Tag: cooking (page 5 of 9)

A Bluesy Kinda Day

The weather forecast originally said that it would be a partly sunny and a little bit of a warmer weekend. That is not the case, Summer might be fighting to throw in a couple more days before Fall takes over for good, but for today, she has not succeeded, the sky is a powder steel grey, the air has a bite to it, the tree branches are swaying to the rhythm of the wind.

Mr. Michie has a lot of work to do this weekend, so he is staying tucked away, busily editing his thesis, I am staying cozy in sweatpants, sweaters, slippers and drinking copious amounts of tea. It is a day for soulful, bluesy, jazz and my music of choice at present is the Home for the Holidays soundtrack.

I love the organ keyboard shelling out those sweet notes. It always makes me think of this great little restaurant in my hometown, it started out in a much smaller venue when it first opened before moving to a bigger place across the street. I liked the new place, but there was something about that older joint, it had character. 

On Friday nights they would have a guy come in to play music, he was a bit eccentric for sure. He was normally half lit, he would sit at his keyboard, cigarette in his mouth,  eyes half closed and his upper body was bathed in a smoky haze from his cigarette, forming plumes of billowy white vapor around him. You could ask this guy to play just about anything, and he would know the notes.

I could see him playing parts of this soundtrack, bobbing his head and shoulders to the music as his fingers tickled the keys of his keyboard. It’s music for a staying in kinda day, for baking pies, for contemplating, for reading, for stirring the turkey potpie filling, I have simmering away on the stove, a day just for being. So, that is what my Saturday will be, a day just to be.

A Birthday Weekend

I had a truly wonderful birthday weekend! I got my wish: I slept in till 8:30 on Saturday, so that was a true treat! Mr. Michie had surprises for me when I came downstairs and he took me out to lunch and to see Man of Steel. We both really enjoyed it.

We came home, Mr. Michie made me dinner. Exactly what I wanted; a steak, a baked sweet potato (the gorgeous Evangeline’s from North Carolina) and sauteed sugar snap peas and asparagus with a hit of chili flakes, like we watched Ina Garten make the night before.

Jennifer Michie Birthday Dinner

We feasted on cake for dessert. I was orginally going to cover it in icing roses but in the end, I decided to go for an old-fashioned looking cake from the 1950s. So it was pale pink icing, roughly frosted and white shells piped around the bottom. It was a white cake that was so light and a heavenly almond and vanilla laced frosting swirled on top to boot.

Jennifer Michie Birthday Cake

Before we headed out the door, there was a sharp rap and a package arrived from a dear friend. It was all so beautifully wrapped. I hated to undo any of it. Everything inside was lovingly picked and made my birthday even more special!

Jennifer Michie Birthday Surprises

Yesterday, we continued with the celebrations and I made oven fried chicken and homemade pimento cheese sandwiches. The chicken had a hint of cayenne pepper and coconut flakes in the breading, so there was a spicy, yet somewhat exotic taste to it. It went really well with the sharp but sweet bite of the pimento cheese, on fresh white bread. The only thing missing was the sweet tea!

Jennifer Michie Fried Chicken

A Snowy Saturday Out

We left our house early on Saturday morning to beat the snow, well at least beat enough of the snow that they didn’t shut the train lines down. You could hear the ice cracking underneath the wheels as the train pulled into the station.

It was freezing cold, but just beautiful. We were in our own little wonderland. First things first, we got some breakfast, I had pancakes, mmmm!

Then we ran our errands and grabbed some lunch before heading home. Once home, we went to the grocery store and I spent the rest of the day making fresh yeast rolls, two shepherd’s pie and two turkey pot pies. All of this was for Mr. Michie, as I am sneaking away to see my family over the Easter Holidays.

He can’t come as, unfortunately, he is way too busy at the moment. He will be running Easter sessions for students and working on his Master’s over the course of the school break. At least I know I have left him with delicious food (even though he is a truly excellent chef himself) to enjoy while I’m away. I shall return with lots of surprises for him, to make up for the fact he couldn’t get away with me.

Today, I am making chicken ‘n dumplings and a big pot of spaghetti and meatballs. The snow has started to swirl outside again and our house is nice and toasty. It is a perfect day for just staying inside and being in the kitchen, while watching the snow fall from the window!

This was our view from the bridge over the train tracks:

This little wren was soaked through from the snow and trying to get a bit of those leftover sandwich crusts, he was so sweet and happy to pose for a picture:

Our Weekend

Well, I was going to share my weekend with you yesterday, but after my day in the cupboard, I just couldn’t.

It was my date night this weekend and I took Mr. Michie to the movies! It was so much FUN! I can’t tell you the last time we went to a movie in the evening, we are usually afternoon movie goers.

We saw OZ. We both really enjoyed it, I thought they did a nice tie in of the elements, the costumes were beautiful and I only wish she was real because the little girl the “wizard” helps save in China Town, I could just take home with me, she was so cute!

We grabbed some breakfast before going grocery shopping on Saturday morning:

Then I spent the rest of Saturday preparing Sunday’s lunch. I made my Nana’s macaroni salad, my dad’s green bean salad and homemade yeast rolls.

On Sunday we baked a ham and I tried a new peach cobbler recipe. It was delicious! I made a few changes, by adding some cinnamon and a little bit if lemon zest to the peaches, like I would do if I was making a pie.

I have been reading a series of books at the moment that take place in the South (The Caster Chronicles) and after reading what Amma has been cooking, I was hankering after a little Southern Home-style dinner myself. There was even sweet tea to boot!

The Day After Valentine’s

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}

A Busy Night

Once I got home last night from the job that pays me with real money, I started my second job last night, the one I love, even though there is no money in it, my job at home. It was a busy night! We had to run to the grocery store to pick up a few ingredients for a cake I am making for Mr. Michie’s class. Friday is their cake day and this week the class is celebrating two birthdays, so he asked me if I would make Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Cake.

He loves this cake. I baked my 2 cakes last night, so tonight when I get in from work, I can make the icing and start to decorate it.

At the grocery store we were walking down the baking aisle and saw these:

I couldn’t believe it! We have been being very good lately, but decided to cheat a little and got a bag of these and a bag of chocolate chunk with pecan. I have never been able to get Pepperidge Farm cookies here, so this is a BIG DEAL! If they start selling the gingerbread men or the chocolate milano’s, I am in big trouble!!

I folded laundry, we had homemade tiropita for dinner and salad, they were delicious, just the right bite from the feta cheese! I did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, baked the cakes, Mr. Michie had an online meeting and then I finally sat down to watch some TV and “Romancing the Stone”on. I love that movie! So, I sat there with my little Pepperidge Farm cookies wrapped in a blanket and was absolutely happy.

Spring Cleaning

We worked extremely hard yesterday putting away all of our Christmas decorations and giving the house a thorough cleaning.

Next week, I am going to really tear apart our bedroom and get the closets more organized. I know that we will most likely end up with a bag of items for The Salvation Army and a bag of items to be turned into fabric scraps and dust rags.

The house looks so bare now, but it feels clean. I have decorated for Valentine’s Day and left one little tiny tree up, that I have adorned with Valentine hearts. Nothing wrong with a little twinkle and glow.

Our weekend in pictures:

Goodbye Genevieve see you next year!

Mr. Michie took out the garbage and recycling and we saw a double rainbow the complete full arch, that was a nice gift.

Potato Soup for dinner. I kind of followed Paula Deen’s recipe for it, but then went off the rails and made it completely my own. It was warming to the soul and we sat on the couch like vegetables, completely worn out and watched “Two Mules for Sister Sara”. Happiness!

Our Weekend

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.