Eatin’ & eatin’ (& pickin’?)

January 1, 2009February 6, 2015Leave a comment

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

More of these:

fruit for fruit salad ...

Fruit is so pretty:

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’?”

And back to the eatin’:

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):

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

December 30, 2008February 6, 20152 Comments

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

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

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):

dinner-plate-overview

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:

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!

dessert1

Have you ever seen anything more perfect??

Good night!

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

December 29, 2008February 6, 20154 Comments

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:

I ate the jellybean :-).

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

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: