Due to popular demand…

….  I will start being better about updating the blog with things that are happening once again.  In a timely fashion, rather than months after the fact.

With that said, I may as well do a quick catch-up post to bring us up to date.  So let’s see – since the last time that this was posted – wow.  I just realized I didn’t even do an inauguration post.

January was cool for us, living in DC, and being pumped about Obama.  C&J were very nice to host us at their pad on Pennsylvania Avenue, prime viewing location for just about everything, but especially the parade.  Obama and Biden got out right in front of us and waved right at us, which was the cool – and after that, we (along with Mehul, Liz & Julie) threw our very own Presidential Inaugural Ball.  It was the awesome.  (And three of us were in the exact same dress – thank you to Melanie for letting me borrow her bridesmaid dress from our wedding!)  A slideshow of that is below.

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Colleen – Inaugur…“, posted with vodpod

February, already posted about Miami.  Otherwise we were playing volleyball and getting through the cold.  March came, and my mom came down to visit  – we took her out for her first sushi experience and I now have a favorite roll, though I don’t remember what it’s called (blasted chef’s special).  We went to Colorado for the annual Pender gathering at the end of Feb/early March, but it was cool because in addition to Nick’s usual group of high school folks, we also got to hang out with Seth and Dave & Rach.  Oddly enough, our flight back was delayed by 1.5 days due to a snowstorm on the east coast (Denver was like 70 degrees that day).  We got a free flight out of the deal though so we were pretty excited (and honestly, I would have worked from home that day anyway, hate driving in DC when it’s snowing.)  Highlights from the Colorado trip are below.

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Colleen – Colorad…“, posted with vodpod

End of March/early April, thus far, has been very eventful, and I think Nick and I are both looking forward to some ‘down’ time, if that ever really exists – especially with the summer coming.  Cooking wise, made a really good chocolate cheesecake on a pistachio crust covered in chocolate ganache, went all Polish with pierogui && glumpkies, and a bit Irish with corned beef & cabbage and Irish bread & cheese.  YUM.  Nick’s grandpa Rutar recently became very sick, and Nick, Pinot & I made the drive from DC to Nebraska for a last visit with him.  I’d been bugging Nick to drive to Nebraska for a long time, and though I wish it had been under better circumstances, I admit that I did enjoy driving out.  Pinot sort of stressed us out though – we think she was abused by younger children before we got her (rescue dog thing, so we don’t really know), but Derrek, Dalton & Dannika were her first real exposure to kids and that went….well, not as well as we’d hoped.  We’ll have more time to practice when Derrek comes out to visit in May though!  Anyhow, we drove back from NE (with a big old print from Hobby Lobby – aka best store ever – and a mini Heineken kegerator in tow) just in time for the Cherry Blossom Festival.  We checked that out – and the naval observatory open house, booked tickets for Derrek and Louie to come visit for Memorial Day, and then found out out that Nick’s grandpa had passed – he made it to 92 and said that was enough, so earlier this week Nick flew back for the funeral.  We’re in Rochester this weekend to discuss some family matters with my mom and siblings.  Busy week, to say the least.  We’ve also been to a Caps hockey game and the Cavs/Wizards game recently which were both fun.  OH – and my big computer thing – we upgraded to iLife 09, and I recently went though and tagged faces and places of all 21,234 pictures in our album.  Been keeping up with the family tree site too.  Anyhow – a few pictures of recent stuff is below.

more about “Picasa Web Albums – Colleen – March/A…“, posted with vodpod

So yeah!  If I keep this up, then lots of fun stuff coming up ahead – Easter brunch tomorrow, possible iPhones in our near future, Pinot’s 2nd birthday coming up, heading to Vermont to see K’s derby dames finale this season and possibly a last minute trip for my birthday – and fun fun, Louie & Derrek’s trip out for Memorial day – and that only takes us through May. 

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Is there anything better than leftover turkey & sides from a Thanksgiving feast?  In years past, having the holiday at home in Maryland, Nick & I have always gotten a much much bigger turkey than the amount of people were were intending to feed, just so that we could live off of the leftovers for a week or so after the fact.

This year, with my high school reunion falling on Thanksgiving weekend, we’re heading up to Rochester for the holiday, where my sister is hosting the meal this year.  While I’m excited to be able to see family for the holiday, I was a bit bummed that we wouldn’t get to feast on the remains after the fact.  With Nick’s pending conference and a wedding this weekend before he leaves, it didn’t leave us much time before the holiday proper to have our own mini pre-thanksgiving – so, we did it yesterday!

The menu included a roasted turkey (of course), and some quasi-alternative Thanksgiving sides that erred on the side of healthy – not a traditional thanksgiving meal, but could pass for one nonetheless.  This way we were still eating healthy/less processed/less sugar/no white bread, and when the actual Thanksgiving hits us in a couple of weeks, it won’t be like we just had all of this stuff.

Menu & recipes (pictures are in recipe pdf’s):

1. Chilled Asparagus with Tarragon Vinaigrette (asparagus)
2. Pumpkin Soup in its own shell (pumpkinsoup)
3. Roasted Root Vegetables (roastedrootvegetables)
4. Cranberry Sauce (cranberry-sauce)
5. Green Bean Casserole (green-bean-casserole)
6. Holiday Turkey with Rice Stuffing & Fresh Herbs (turkey-with-rice-stuffing-and-gravy)
7. Pumpkin Cheesecake Minis with Gingersnap Crusts (pumpkingingersnapminis)

We’ve also continued work on the home improvement projects over the weekend – big progress in the kitchen.  stay tuned

Aaaah! Nick’s proposal is this morning!

In just 2 hours and 15 minutes – 10AM on Friday 9/5, Nick is starting to give his proposal on his thesis topic to advance to candidacy.  Unfortunately, I am at work this morning I have absolutely no doubt that he’s going to kick butt – and I’m really excited to be leaving here at 11:30 so I can meet up with Nick and the UMD crowd for a post-talk Indian buffet lunch to get the full scoop on how it went!

I did bake a whole heck of a lot yesterday so that he’d have some yummy snacks to bring in and feed the masses this morning!  With the talk starting at 10, and that being the time most grad student alarms go off as being early in the morning (ha ha, i kid, i kid), I went with a mostly morning approach to food.  When most people think morning, they think coffee.  Coffee, according to Nick, is loved by most grad students.  So – what goes good with coffee?  Perhaps a coffee ‘n’ cream cheesecake?  Maybe some fresh biscotti?  How about some peach and blueberry coffee cake?  Or maybe – just maybe, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies?  Yep, all 4 of them are ready to be eaten during a certain someone’s talk on parallel frameworks – with orange juice and coffee proper to boot.  (Awesome of  AT to pick up some coffee for m’boy on his way in to school since NJ went in super early this morning.)

Pinot was dropped off at daycare at 7AM today!  Wow!  She actually seems to be loving it this morning on the web viewer from the moment she entered, though she was still sad to see Nick leave.  I’m so glad she seems to be starting to get the hang of it there!

Between watching Pinot on screen this morning, thinking about the talk, and being excited to meet up for lunch, I’m sitting on pins & needles this morning.    (If you’d like to tune in to Pinot too, she’ll be in the Romper Room until about 6 this evening:  http://dogdaycare.com/whiteflint/webcams.php)

Send good luck thoughts (or the CS equivalent – foo bar deadbeef (?)) to Nick for a kick-butt presentation & Q/A session this morning!

Getting excited for football season && cheesecake

Aw, poor Chad – missing his flight last weekend meant missing out on chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake goodness.

Cashew and Pinot (as well as Nick and myself) are getting pretty excited for Huskers season to start!

28th Birthday Stuffs

No candles in the cake for me this year – but I did have candles in my May 4th breakfast in bed. Rocket Bar on Saturday night was cool – wish I could take the credit for choosing the locale, but that was all Greg (who turned 29 the same day)! Birthday proper included the aforementioned breakfast in bed, a game of tennis and a long walk with take out Italian subs for lunch, and then brownie sundaes for dinner along with some low key stuff at home (Greek!). My request from Nick for the birthday this year was for him to come out of the closet with his baking – I kept hearing about how he always used to bake on days he stayed home from school growing up just like I did, so I wanted to see these much anticipated baking skills, and he did not disappoint. The brownies were seriously the best ever, and the cheesecake that he poured himself into is phenomenal. I’m turning over the baking hat from now on!

Superbowl – 2 kinds of cheesecake squares && superbowl bars

The best of these, by far, was the S’mores cheesecake squares…. along with these three bars, we also had the Stadium Bundt Cake. I love how desserts freeze well.

Cookies ‘n Cream Cheesecake Squares
Ingredients
1 pound chocolate sandwich cookies, divided
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
4 8 ounce packages 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs

Method
Place 20 of the cookies in a food processor; cover. Process till finely ground. Add butter, mix well. Press onto the bottom of a 13×9″ pan. Coarsely chop the remaining 15 cookies and set aside.

Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Add eggs; mix until blended. Stir in 1.5 cups of the reserved chopped cookies. Pour into crust. Sprinkle with remaining chopped cookies.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. Cut into bars.

Source: Cream Cheese Box | (Servings: 18)

S’Mores Cheesecake Squares
Ingredients
18 graham crackers, divided
⅓ cup butter or margarine, melted
1.25 cups sugar, divided
4 8 ounce packages 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs
6 1.55 ounce bars milk chocolate candy, coarsely chopped and divided
1 cup mini marshmallows

Method
Place 14 of the graham crackers in food processor and process until finely ground. Add butter and 1/4 cup sugar, mix well. Press onto bottom of 13×9″ baking pan. Coarsely chop remaining 4 graham crackers, set aside.

Mix cream cheese, remaining 1 cup sugar and vanilla until well blended. Add eggs and mix well. Stir in 1/2 of the chopped candy. Pour into crust. Sprinkly with remaining candy, marshmallows and reserved graham crackers.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate 3 hours or overnight. Cut into bars.

Source: Cream Cheese Box | (Servings: 18)

Super Bowl Cookie Bars
Ingredients
1.5 cups graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup cocoa powder
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup margarine or butter, melted
1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 12 ounce package semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips or peanut butter chips
1 3.5 ounce can flaked coconut, 1.33 cups
1 cup chopped nuts

Method
Preheat oven to 350 (325 for glass dish). combine crumbs, cocoa, sugar and margarine. Press firmly on bottom of 13×9″ baking pan; pour condensed milk evenly over crust. Top evenly with remaining ingredients in order listed; press down firmly. Bake 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool. Chill thoroughly if desired. Cut into bars. Store loosely covered at room temperature.

Source: Clipping | (Servings: –)

Mini Cheesecakes for Nick’s Birthday

Yum – half strawberry half plain, made with a pecan crust so they are even low carb. Hopefully Nick will enjoy

The basic recipe was….

For the crust:
about 1 cup of pecans
about 2-3 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
…..whir these ingredients all around in a food processor until you get an almost smooth consistency. In the meantime, get the oven preheated to 350 && prepare your mini cheesecake pan. When oven is preheated, fill the mini cheesecake molds with the pecan crust, flatten them down and then bake it for about 8 minutes. Take out and let cool, and turn the oven down to 300.

For the batter:
16 ounces light cream cheese
2 eggs
1/4 cup skim milk
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt
(optional – pureed strawberries, I used frozen and mushed them in the blender)
…..I like to do it by hand – mix up the cream cheeses until smooth. Then add the eggs one at a time, blending well between additions. Add the milk and mix to combine until smooth. Finally add the sugar and a pinch of salt and combine till smooth.

I used half of this batter right into half of the mini cheesecake molds.

Then added the pureed strawberries to the other half of the batter and mixed well. Fill remaining mini cheesecake molds with this. Bake at 300 for about 20 minutes. Take out and let cool on rack. Transfer to refrigerator for at least 2 hours before unmolding.

Report on how they taste tomorrow

Update 9/20: Cheesecakes tasted good! Only 140 calories and 10 grams of carbs in each to boot!

Chocolate Crusted Mango Cheesecake

Yum – the menu tonight consisted of Maple Pulled Pork, which I’m not going to divulge the recipe unless you ask very nicely….and a new take on garlic mashed potatoes. Though I still don’t think the recipe for garlic mashed is perfect yet, it’s getting a bit closer.

Ended off the night with this chocolate crusted mango cheesecake. Wasn’t quite sure how it would turn out, but I’ve been very curious to try this one for awhile. It’s different from other cheesecakes because it uses a pound of cream cheese and a pound of mascarpone! The texture showed the difference – it was a bit lighter than other traditional cheesecakes. Merry Lou had the great idea to pair it with a raspberry sauce – I think that would make it perfect!

Chocolate Crusted Mango Cheesecake
“This cheesecake is truly a tropical experience from beginning to end. The directions are simple, but must be followed exactly. The end result is so delicious it will melt in your mouth. For best results, all ingredients must be at room temperature, the oven must be preheated, the short mixing time must be adhered to, and the cooling directions must be followed to prevent falling and cracking. The long refrigeration time will help the flavors develop.”

Ingredients:
Crust
1.5 cups finely ground chocolate wafers or chocolate graham crackers, about 30 wafers or 11 graham crackers
5 tablespoons butter, melted
¼ cup sugar
Garnish
2 ounces semisweet chocolate whipped cream
Filling
1 pound Marscarpone cheese, at room temperature (2 cups)
16 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
½ cup sugar
6 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup ripe mango puree, from 1 large, at room temperature
½ cup peach schnapps
⅓ cup flour

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350.

Using a fork, mix together the ground chocolate wafers, butter and sugar until evenly moistened. Press the mixture onto th sides and bottom of a lightly buttered 10″ nonstick leak proof springform pan. Bake at 350 for 5 minutes.

Beat the two cheeses together just until smooth, about 1 minute. Scrape the sides of the bowl and beaters. Add sugar, beat 1 minute. Scrape the sides of the bowl and beaters again.

Add eggs, two at a time, into the mixture. Scrape the sides of the bowl and beaters after each addition.

Beat in the mango puree, schnapps and flour.

Pour the batter into the prepared crust. Bake at 350 until the edges have puffed but the center still looks moist, about 50 minutes.

Turn off the oven, but do not move or remove the cake. Prop the oven door open (with the handle of a wooden spoon, if needed). Let the cake cool in the oven for 1 hour.

Remove from the oven. Let the cake cool completely in a pan on a wire rack. Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, but preferably 24 hours.

To garnish, unmold the cake. Drizzle chocolate all over the top of the cheesecake. Garnish edges with whipped cream.

Source: Anco Cheese Brochure | (Servings: 16)