Holiday Party!

So Friday evening I opened my house up to the procurement department from work and a select few from other departments. I was too busy entertaining guests and cooking food to take pictures but a good time was had and the menu was awesome if I do say so myself:

Honey Baked Ham (which is now currently being made into soup)
Roasted Garlic and Parmesan Potato Gratin (aka CRACK potatoes)
Baked Corn (AKA CRACK corn)
sweet potatoes (not my best but they were decent)
mixed greens salad with blue cheese, walnuts, pears and white balsamic reduction
chocolate fondue for dessert...soooooooooooo yum!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a success this year if I do say so myself. I had the fortunate opportunity to be house sitting in a house that has a HUGE kitchen which made my life much easier. We were joined by my aunt and uncle (who brought a fabulous free range turkey), dear friends Lance, Mary, Jason and Anita. The total head count was 9 (ten if you count the dog that I'm watching who partook in a few little turkey bites), I think my largest thanksgiving yet.

On the menu:

FRIED TURKEY (dad did all the work on this, although I prepped the bird)
mashed potatoes (also known as Crack Taters...)
sweet potatoes (mom makes really good sweet potatoes)
green beans
roasted beets
baked corn
rolls
stuffing
gravy
pumpkin cheesecake
pecan pie (Anita made a fantastic pecan pie)


We had to jerry rig the fryer but it was worth it, probably the best turkey yet.


Christmas decorations are going up, what a great time of year!

Grandma

Over the summer my family and I had the opportunity to get to know a fantastic family from Utah while their father is stationed here for work. What a blessing it was to meet and get to know them. All of their children are fantastic and Lance and Tiffany are wonderful people. Their youngest took to calling my mom "grandma"...I jokingly asked if that meant I was off the hook for having grand kids. Towards the end of the summer we went downtown to take a few pictures in front of the monuments. It was a hot day (as it gets that way in DC in the middle of August) but the kids pulled through.

More Photos from the Market

It's not often that I make my way downtown to the Dupont Circle market but it is always a good time when I do go...

Let the Holiday's Begin

With family coming into town on Tuesday I try to have a few dishes ready and waiting to pop in the oven for dinner Tuesday and Wednesday night. Yesterday morning I visited the farmers market with my mom it was a nice morning spending time with her and shopping for the week (well we did some shopping for ourselves as well). So to start things off I made some potato and leek soup...due to the fact that I have 100 pounds of potatoes in my guest bedroom-that is a whole other story. I used a recipe from cooks illustrated, it's not my favorite I think I may need to add more leeks, so another batch of it will need to be made to mix with the current batch.
This morning I made sour cream blueberry muffins (found in this months food and wine magazine), it's a great recipe, I think I will jazz it up a bit with more lemon zest and possibly change the crumble topping but the muffin itself was great. This afternoon I made a lasagna (with homemade sauce of course) and if I can find more motivation I will get the start of a chicken pot pie going, or we'll just have lasagna two nights in a row. I plan to make some sort of apple tart for dessert to have both evenings as well.

Visions of Summer

Over the summer I try my best to shop at the farmers market as much as possible. Not that I don't shop there during the winter, but the summer market is full of color and variety and it's beautiful. I also had the opportunity to belong to a CSA this year (community supported agriculture). This was an awesome experience and I often went out to our farm for a little extra picking and relaxing with my dear friend Sallie. We took her dogs (who were in dogie heaven) and always had a fabulous time at the farm, followed by a relaxing couple of hours at the vineyard across the street. The view was amazing from the vineyard, the people there were great, and we were even allowed to bring our own picnic. I also took my mom out to the farm, and other friends...below are some photos from the market and the farm. Fall is by far my favorite season of the year, but it is rather bitter sweet as the fresh fruits and vegetables of summer begin to fade away.