Tag: party food

All about the themes

2 Comments

Realizing I was low on veggies, I ran into the grocery store next door to my office (it’s much cheaper than the one in my neighborhood) to see what I could find. I grabbed a bunch of green beans (to replenish my dwindling supply) and then went a little crazy and also got a pack of fresh okra (it was only $1.50!). I’ve never cooked okra before in my life and probably only eaten it a couple of times, but I thought it would keep things interesting.

When I got home, I chopped the okra into thinnish rounds and put it (and chopped green beans, for variety) in a pan with a splash of water to steam:

img_10561

And then the stroke of genius hit. I added a heaping spoonful of homemade Dominican sofrito, an amazing herby and garlicky sauce that another coworker (hi inginia!) gave me when it was leftover from a work party a little while back. Using the sofrito got me thinking about more homemade Dominican food from my coworkers, so I dug into the freezer to uncover the Dominican rice (hi mildred!) I had saved from yet another work function. I mixed it with some of the cooked barley that I brought back from MA to add a healthy whole grain punch:

Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

frozen cooked grains: Dominican rice (left) and pearled barley (right)

My plate, topped with grated homemade cheddar:
img_1063

img_1067

How intricate is this okra?!

img_1064

It was a delicious experiment that went very well, and I made enough to have for dinner one more night this week, yum!

For dessert, I had the last of the grapenut pudding from MA, another big pile straight from the oven (my apartment is microwave-less, so I do all my reheating in the oven):

img_1074

Now the rush, rush, rush to make my 9pm bedtime!

Cooked out!

Leave a comment

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:

cats-meat

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

soup-veg

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:

soup-pot1

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:

soup-mug1

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:

rice-pudding

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):

rice-mug

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:

pie

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 :-(.

Getting to the bottom of it …

2 Comments

Almost done with the leftovers! Phew, right? Now you’ll be able to sleep tonight.

Here’s my lunch plate with the last of the roasted veggies and latkes (plus two pineapple rings and some sweet potato custard I swiped as we left the party last night):

lunch-plate

And a teeny bit of fruit salad left over from the party, too:

fruit-salad

Did you notice my itty bitty fork? I always eat on the smallest dishes and smallest utensils I can find. It makes the food look bigger and last longer :-).

Eatin’ & eatin’ (& pickin’?)

Leave a comment

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

More of these:

img_0598

img_0601

fruit for fruit salad ...

img_0606

Fruit is so pretty:

img_0615

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’?”

img_0632img_0633

img_0642img_0627

And back to the eatin’:

img_0622img_0623

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):

img_0621img_0624img_0625img_0646

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

Snowed in (with packaged food!)

3 Comments

The snow barreling down last night (dad has not yet taken the yardstick out for an accurate reading of inches, but weather.com says it is 8 degrees/feels like -10) was the perfect excuse to spend New Year’s Eve inside in front of the fire with movies, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, and Chinese food! Too bad that I had my heart set on steamed shrimp/veggies and the woman at the Chinese restaurant said they were too busy to steam anything. Rararararr. So I made my own version.

Steaming green beans, carrots, and mushrooms:

img_0528

Sauteeing thawed frozen shrimp in olive oil:

img_0531

Over whole wheat pasta and topped with pesto from a jar (I know, I’m a slacker) and pre-shredded parm (slacker again):

img_0532

Closerrrrrr:

img_0537

And dessert:

img_0550

The bathroom was the only place with good lighting, so that’s where I took my ice cream cone:

img_0560

with dad peeking in the mirror

Dad and Rae Ann did not eat the pint of white rice that came with their Chinese since they also ordered pork fried rice. I couldn’t help myself and did this:

img_0546

As midnight loomed closer, dad prepped the TV room with wine and …

img_0572

Homemade shortbread cookies (sent from CA by Alice, my dad’s first wife and the mama of my siblings. Hi CA family!):

img_0578

Happy New Year!