary chicken.

Back to French Thursday night dinner, we made some creme brulee for dessert. I did manage to get a picture of that. It was delicious, but I highly recommend following the directions of using superfine sugar. I used regular sugar by accident and it took A LOT of sugar and a lot flame to get the top crispy brown.

Another delicious dessert treat we had -- these little heart-shaped lavender shortbread cookies from Whole Foods. Butter+Lavender=Amazing!

For dinner tonight, I took a break from the kitchen...because -- wait for it -- my dear husband cooked a delicious meal for us! He picked the dish -- spaghetti with sauteed turkey sausage, onions, and peppers -- and did an excellent job. Yum!

And now, good night!