I was saving the little pack of red hots that my Mom sent me, especially for this:
Those little gingerbread men were very tasty indeed!
Category: Cooking (page 3 of 7)
Last weekend we went to the market and came home with bags of apples. I peeled, watching the skin tendril down from the delicate pinky white flesh of the apples, while Mr. Michie sliced them up.
Together we made our first batch of apple butter of the season and it is delicious! The house smelled of Christmas. A sweet tangy cinnamon scent filled the air, while it slowly simmered down. We have spent this past week, gobbling up our first jar. We have had it smeared over toast, biscuits, sandwiches and last night I had some mashed into a baked sweet potato! MMM!
So, our first batch is ready and jarred up for us to feast on and to give as Christmas presents.
Look what I’ve been pinning lately on my Food & Drink Board:
1. Lamb Burritos with Lemon Oregano Rice
2. Taco Pickles
3. Coconut Ginger Chicken & Vegtables
4. Roasted Beets
5. Mini Cream Cheese & Chives Biscuits
6. Rosemary Chicken with Roasted Lemons
1. Mini Deep Dish Apple Pie
2. Mexican Honey Puffs
3. Happy Hour Hot Fudge Milkshake
4. Texas Sheet Cake Cupcakes
5. Italian Lemon Slush
6. Kolokithopita
We had a really lovely anniversary on Wednesday. We kept it simple and went where the wind took us. We had lunch at one of our favorite places in London and did a little browsing and a little strolling before heading home.
We had decided to keep dinner simple and enjoyable as well. So we did half the cooking and the fabulous Italian restaurant down the block did the other half. While I set the table and made a salad, Mr. Michie headed down the street to pick up the lasagna we had ordered.
I didn’t mind letting someone else make my dinner but there was no way, someone else was going to make our dessert, that was my real contribution to our anniversary date. I have wanted to make this cake since the first time I saw it on The Pioneer Woman’s site.
I earmarked it on my computer and would look at it from time to time, but nothing happened. Then her second cookbook came out and I saw that it was in there, but again nothing happened with it. You see, Mr. Michie is not really a fan of coconut and I was concerned he wouldn’t like it, but I think this cake has made him and coconut lifelong friends! I knew that this cake would be perfect for our anniversary, he would just have to taste it and he would know it was perfect too! So, I got my cakes ready on Tuesday before I met my girlfriend and iced them later that night before I went to bed. It was 4 layers of complete happiness!
It tasted great with champagne and great with coffee, it is also excellent for breakfast, but I won’t tell you how I know that!
To make you own cake go to Ree’s site, The Pioneer Woman.
{p.s. excuse the fuzziness of my pictures, I was taking them really quickly on Mr. Michie’s IPhone and he was less interested in me photographing and more interested in eating dessert with me}
I grew up on a peach farm, so loving peaches is just in my blood. Mr. Michie, not so much at times, but I think I have finally convinced him!
The peach cobbler we made on Sunday was just delicious. Mr. Michie and I shared a bowl of it last night for dessert.
Happiness is…
We had such a lovely Valentine’s Day Evening. I finished up dessert when we got in from work and Mr. Michie started getting his dinner ingredients ready.
I had made a chocolate cream pie for dessert. My poor beaters made it just till the cream was perfectly whipped and then sputtered, coughed and died. So I will be getting new beaters over our half term break, which is next week.
One, day I shall have a KitchenAid Mixer when we have more space, but for now, beaters it is. KitchenAid mixers are just kitchen dreams right now and you should always have something to dream about!
Mr. Michie made the most delicious garlic butter infused roasted chicken on a bed of roasted red peppers and pasta with homemade pesto. It was heaven!
My cream pie was extremely tasty, the perfect chocolate to cream balance, but unfortunately my crust did not cooperate, so it didn’t slice very pretty, but it tasted delicious-e-oso! It just didn’t do justice to Mr. Michie’s fancy Valentine’s plate presentation.
I am so happy that today is Friday, that it marks the beginning of the weekend and the beginning of our 1/2 term break!
{The recipe I used was from the King Arthur Flour Company – it is definitely worth trying, it tasted like a truly old-fashioned diner kinda pie – however, I did make my whipped cream as I normally do and I used store bought pastry, so I didn’t follow their directions to the letter}
We had a really fun weekend this weekend. We worked hard and we played hard. We tried a new recipe on Friday. I read the wonderful Katie at the Kichen Door blog and she featured this recipe on butter-roasted cinnamon chicken:
We really enjoyed it, but there are a few changes we would make, a bit more cinnamon to make it a little warmer and I thought about adding either some golden raisins or some chopped dried apricots or both to make it a bit more moorish!
The crunch of the almonds was a nice addition to the softness of the chicken and the wheat.
Saturday after running a few errands we went on a date! Mr. Michie took me to see Les Miserables. I saw it last year for the first time on the stage with my theatre buddy. It was wonderful. We both truly enjoyed it. Then, he took me on a date to one of our favourite little Irish pubs.
Mr. Michie had the sausage and mash:
and I had the steak and guinness pie:
Happiness!
Sunday morning it was freezing. I got a hot chocolate before we went grocery shopping:
After shopping and some brunch, we put on our work clothes and got to it. We cleaned our attic. That might not sound like a big deal, but for two people, we have a lot of stuff. It was really just more boxes up there then anything else. Well, that and all of our Christmas things. I have so much Christmas stuff, that Mr. Michie says one day the ceilings will fall down because of it and we will be covered in Christmas!
My coat got caught in the door and the button broke and since I had already used my spare, it was a trip to the haberdashery for more. I chose these and spent a bit of the early evening sewing them on. I like them, they give my coat a more vintage appearance.
For dinner we used the pizza dough recipe again from Annie’s Eats and made her Chicken Ranch Pizza, but put a few more veggies on it. It was delicious. We feasted on the couch and finally got caught up on the first season of Once! Now, I can’t wait to start the second!
For dessert it was hot chocolate and junior mints (a gift from my mom), a little Sunday night treat. This morning the snow didn’t come quickly enough, so off to school we go. I am still doing my snow dance, I hope to have just one snow day this term, they are so much fun.
I pinned this awhile ago, but today I seem to be craving all things pumpkin. In fact, I have been craving pumpkin for the past few days. I almost bought a slice of pumpkin pie at Whole Foods on Saturday, but I just couldn’t. I am being a purist about it, my first taste of pumpkin pie will be my own pie that I make for Thanksgiving. I am more than ready for that taste.
I love the turkey and the cranberry sauce and the stuffing and the sweet potato souffle and all the other sides, but the pumpkin pie could just be my favorite part of the entire meal.
It is even better the next morning for breakfast with a good cup of coffee and as you scoop out a little bit of whipped cream to dollop on the side of your pie, another little dollop ends up going into your coffee too, or better yet, sneaking a little bit of vanilla ice cream in your coffee, oh heaven!
If I could, I would be making these tonight.
{Image and recipe, Bakers Royale}
Mr. Michie and I love to cook with each other. We get caught in a rut at times, not so much in that we aren’t sure what to make, but we go through phases and can’t seem to get enough of a certain thing, for instance a variety of different salads, or soup with different homemade bread recipes we will try. We like trying new things. We were on a guacamole kick during our 1/2 term break and decided to do just that: try something new.
I read Jenny Steffens Hobick blog and she posted the recipes that she made during a recent cooking event that she hosted. One of them was a Roasted Butternut Squash Chili.
It looked and sounded delicious. We decided to try it! As always, it must be the Italian in me, but I made a few moderate changes, I added a whole red pepper, a few more spices, I also completely forgot about the bay leaves and never added them.
It bubbled and stewed away on the stove for hours, filling the house with the most heavenly homey scent. Mr. Michie made his famous guacamole, we piled the chili in bowls, dotted it with mounds of cheese, guacamole and sour cream.
We ceremoniously sat on the couch, with a bowl of tortilla chips, a couple of beers and pressed “play” on It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
It was a very nice evening.
I had some left over orange cream cheese frosting from the cake I made on Friday and decided to use it this morning on some cinnamon rolls.
I had a can of croissants in the fridge (I can hear some of you gasp, canned croissants although not as good as a fresh French bakery croissant, are still delicious!) and knew they would be the perfect bread base for my rolls.
This was my own version of “Semi-Homemade” cooking. I melted some butter, brushed the croissants with it, sprinkled over a mixture of sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and a dash of allspice.
Next I rolled them up, but in the opposite direction, so the small point of the triangle was on the inside. When I got to the end, I tucked one of the larger ends up under the bottom and then gently mashed the other side down on my board to form a more traditional cinnamon roll shape.
I baked them till they were done, let them cool slightly and then slathered them with the frosting. Alongside a nice cup of coffee, this was the perfect way to start our Sunday morning.
Hope you are having a nice Sunday morning, wherever you may be today!