(Literally – happiness of the day. It probably makes no sense whatsoever in French, but it rhymes -kinda – so I’m just gonna go with it.)
These are a few things that are making me happy this today:
Family
The Black Keys, Gold on the Ceiling
Italy – well, pasta really
mmm...
Nerds
Source: pinterest.com via Kelly on Pinterest
A s'more walks into a bar...
While waiting for Peanut at the dentist office – of all places – I find this recipe for S’mores Cookies in Kiwi Magazine.
It looked easy enough not to try. S’mores – yum! Shortbread – yum! S’mores and shortbread – jury is still out. I think I liked them, I mean, The Husband and I kept eating them like no tomorrow.
Funny thing about my kids, they said they liked them, but didn’t indulge themselves as much – or I was just hoarding them so much they didn’t even have a chance.
They were sweet and rich at the same time – sweet from the bruleed marshmallows and rich from the shortbread cookie base – did you see how much butter was called for?
Would I make it again? Probably. This definitely a once-a-year cookie – again, did you see the butter content?
The stresses of work, life, in general, have been really getting to me lately. I was so blah last week, my trainer took it easy on me and led me through a workout of yesteryear. Yes, I was that down, and it was that easy!
For my Thursday session, I decided to bring in my own music for my training sessions, because, let’s face it – I know what’ll motivate me and keep me going. So, I’ve compiled almost two hours of music (and it keeps growing…)!
Through MOG (shameless spousal promotion), I’ve re-discovered some tracks that are worthy of being on the “clean workout” playlist. Clean because the music is played at the fitness center at work and something tells me playing “Fuck You” is going to offend someone.
So my re-discoveries include…
OutKast – B.O.B. (love the pre-split Andre 3000!)
Goldfrapp – Strict Machine (how does one NOT move to this song?)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll (so very Marie Antoinette!)
Missy Elliott – Pass That Dutch (not the official video, but seems like a plug for Adidas)
Sigh…
Not just for furniture
…and, no, I don’t mean the tasty little hamburgers. Those would be much preferred…with a side of sweet fries…but I digress.
So, this week, I ramped up this whole working out “thing”. Two 1:1 sessions plus a total body fitness class today. Methinks that I will not be too mobile tomorrow.
Anyhow, back to sliders. Yes, furniture sliders. They have a whole new use in the gym.
Get into a push-up position, slide (no pun intended) your feet under them, and, boom! you’ve got instant mountain climbers. Lie on your tummy, place some weights on them, and now you’re doing some weighted butterfly swim stroke.
Most of the fixin's...
Yeah. You KNOW exactly what I’m talking about! Those (toaster-oven) broiled hors d’oeuvres that mom made when you were young!
I had always thought this was one of my mom’s recipes that handed from friend-to-friend, until I saw a similar recipe published in my hors d’oeuvres book. (Side note: I am so glad that I have some knowledge of the French language, because spelling hors d’oeuvres now is so much easier!) They actually published another cheesy canape she made right alongside it – which she actually got from one of the SF Junior League cookbooks.
Anyhow, the holiday season came and went without these cheesy canapes. So, I took it upon myself, after an especially tough week at work, to make some last Friday.
My mom’s recipe differs slightly – she adds curry powder to the mix – which makes it all that much better. With this batch I forewent the Best Foods and substituted it with a vegenaise of some sort and it turned out just as I remembered.
These were fully enjoyed (maybe enjoyed a little too much) with a glass (or two) of Coppola Diamond Merlot.
Yum!
All ready for pancakes!
Oh man, two posts in one week – somebody better stop me before I actually maintain this blog!
Years ago, I was a bit perturbed that my Cooking with Julia blog idea was taken. Two years, too late.
Oh well. In no way am I trying to do that now with GP’s cookbook. But, I am trying to put more effort into cooking, baking and blogging more. I enjoy it so why deny myself something I enjoy? Plus, I have plenty of cookbooks to choose from and blog about.
Anyhow, this pancake recipe is named, “Bruce Paltrow’s World Famous Pancakes”. You’re pretty sure of yourself or those must be some bad-ass pancakes!
These are some bad-ass pancakes!
I’ll admit to using Bisquick and other mixes in the past – they were quick, they were easy – but so is this recipe. I’ve made them a few times already. They’re based on the basic pancake recipe in the Joy of Cooking, but with the late Mr. Paltrow’s twist.
Let me tell ya, they’re pretty damn good pancakes. My kids inhale them – I think this morning they had three pancakes, EACH. Even The Husband had a couple, even though he had a protein shake this morning.
I won’t share the recipe here but it’s in GP’s cookbook and I also saw it in an older issue of Self Magazine.
Minutes away from pancake goodness
Note: if you do make these for a small family, half the recipe, you’ll have more than enough for everyone.
This is my laptop wallpaper- a lavender field in Provence. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my laptop so far this year – and it’s only the first week of January – and the most of the last couple months of 2011. Without going into detail – work has been adequately kicking my ass and then some.
I was hoping to relax over the holiday break – but alas, Ringo brought home the stomach flu for Christmas and it slowly knocked us out, one by one. Did I tell you we also had family arriving that night? So much for an uneventful evening of gingerbread house decorating.
We all recovered just in time for Christmas and I was on a cooking & baking frenzy Christmas Eve. That evening, we had my family’s Christmas gathering, or as I remember it, when gifts threw up on my kids. Seriously. Watching them open present after present after present, I was just mortified. Where the heck are we going put all this stuff?! Ringo just had a birthday, too. Thomas the Train and Cars had literally taken over our house. Along with Barbie, Ken, horses, and Disney princesses. I was hoping for more 529 contributions, alas, there were none. Memo to family: acceptable future gifts will only be 529 contributions.
So the New Year is here and, writing out loud, here are some of my proposed goals for 2012:
1. Take better care of myself – physically, mentally, emotionally
2. Be the best wife, mother, daughter, sister, cousin, friend I can be – not too difficult, I am pretty rad already….JOKE!
3. Actually weigh the weight that’s on my driver’s license – this keeps rolling over from year to year and has morphed from wedding day weight – which would require me to really just starve myself – to driver’s license weight
4. Uh, finish the mud run this year sans injury
5. Rethink the job situation – what this would include, I don’t know just yet. Door-to-door, I work 38 miles from home. 38! In the event of a zombie apocalypse or other disaster, I am the only one in the family down in Silly Valley. 38 miles is a long way to evade zombies and, sadly, I don’t keep a cross bow under my desk.
6. Take more photos with a real camera – not a smart phone camera. This will be challenging as I am slightly addicted to Instagram. See photo above.
7. Blog more? Well, we saw how well that went last time.
While other kids are enjoying U Toob videos of cute animals dressed up and doing whatever…mine are clearly into dance and club music-holy holiday remixes:
It was a featured video on the Boxee dashboard a few months ago and…now, I can’t listen to LMFAO without singing, “Rosh Hashanah’s in the house tonight…”
Thanks to a largely-misread e-mail and an available babysitter/grandma, The Husband + I had a last minute date night in Jordan’s Kitchen. Yay!
On the menu that night was:
*Roasted Three Beet Salad with Orange Vinaigrette
*Arancini with San Marzano Tomato Sauce
*Slow Roasted Pork with Creamy Polenta & Cherry Tomatoes
*Fig & Hazelnut Biscotti
Armed with our bottle of Cab, The Husband and I were ready to cook!
After a brief introduction and review of the dinner menu, we prepared our beet “packages” and pork shoulder for roasting and jumped right into knife skills – how to properly cut an onion. We didn’t need very much or any onion at all that night, but it’s always good to practice your knife skills with an expert nearby.
Someone didn't pay attention
Once the pig and beets were roasting away, we got started on dessert. When possible, always prepare dessert first – who wants to be cooking/baking away after all that cooking? We chopped roasted hazelnuts and dried figs and after three failed attempts, fished eggshells out of the biscotti batter. D’oh!
Working in shifts, we started the orange juice reduction for the orange vinaigrette, emulsifying the San Marzano tomato sauce, and whisked the polenta like no tomorrow.
After roasting for about an hour, the beets were peeled and cut and bathed in the orange vinaigrette. There was more knife skill practice on how to properly segment an orange while the greens were prepped. We are ready to plate and eat!
So deelish!
The class moved pretty quickly at this point. Using prepared risotto, we formed, rolled and breaded the arancini, got the oil ready for frying, and finished up the tomato sauce. While working in groups, we fried the arancini, drained it on paper towels, and plated our next dish. The tomato sauce was amazing – I could have eaten that alone!
The pork was removed from the oven as was the biscotti.
Smelling good and fall apart tender, the pork was shredded, while the biscotti were sliced.
This was my fourth class with Jordan, The Husband’s second. For some reason I keep coming back…the classes are small and extremely hands on – Jordan does very little cooking – the company is good, the instructor even better, and the food is always amazing.
Buon appetito!
