cook and bake more often, thereby reviving the ancient custom of family mealtimes... and perhaps, one day, even give a dinner party...

the brunch party i hosted for my family was today! there were lots of obstacles, mainly the threat of a hurricane and one of my brothers and his wife weren’t able to come. The first part passed through Saturday and today was the most perfect beautiful weather. Sadly, my Josh and Stacie didn’t end up being able to come, but we still had fun.

My niece is a riot. She and the cat met one another with screams. They sneaked up on one another and scared each other—so funny. Plus, Chubbs has never seen a baby or a child before so she was a little freaked at the mini-person. Anna cried murder if the “moew-moew” got near her at first, but by the end of the day, they were old friends. (Still kept their distance, but there were no tears/running and hiding under the couch.)

We originally planned a short afternoon party. Start at one go until three or four, at the latest. No one left until after 6. We were having a good time. Mostly we watched the Ravens game and talked and watched the niece being kooky, but towards the end we went up on the deck and enjoyed the nice weather.

Menu was simple, but everyone seemed to like it. Organic fruit salad of nectarines, strawbs, and white grapes. Made-to-order farm-fresh omlettes—fillings included baby spinach, peppers, tomatoes and extra sharp white cheddar. Organic white and red potato home fries. Also, french toast made with thick slices of baguette. Hubby made an amazing savory tart with cream cheese, gorgonzola, caramelized onions and peppers. That was really the highlight. So yummy. For dessert, my mom made the deep, dark chocolate cake with almond frosting we have for every single fam’s b-day. (It was my dad’s today and lysa and jer’s anniversary is tomorrow.) Hubby brewed coffee; I brewed tea. We also had OJ, white grape juice, milk, iced tea…all kinds!

And best of all, our house was perfectly clean. We finished just in time. There’s still a bit of organizing to do, but a lot of clutter has been taken care of. Now, to keep it up!

Sorry to ramble on and on and on, but I just had such a great day, and I love being hostess. Finally have a nice apartment! It’s teeny but perfect for us. We’re so very happy.

Got up nice and early. Made Tony a ham&cheese sandwich, packed a nectarine and trail mix bar in with his lunch and made him a cup of tea in his to-go mug.

Then he got home SUPER late from work (10pm), by which time I wanted to suggest a frozen dinner or take-out, but he said he didn’t want a frozen dinner and wasn’t that hungry anyway.

However, since he’d only had lunch, I steamed some broccoli made lemon butter sauce to go with it, and grilled a breast of pre-marinaded chicken. Yummy, healthy and REALLY quick and easy! Granted… he didn’t say it was delicious, but he did clean his plate.

Made a simple greek salad two nights ago, and last night pulled out the stops with a delicious vegetarian stir fry – had to use up some of the veggies from making the chicken and brocc stir fry the first night, so I bought some extra carrots and bean sprouts and snow peas and mushrooms and just made a big huge pile of veggies with ginger and garlic and hoisin and soy sauce..

My bro said it was delicious!

My brother’s moved in and now I have a real impetus to get cooking. Since he makes loads of money and I’m making virutally none right now, I told him he could give me money each week to do the grocery shopping and the cooking. He is interested in eating more healthfully than he has been (with constant take-out and fast food) so I promised to make him a packed lunch each day and have a healthy dinner each night.

Today was day 1 of the experiment. It went great. Made a delicious stir fry for dinner with broccoli and red cabbage (two good power foods) and chicken. Threw in some spices, soy sauce, hoisin, sesame seeds, red pepper flakes and garlic. It was delicious.

Tomorrow I’m going to try find a vegetarian recipe for dinner. He loves beets, which are another power food, so I’m going to see if I can make a nice beet salad with balsamic dressing and something to go with it. Any suggestions for healthy dinners will be much appreciated!! (He doesn’t like seafood or fish or mushrooms – alas.)

i am mailing 4 invitations to the fam today to come for brunch on 7th september to celebrate dad’s b-day and my bro and sis-in-law’s anniversary (one day apart). we’ll do omlettes and pancakes and fruit salad, methinks. my mom is bringing a cake.

so, everyone will get a chance to see cute apartment. of course, if the weather is bad, we can’t sit out on deck which has the most room and view of city skyline, so we’ll see what happens… weather wise. borrow H’s table to put out on the deck is the plan for now. here we go, commence testing out official small-scale party. going to break out linen napkins and everything!!!!!!!!!!

if all goes well, may have to give a dinner party for friends soon, on a nice night before the weather turns.

but the K, G, H party was a smash. I worked very hard making things spic and span – it’s not perfect, but the apt. looked good! I made my special hors d’ouevres by opening a box of crackers and putting out cheese platters. I got to use the awesome cheese plate my in-laws gave me for my bday, made out of a refurbished wine bottle—very cool. I also sliced pita and spooned some hummus into a dish. So far from gourmet… but well, opening is my specialty. That’s why I married a chef.

Good news is, in-laws come for dinner this week so now i can make our place perfect over the next few days. I’m excited to finally be finished.

Yay party!

recipe is on eatingwell.com, the burgers are half beef, half minced portobello, with some thyme and bread crumbs mixed in. They don’t hang together very tightly, but they come out quite delicious and much lower fat than all-beef burgers. You add a bit of pickle relish and a slice of cheese at the end, and they’re quite delicious.

I made a tomato salad on the side.

YUUMMMMMM

We went grocery shopping today and bought a modest amount of yummies. Not quite ready for dinner yet (we’re late eaters) so i make a salady snack out of grape tomatoes, white grapes, goat cheese and raspberry vinaigrette. It all just sort of happened. It’s so delish. Serendipity! Don’t want to tamper with it, but it could use a bit of crunchy texture next time. Nuts, perhaps?! What a world…

Had some left over topping I’d made for tacos and worked it into the most delicious tomato salad I’ve ever tasted:
Tomatoes, green onions (the white and a little of the green), red onions (fine dice), shallots (fine dice), cilantro, lime juice, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, goat cheese.

It sounds like a bizarre combo. It started with the mexican flavors, and then when I incorporated more tomatoes and the typical tomato salad dressing, and threw in the goat cheese because I needed to use it up… holy cow. Mind blowingly good. I think it would be amazing as a bruschetta topping. (boy am I going to love finishing my health challenge at the end of the summer so I can bake up some crusty bread!)

THIS WEEK’S MISSION – to prepare sit-down dinners for myself, even though I’m the only one home. No Eating while standing in the kitchen! Not only is it leading to a degradation in my little sphere of civilized life (just read the miss manners posting from a few months ago – very interesting), it’s also keeping me chubby. I guarantee if America could all decide somehow, together, to return to the old idea of gathering everyone together at the dinner table, childhood obesity wouldn’t be skyrocketing the way it is. Life would be better. I want to get this routine down cold, so that when I finally have babies it’ll be an ingrained habit and I can raise my kids with a memory of a family routine (one I definitely didn’t grow up with). I really think that would be something great to aspire to.

without a recipe! (Look mom, no cookbook!)

Actually I take that back, I did check a cookbook to figure out the best oven temp and cooking time. But the rest was pure winging it, which made me feel very proficient. I just chopped up a bunch of rosemary, thyme, garlic and sage, put some in the cavity and some under the skin with butter, and a 1/4 lemon in the cavity, too. It came out GREAT!!!! I loved the smell of chicken and herbs that filled the apartment. Then I made some gravy with the pan drippings. Very decadent but also easy. It made me want to bake some fresh bread to go with it, but bread’s a no-go on my current diet. Oh wells. Yay for cooking! Roast chicken just might be my favorite home-cooked dinner… at least tonight it is.