Dinner and Stuff...

Kind of a reversion to soup week. Last night was Ina Garten's Rosemary White Bean Soup, tonight was Minestrone. Tomorrow? Perhaps Chili. I'm going for an all spoon-food week.

All Those Merchant-Ivory Films Look Alike to Me

Last night I was up crafting in the kitchen and had on Encore. It's 11pm and Howards End is coming on. I think to myself, "Oh, I'll go ahead and keep it on". So, it starts and I see Vanessa Redgrave wandering about the country house of the title and I think, "oh, this must be back story, since it's not in the right time period." Then I see Anthony Hopkins and he appears to be the head of the family at the country manor. It was then that I thought, in passing, "gee, when is he going to be the butler? I guess there was a reversal of fortune!" Yeah. That would be "Remains of the Day", not "Howards End", thank you, very much.

Do You Ever Have

one of those days where your entire life seems like a neverending loop of laundry and grocery shopping?

Here's What

Andy Cohen seems drunk on "watch what happens". Am I wrong?

FYI Lifetime re: Project Runway

Okay, kudos to the folks at Lifetime who have scored Project Runway after the whole hullabaloo with The Weinstein Company and NBC, etc., etc. Kudos further for keeping on board Heidi, Tim and of course our favorite judge Michael Kors (and yes, Nina Garcia, too). Boo for moving the series to L.A. (I have to say, it seems less exciting, since it's not likely that I'll be driving by Mood LA anytime soon, whereas, passing by Parsons has been a regular occurrence throughout the prior seasons). But, most importantly, here are a few pieces of advice, dear Lifetime programmers: Nobody wants to watch re-runs of Reba. I turned on Lifetime at dinner time today hoping to catch a replay of the PR All-Stars and instead I found a two-hour block of Rebas. Then at 8pm... "Drop Dead Diva". Now for all I know Drop Dead Diva could be a great show, but guess what, if it's Thursday night I have no interest in watching it. Take a page from the Bravo Book: Replay, replay, replay. Now that you've got the Runway-- play it constantly on Thursdays. People want to tune in and watch all of the previous episodes and get to know the designers and catch all of the classic Michael-Kors-isms over and over again. Look at Bravo-- all they do is play their series into the ground on the nights that they're scheduled for and guess what-- they Make it Work.

You Are Still in the Running to be America's Next Top Model

Is it just me, or does 90% of what Tyra Banks says sound like its from a fortune cookie?

Food Stuffs!

Over the past few days we've had some fun food adventures. First, for dinner the other night I made Ina Garten's Fresh Pea Soup. It was very easy to make-- I substitutes vegetable stock for some of the chicken stock (but also used some chicken stock) and I used cream instead of creme fraiche. I also didn't serve it with garlic croutons, instead I made goat cheese toasts. It was very easy to make and it was tasty-- the Husband and even Miss B. liked it. Personally, I prefer Ina's Split Pea Soup. I find the Split Pea more favorable, to me the Fresh Pea Soup was a bit like mashed peas.

Then, the next day, Ina's recipes were continued-- I chose to make her Curried Chicken Salad. For the chicken salad you're supposed to bake 6 chicken breasts. Instead, I boiled three breasts and then cut them into cubes once they were cooked. Then I added salt and pepper to the chicken and proceeded to make the curry dressing. The curry dressing includes mayonnaise, chutney (I chose to use apricot chardonnay chutney, rather than Major Grey's, since Major Grey's Chutney contains Mango), curry powder and white wine. You blend these ingredients in a food processor until smooth and then pour that mixture over the chicken. I also tossed in with the chicken diced celery, golden raisins and chopped cashews. I served the chicken salad on croissants and the Husband had picked up salt and pepper potato chips for us. The salt and pepper potato chips were a perfect complement to the sweet chicken salad.

Finally, tonight's dinner was all German.

I had picked up some veal bratwurst at Whole Foods and got some great onion/poppy seed ciabatta rolls to have the bratwurst on. I also made hot German Potato Salad. I used the recipe from Gourmet magazine but also added a bit of beef broth to the potato salad dressing and I also included parsley. I also substituted a red onion for a regular white onion. The potato salad was really authentic tasting, but can I just tell you, nothing says unhealthy meal like German food! Bacon, vinegar, mustard, onions-- do we really need all of these ingredients together? Sure they're tasty, but geesh!

Adventureland

was rented from Redbox. Ugh. I thought this was supposed to be a comedy. Sure, they were out of Duplicity and I just had to rent something.

I'm Kind of Torn

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a scary one, but there's apparently a blog out there called Corporette for high achiveing women who need to look professional but want to remain stylish. Kudos for the effort, but I don't think I've ever seen so many black suits. ;)

More 'Page!

Stew Leonard's

The other day we met up with Mel and Andrew and made our first visit to Stew Leonard's!




Miss B. loved the animatronic farm animals, the petting zoo, the barbeque (but mostly, she liked the home made ice cream)...



And, both Mel and I were impressed when Miss B. shouted that she wanted Chocolate Milk! While we were walking past the dairy case. Now mind you, she's never had chocolate milk and we're still not sure how it is that she knew it was there. It would seem that, at least when it comes to chocolate, Miss B. just might be able to read!

Decoupage House!

Here are some images of the little house ornament that I've been decoupaging. I still have to finish off some of the corners and the windows and laquer it, but I'm pretty happy so far...

Crazy Storm!

Here is a link to an article from the NY Times from Tuesday. There was a crazy thunderstorm that came through this area on Tuesday night (around 9:15) and by the time it got to New York it felled more trees in Central Park than have come down at once in the past thirty years! Wacky weather!

Dinner Time!

Tonight we had a fun dinner. I did pulled pork in the crock pot, french fries, home made cole slaw and Ina Garten's Jalepeno Cheddar Corn Bread. Can I just say, the spicy corn bread was a great pairing with the cole slaw-- the perfect mix of hot and sweet!

As usual, I should have remembered to cut Ina's recipe in half because I have enough cornbread now to feed an army. For the corn bread you take three cups of flour, one cup of yellow corn meal, salt, sugar and baking powder together in one bowl. In a second bowl mix two cups of milk, three eggs (lightly beaten) and two sticks of butter, melted. Then you mix together the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Ina tells you not to over mix! Just get the lumps out. Then you add 2-3 jalepenos, diced up (I kept in the seeds for extra spice), three scallions (white and light green parts) and 2 cups of extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated.

Let the batter rest for 20 minutes and pre-heat the oven at 350. Pour into a greased pan (there was enough for one pan of cornbread and then a slew of mini-muffins. Add some extra grated cheese to the tops before baking and then bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

For the pulled pork, I used a pork shoulder and put it in the crock pot this morning with barbeque sauce, a bit of orange juice, olive oil and some sweet onion slices. I let it cook initially on high for a while and then after an hour or two I moved it to a lower setting. All in all the pork cooked in the crock pot for about 8 hours.

For the cole slaw, I used bagged red cabbage and bagged shredded cole slaw (with carrots). Then I mixed together a half a cup of mayo, 1/4 of a cup of sour cream, salt, pepper, white wine vinegar, 3/4 teaspoon of sugar. Once you mix together the sauce ingredients, pour it over the cabbage and shredded slaw and mix thoroughly. The Epicurious recipe has you setting it out, uncovered, at room temperature for 30 minutes to wilt. You can do this-- it comes out good, but tonight I just put it right in the fridge and then served it cold.

All in all, everything was tasty and it was a great summer meal!

He Said it Himself...

Santino is back!

Craft-tastic!

After Miss B. hit the hay this evening I got productive. First off I made cheesecake swirl brownies. What can I say, the mix was on sale at Wegman's for 99 cents. Surprisingly, it wasn't bad at all. Usually I prefer Duncan Hines brownies to Pillsbury but these were tasty.

Then it was on to project #2: Make a scarf! I bought what was supposedly "vintage" kimono fabric from Japan months and months ago. Indeed it did come in a very small envelope from Japan, whether or not it is truly vintage kimono fabric is anyone's guess. But it is a pretty neat pattern. Downside? It smelled to high heaven of mothballs. So I kept it in a ziploc bag in one of my various craft bags in the back of a closet for the longest time. Until yesterday. I became determined to do "something" with it. I started out by thoroughly washing it-- and for all intents and purposes, the mothball smell seems to have disappeared. Either that or I've gotten used to it. Let's hope its the former. Anyway, the length of the fabric wasn't quite long enough for a scarf, so I cut it in half lengthwise, attached each half and then had quite a long, skinny piece of fabric. I folded it in half (fabric face to fabric face, creating a tube) and sewed up the side seam. Turned it inside out, ironed it (with the main seam down the middle, kind of like I was making a tie) and then darned in the ends. Pictures to follow! All in all though, a pretty nifty looking skinny scarf!

Then it was on to projects #3 and #4-- more Decoupage! This time I deco'd a little cottage christmas ornament and a letter "H". My Deco technique is improving, so John Derian eat your heart out. The other upside to this much decoupage in one sitting is that I've actually gone through quite a bit of my endless stack o' periodicals. While whittling them down looking for pictures I've actually read a couple of articles while I've been at it. Who knew?

Opera!

Yesterday was the first day that tickets for the new season at the Met went on sale! We managed to score tickets for both The Barber of Seville and Carmen! How cool is that?

Moving Up!

This evening Miss B. and I headed over to the Marshalls/Home Goods in North Brunswick. We were going to Chipotle to pick up dinner and had a bit of a wait ahead of us, so we figured we'd pop in. I found a neat hurricane lamp style vase for use at an upcoming party and as I'm in line to purchase it who was standing two people behind me? Doug Wilson! from TLC. If I had had my wits about me I should have asked Doug something to the effect of: "What the hell are you doing here at this god-awful Marshalls in the armpit of Central New Jersey we affectionately know as North Brunswick?" But instead, I just said: "I LOVE your show! I was so excited when I saw it was coming back for a new season!" He was very cordial and thanked me. Sadly, I was dressed most unglamourously and Miss B. hadn't napped so she kept yelling "Jelly BEANS!" while we were attempting to check out (see previous post re: What Not To Do at a Saks Fifth Avenue) . But, regardless, it's always fun to see a TLC star (unless, of course, it's a Gosselin, I don't think we'd be that excited to see either Jon or Kate)...

Cheapy-Cheapy

Paul Frank has designed a line of goodies for Target, including kids clothes and accessories adorned with with Miss B.'s favorite: Julius the Monkey.

Also, frighteningly enough, Walmart.com has a great line of Norma Kamali basics at terrific prices. You might want to check it out!

What Size Penguin Are You?