Tag: dessert

Cooked out!

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My cooking energy was almost non-existent today — this week has wiped me out! — so I was happy to let mom be the boss. She spent the afternoon and early evening going through the turkey left from our Hannukah party to divide it into soupable pieces, cat pieces, and fat. Here she is with her fan club looking on:

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I chopped celery (ewwwww), carrots, and onions for the soup:

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The fridge looks so empty now because most of its contents went into the soup, yayyyy! Here’s the huge soup pot, stuffed to the gills:

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And finally, our 10 pm dinner! I only had a little mug of soup because I had eaten my way through a hefty percentage of the carrots, cauliflower, and cabbage as I chopped. That’s a matzoh ball in front — mom found a few in the freezer and threw them in, mmmmmmmm:

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Mom also found some peach pie in the freezer that she made over the summer. While that was heating in the oven, I set us up with a dessert appetizer: the teeeeeeeeny piece of rice pudding I rescued as we left the party last night. My bite:

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You can’t tell from the picture, but the rice pudding is on a little tea bag-sized saucer and accompanied by my baby spoon. For perspective, here it is next to my tea (decaf Earl Grey and a splash of light eggnog):

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And finally, this delicious peach pie! Mom can’t remember what she put in it (as usual), but it tasted perfect and not at all as if it had been in the freezer for the past six months:

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I’ll be heading back to Brooklyn tomorrow morning armed with loads of food (I may not even have to grocery shop this week!) and a mom-made lunch for the bus. Booooo, end of vacation :-(.

Eatin’ & eatin’ (& pickin’?)

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This afternoon, I worked on prepping a few more items for the party:

More of these:

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fruit for fruit salad ...

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Fruit is so pretty:

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I think I took about 25 pictures of this fruit, but I won’t make you look at them all.

And then people arrived for the 19th annual Pickin’ & Eatin’ Party. I know, I know. You’re saying, “Pickin’? I thought this was just going to be a food party because that’s all this girl ever talks about. What’s this about pickin’?”

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And back to the eatin’:

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I put my food on a little plate so it would look like more. But then I refilled it four times with things like pineappled ham, sweet potato custard, fruit salad, green salad (with sunflower seeds, feta, kalamata olives, mixed raisins, dried cherries, walnuts, balsamic vinegar, olive oil), baked rice pudding, Swedish meatballs, baked chicken, kielbasa, apple dumplings, apple bread, chickpea spread, and probably tons of other things I can’t remember. And then I picked at the desserts too much (significantly more than pictured):

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And now I’m heading back down to rejoin the party and very likely do some more pickin’ … at the food!

A taste of summer

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When 5:30 pm came around and the key dinner ingredient still had not arrived from the grocery store, I broke into the pile of freshly baked muffins to tide me over.

warm mini muffin with a dab of melty almond butter, mmmm

warm mini muffin with a dab of melty almond butter, mmmm

At around 7pm, stepdad made his triumphant arrival with three of these beauties:

LOBSTER!!!!

LOBSTER!!!!

I felt a little bit guilty watching their quivering antennae poking out of the boiling water — as soon as this picture was done, I ducked my head and closed my eyes and sort of dove under the table so I wouldn’t have to watch — but clearly not guilty enough. My plate (with appropriate tools in the background):

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Did you know that lobster is not very photogenic? I suppose you do now. I just could not figure out how to get a good, eye-free photo. So I focused on the veggies instead. Cauliflower and kale, first steamed and then sauteed with garlic and olive oil:

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vegetables make everything look better 🙂

For dessert, we each had another square of the leftover apple-cranberry pie with a couple spoonfuls of a part-skim ricotta/nonfat plain yogurt/cinnamon mixture and three plump and juicy cherries!

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Have you ever seen anything more perfect??

Good night!

The oven needs a break

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Between my cooking, my mom’s cooking, and the mountain of leftovers, I don’t think the oven has been off for more than 10 minutes all day! At one point, I went into the freezer to retrieve some frozen turkey carcasses for mom’s turkey soup, and I happened upon these little treats:

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When I was visiting over the summer, I found a bottle of lavender syrup left over from a family trip to Canada when I was about 16 (over 10 years ago!). Thinking the syrup might be stale, I simmered it a bit and then spooned quarter-sized drops onto wax paper to make little lavender candies. Apparently, they’ve been sitting in the freezer for the past six months, layered in their wax paper. I snacked on three today, and they taste as good as new!

While waiting for lunch to cook, I also snacked on quite a bit of the batter and ingredients for these muffins while mom was hard at work on them.

For lunch, I scanned the fridge for anything nearing the end of its lifespan, as usual. I came up with these:

wrinkly peppers, eggplant, carrots

wrinkly peppers, eggplant, carrots

Which became this:

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Roasted at 450 for 40 minutes with olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper:

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Steaming, on top of lettuce (the very very last of it!), and sprinkled with feta and toasted walnuts:

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With three more “latkes” on the side:

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PHEW! The oven and I are going to take a little rest now. Check back later for a very exciting dinner!!

Repurposing leftovers, part 3 (and finally caught up!)

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It is Monday night, and I am actually posting my Monday night food … finally on schedule!

Before I get around to my dinner concoction, I present to you the most re-gifted item from my family’s 2008 holiday season. This little guy started off as a present from my stepmom’s brother to his mother. Mere hours later, step-grandma had it rewrapped and waiting in my present pile. The trend continued when he reappeared at the Hannukah swap yesterday as my contribution. Unfortunately, the lucky recipient left him behind, so we seem to be stuck with him. Here’s my mom demonstrating his impressive jellybean-pooping skills:

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I ate the jellybean :-).

For dinner, I attacked the leftovers once more. Yesterday, we had crudites: veggies1

 

 

 

And tonight, I roasted all the leftover raw veggies (carrots, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, and radishes) along with half a turnip I found in the bin, olive oil, red wine vinegar, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Here’s the result: 

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Leftover lettuce topped with the roasted veggies, feta, and a sprinkling of chopped chestnuts I also found lurking in the fridge.

 Seconds (roasted veggies + feta):

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For dessert, we had more pumpkin pie pudding from this morning’s project and a square of the apple-cranberry pie, also left over from yesterday:

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With decaf Earl Grey on the side:

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Grand total of eliminated containers of leftovers for the day: 10!!!