Falentine's Weekend

My Valentine and I decided to get a jump on Valentine's Day and do a little celebrating this past weekend.  I call it Falentine's Day (you know I like to make up words).

The scones we made last year turned out so well that we decided to make them again.  B looked mad in the first picture I took so I told him to look excited.  This is what I got....

The beer was to help with the baking...not an actual ingredient.  We also had our friend, pregnant (with an orange baby) Russian measuring cup doll to assist us with our ingredients. 

I used the scones in the Falentine's Day brunch I prepared for us on Sunday (featuring fruit/granola parfaits).  The bacon and potatoes (from the breakfast buffet at Harris Teeter) were a late add.

"Oh hey guys, it just me, Hobie.  I would really like to take some of that bacon off your hands.  Can you see me here?  I'm waiting patiently but I will leap up on the coffee table if necessary."

"Mmmm, these also smell nice.  What's that?  Orange and cranberry?  But really, just give me some of the bacon."

It was a lovely Sunday Morning brunch.  B also took me out for a nice Falentine Dinner on Saturday on what turned out to be the coldest night of winter so far.  Good times. 

Later this week I will unveil the amazing Valentine's Day card I made B while watching How I Met Your Mother last night.

Are you doing anything for Valentine's Day?
Or do you hate Valentine's Day and think it's a stupid fake holiday made up by greeting card companies?

Either way, Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!!

Valentine's Week-A Very Special Valentine's Day for Hobie...

Guess who got the most expensive Valentine's Day present in my family?
I will give you a hint.  His favorite past time is chasing squirrels in the back yard.

No, not B.
It's Hobie.

For Valentine's Day, Hobie got his teeth cleaned.  The vet office pretty much guilt tripped us in to doing this for Hobie by saying things like "well I mean he won't die, but it will just be harder for him to eat when he doesn't have any teeth left cause they all rot out".  You know stuff like that.  They have been suggesting it for like a year so we finally bit the bullet and signed him up.  It just happened to be scheduled for Valentine's Day.

He was totally out of it when he came home.  He ran into the living room where he normally engages in an intense game of rope bone but when we got in the room he was just lying passed out on the carpet.  Sweet little buddy bear.  Anywho, his teeth look great (well at least in the before and after pics they printed out for us).

In other Hobie news, my favorite Valentine's Day moment involved Hobie.  We gave Hobie a new bone on Saturday when we were celebrating Valentine's Day.  He quickly become obsessed with it.  It stayed in his mouth for about 2 hours straight. 

Then he finally decided to take it outside.  I'm pretty sure he was trying to hide it from us because he thought we'd steal it.  He kept glancing back at the house while he was burying it under a bush.  When he came back inside, he looked like this...

"Why are you guys staring at me like that?  Do I have something on my face?" 

OK, so that's it for Valentine's week. 

Should I turn this in to a pet mommy blog since my Hobie stories are always so fascinating?
Have you ever had your dog's teeth cleaned?
Is it important or were we conned?
Did you get your pet a Valentine?

Valentine's Week-Making Stuff is Fun!?!?! (and maybe romantic)

Apparently my husband thinks I like making stuff.

After making me shower, get dressed, put shoes on, put a coat on, put in earrings, etc., I learned that my Valentine's Date was actually in the living room.  My husband had set up a craft and baking date for me.  We started out by tie-dying t-shirts.  I can't wait for him to wear his purple, red and fuchsia tie dyed shirt out for a night on the town.  I always wanted to tie-dye a shirt when I was a kid but I guess I just never got around to it, so this was pretty exciting.

I know I look 'special' in this picture.

Tie-dyeing is serious stuff that requires gloves.

The worst part was that we had to wait 8 hours before we could unroll the shirts.

Then we moved on to the baking portion of the evening.  My husband had printed out a recipe for cranberry-orange scones and purchased all the necessary ingredients.

It's ok to wear a cupcake apron as long as you have a beer in your hand.

Another great action photo of me and no, I'm not pouring my glass of wine into the batter

He did all the hard stuff.

Hobie was little to no help.

Fin.  These scones were delightful by the way.

In conclusion....
My husband is a fun craft/baking partner. 
Crafting is more fun when you drink wine. 
Baking is harder when you bake after crafting with wine. 
Baking is easier when someone else measures out all the ingredients for you and just tells you what to do.

Good Date, B!  Let's do this again next year.

Valentine's Week-My Valentine's Date for B

Because I am neat and awesome (errr maybe), I decided a few weeks ago that B and I should each plan a secret Valentine's Date for the other person (or because I wanted to force him to do something nice for me).  So this past Saturday we had those dates.

I'm not going to lie, the idea for this stemmed from the fact that I had always wanted to order something awesome from Zingerman's.  I discovered this place a few years ago and have always enjoyed perusing it and daydreaming about ordering a big box of goodies.  I never really had a reason to until now. 

After much thought and research, I placed my order for The Weekender (the small one).  And for good measure I also added in a loaf of peppered bacon bread since bread is probably my husband's favorite food.  I had it arrive on Friday and it was a very exciting experience for me.  Most people might not get as excited as I do about opening a big box of food.  But to me it was awesome.

So my date was a picnic.  But I'm not super in to the outdoors, so it was a picnic at our coffee table.  I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking.

Hobie checks out the goods...

 I check out the goods...

 Bread, cheese, salami, coffee cake, honey, jam, cheese, mustard, brownies...

 The salami and cheese were delightful and I don't typically eat salami...

 I added some bacon to the spread....

 There is a brownie underneath all that whipped cream...

 Dollar Store Champagne flute filled with beer (very classy)...

We didn't eat any of the sour cream coffee cake until last night but it was awesome.  It was definitely one of the best pound cake/coffee cakes I have ever had. 

So in conclusion, ordering a box of food from the Internet is fun.

Valentine's Week-Galentine's Festival of Fun

If you hate Valentine's Day, then I'm not going to lie, you will probably hate me or this blog this week.  But I think you should stick around anyways.  Here is my view on Valentine's Day... I know that some people think it's just a made up holiday used to get people to buy greeting cards*** and expensive chocolates.  To me, it is just another reason to celebrate something.  And I always love celebrating stuff.  Plus it means I have more to blog about.  So this week is Valentine's week and I'm covering a broad spectrum of ways I celebrated and I am not just talking about me and my husband.  I celebrated with lots of people.  We will start off the week with Galentine's Day.....

Ok here we go....
1-What is Galentine's Day?  Ok well on that amazing show I keep talking about (Parks and Recreation), my idol, Leslie Knope (aka Amy Poehler) celebrates Galentine's Day each year with her girl friends on the day before Valentine's Day.  I think she seved them frittatas and gave them mosaic pictures of their faces last year.

So I decided to force my gal friends to come over for brunch this year.

I made them Oreo truffles.....

I made them Galentine's Day Cards (with the cool stickers my husband bought me)...

This one was for my friend, Tiffany.  I thought it was fitting since she's a math tutor.  I found these printouts for the inside of the cards here....Aren't they awesome?

This one was for Beezus5...

I set the table with their cards...

I made stuffed pancakes and I didn't burn them all this time....

Beezus5 brought us all heart cookies with lime icing.  They were awesome...

Here's the cookie recipe from Beezus5.

Lime Cornmeal Cookies

Cream - 2 sticks of butter -soft and 1 cup of sugar.
Beat in one egg by hand
Add 4 tsp of lime zest
2 tsp of lime juice
1/2 tsp of almond extract
Evenly mix in 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1 cup of yellow cornmeal
Cover and chill for at least 1 hour
To make glaze:
add 8 tbs of lime juice and 1/2tsp of lime zest to 3 1/4 cup of confectioners sugar (yes i know that sounds insane, but if its not thick enough the glaze will be too runny) Add food coloring.
Roll dough into balls and roll in 1/2 sugar, 1/2 corn mixture. Press down with the bottom of a glass. use a small heart shaped cookie cutter to cut the cookie, but not all the way. Place on pan at least an inch apart.
Bake at 350 for 14-15 minutes, turn pan 1/2 way through baking.
Remove from pan and put on cooling rack. When cool, paint on glaze with a teaspoon. Let sit for 15 minutes or until glaze is hard.

I forgot to take pictures of everything else (including the people who came.  I swear they are real people and not my imaginary friends.)  The other ladies brought coffee, mimosa's and coffee cake and I made some cheesy grits.  It was delightful and I hope it's something that can become a yearly tradition.  Happy Belated Galentine's Day to all my friends who came and to those who live far away (or that I only know from the Internet).  You guys were totally there in spirit. 

***-And just an FYI all the Valentine's Cards I bought this year cost 50 cents a piece at the Dollar Tree, well and/or I made them.

Galentine's Day Cards

Hello!
If you read my blog last week , I mentioned a wonderful thing that I discovered from an Episode of Parks and Recreation; Galentine's Day. It's a day, usually near Valentine's Day, where Leslie Knope and all her gal friends head out to brunch to eat frittatas and then exchange gifts. She gave out the most awesome mosaics. I'm not that good. But I did decide to make a lovely Galentine's day card for my gal, Beezus5.

How to Make a Galentine's Day Card....
1-Cut up photos from magazines or the Internet of famous dudes that your gal friend is obsessed with.
2-Paste photos onto some construction paper or card stock or better yet a pre-made blank card made of card stock.
3-Write something semi-witty or inspirational on the card.
4-Hand deliver.


B5 also gave me a Galentine's Day card which I thought was pretty awesome. Although she didn't make it herself, this girl on etsy did. I'm loving it. I think the Golden Girls would love a good Galentine's Day celebration.

Also Special Shout out to Mrs. Mo Jung, who from what I can discern sent Beezus5 a lovely Galentine's Day Care package (maybe she didn't know that was what it was when she was sending it but still) straight from Las Vegas featuring such wonderful commodities as Red Bull, Airplane Sized Vodka, a Bayside High T-shirt and Twilight Candies.

So seriously who wants to celebrate Galentine's Day with me next year.... or maybe like this summer?

Valentine's Day Dinner Part 2....Where's the Beef? and of course Dessert

When I initially told my husband that I was going to attempt a gourmet Valentine's Dinner I asked him for some suggestions. He basically just responded by saying, "Steak." I guess that's what all the fellows like. But there are lots of steak options out there so my search began. My Dad (who is also a fellow) claims that Costco has the best NY strips steaks out there. So I requested that he pick up some for me on his next trip (as I do not have a Costco membership). So he did. And these steaks were huge. And quite nice looking. I have learned that my husband likes a pretty simple steak. Something where the flavor of the steak shines through. Not too much marinating or sauces or what not. So I decided to grill them and then make a compound butter to top them with. I found this awesome butter recipe by Emeril.

How I Grilled My Gigantor Valentine's Steaks
1-I sat the steaks out to get to room temperature. The cooking shows always say to do that.
2-I put a bunch of sea salt and fresh ground pepper and a little bit of olive oil on each side and pressed the salt and pepper into the meat.

3-I preheated my grill pan to the highest heat.
4-Then I grilled them. For about 9 minutes. I seared both sides for a few seconds and then kept cooking it on one side at high heat for about 4 minutes. Then I flipped it and lowered the heat to about medium for the rest of the time. They actually turned out pretty well. I usually over or under cook steaks but these were medium to medium rare. Pink in the middle. Crispy on the outside. (They may look a little black but I think that's just the crust b/c they tasted good and not burned) Add some compound butter to the top and you are good to go.

These were the best steaks I have ever made. Normally I leave steak grilling to someone else. But I really pulled through this time.

I always like to have something green on my plate to make it look pretty so I stole 8 asparaguses (probably not how you pluralize that) from my mom and roasted them with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. And then my mom told me that a lovely roasted tomato always makes a nice looking plate. So I stole two of those and put some Italian Seasoning and Parmesan cheese on them and roasted them for like 10 minutes. All in all a lovely looking plate.

Now on to Dessert......

My husband is not super interested in chocolate. I mean he likes it and all but it's not his fave. But you know what is one of his favorite foods? Bread. All kinds. Any kinds. So then all the sudden it hit me. I have to make him BREAD PUDDING for dessert. It's perfect. It's not chocolate and it's made of his favorite food and it's a dessert. I found a million recipes and wanted to do something crazy and complex with a nice sauce but instead I went for the easiest, yet highest rated one I could find on All Recipes.com. I added a mix of dried berries instead of just raisons but I followed the rest of the recipe. My Husband ate 4 of the six servings. So I guess he liked that too. So, Overall.....Worth it.

And seriously, I'm still pretty tired from making all this. Last night for dinner we had frozen pizza.

Valentine's Day Dinner-Part One....Potatoes and Tarts

Since this was my first Valentine's Day ever as a Wife I decided to up my housewifeyness and try to make a gourmet meal for my husband. I spent like 2 weeks looking up recipes for this and I have to say in the end, it really paid off. This might be one of the best meals I have ever made.

Since this meal was super extensive I'm just going to discuss the appetizer and first side dish today. I sort of made up the appetizer. It was based on something that I saw on http://www.foodgawker.com/ (an awesome website if you like looking at delicious foods). I call it mushroom tarts.

Mushroom Tarts (makes 6 tarts)
6-7 cremini mushrooms
1 tablespoon chopped shallots or onions
1 tablespoon butter
garlic salt
2 tablespoons blue cheese
1 sheet of puff pastry

Basically I just thawed the puff pastry and then used the top of a wine glass to cut it into 6 circles. Then I cooked the mushrooms and shallots in butter and added some garlic salt and then melted the blue cheese in at the end. I put a spoonful of this mixture on top of each puff pastry ring and baked it for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. I thought these were a little bit rich but my husband ate 4 of them. So you can maybe cut the cheese or butter down a little bit.


It took me forever to decide on a side dish. I went back and forth several times but ultimately decided it should be potato related since I was making a beef main course. I found this Rachael Ray recipe but decided to alter it a bit because I didn't want to have to buy all these fresh herbs.
So instead of calling them Rachael Ray's Autumn Potato Gratin , I will call them J-M's Winter Love Potatoes.

J-M's Winter Love Potatoes (makes about 4 servings)
2 pounds of baby white potatoes and a couple small red potatoes (or probably any potatoes)
1 cup of heavy cream plus another 1/2 cup of cream
1/4 stick of butter
1 clove of garlic minced
A few shakes of Italian Seasoning (the kind that has like oregano, thyme, sage, rosemary, etc in it)
Salt and Pepper
Grated Parmesan Cheese (about a 1/2 cup)

1-Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Wash and cut the potatoes. Make them into bite sized to a couple bite sized pieces (see pics). Boil some water and partially cook the potatoes for about 5 minutes.
2-Heat 1 cup of cream and the butter in a pan. Add a couple of sprinkles of Italian Seasoning and the garlic and a little salt and pepper. I then added a palm full of grated Parmesan cheese to this. Heat this for about 5 minutes.
3-Place potatoes in the bottom of a small baking pan and put a little salt and pepper on them.
4-Pour cream mixture over potatoes. If the cream mixture doesn't cover about up to 75% of the potatoes then add a little more cream until it reaches up higher. Then sprinkle the top with more Parmesan cheese.
5-Bake in preheated oven for about 35 minutes or until potatoes start to brown and bubble. This is going to be super hott, so let it rest a little before eating. Also as it rests the cream sauce gets thicker.

Warning-This dish is not healthy. Hello. You are cooking butter in to cream. But it tastes very delicious.

I loved how the potatoes turned out. They were bubbly and brown and awesome looking. There were only a few minor mishaps during this part of cooking like when the strings on my apron fell in the toilet and when I accidentally left the stove on after cooking the mushroom mixture and only realized it after I picked up a dish that was sitting on the stove and realized it was super hot. Major burn crisis averted though.

Did anyone else make Valentine's Dinner or do something super awesome?