Category: Food Talk

And in with 2017

Lauren2 Comments

Joey and I have very different ideas of the perfect New Year’s Eve.  While his involves friends, family or crowds in general, and doing something that really feels big and celebratory, mine involves a good meal and some kind of low-key activity that allows me to be in my bed shortly after midnight.

I felt like we’d been doing that celebratory thing for years and I was ready for a quieter start to the new year.  (Go figure that the one year we didn’t have solid NYE plans was the year it landed on a Saturday night.)  So I made a dinner res, we picked a movie, chose a brewery within walking distance to that movie and lo and behold, we ended the night in our pajamas in our very own living room.  Hardly exciting, but to me, it was so perfect.

img_4788img_4829img_4848img_4853

You may not have NYE plans, but if your nails look like you do, then it’s all good // Dinner at ChoLon involved those French Onion Soup dumplings and we haven’t stopped talking about them since // Post-Rogue One beers at New Image Brewing // Starting 2017 with my #1: PRICELESS

img_4834img_4833img_4850img_4849img_4838

I’ve started many New Year’s Days with a hangover so starting one with coffee, waffles and Harry Potter is much preferred.  My sister and Wayne got us a waffle maker for Christmas and we had major success using it.  I think it’s all in that flip feature.  Harry Potter Weekend is what I live for ♥  I feel like I usually catch the last 4 movies, but I caught the first four (they skipped MY FAVORITE one: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and I was only semi-livid about it) and I forgot A) how teensy they all were when the series started and B) how good the third movie is!

 Let’s hear it for the families who celebrate actual New Year’s Day.  My mom pulled out all the stops — Mom, aren’t you exhausted after Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s?! — and I made an actual gluten-free/dairy-free pie that tasted pretty good and, more importantly, looked beautiful.  Pretty proud, in case you couldn’t tell.  Afterwards we all watched The Grand Budapest Hotel and for a second I forgot how shitty the end of 2016 was and felt like 2017 might be alright.

My resolution is to take more human face photos — which doesn’t necessarily mean less food photos — and I think I’m starting out strong.

img_4840img_4844img_4842

We started the Monday that felt like a Sunday with breakfast at Stowaway.  I got a Mushroom + Thyme Tartine and holy moly, it was so good.  I’d like that for breakfast every day forever, thank you.  Mostly Monday was a quiet day of grocery shopping, black-eyed pea cooking (for good luck in the new year!), getting my haircut and watching When Harry Met Sally.  Because, even though Carrie Fisher is probably best known as Princess Leia, let’s not forget she was also Rolodex-toting, “he’s never going to leave her”-repeating Marie, who “will never want that wagon wheel table” and I love her so much for that role.  Please let all the good food in this post be a sign of things to come in 2017.

2017, please be kind to us.

Best Tastes of 2016: From Our Kitchen

Lauren1 Comment

Nothing like writing all these year-end recaps, then cramming them all in during the last few days of December, right?  2016 was the year of pancakes, LOTS of summer grilling, salads-in-a-jar and adventurous meat cooking, but there was also a lot of amazing stuff in between.  Here’s the best of the best!

Best Family Recipe:

Red Beans & Rice from my uncle’s recipe (February 9)

IMG_7106

Best Pizza:

Cast-Iron Pan Pizza from Bon Appétit (March 2)

IMG_1755

Best Baked Recipe:

Mini Vegan “Brioche” Buns from Take a Megabite (March 29)

IMG_2045

Best Side Dish:

Creamy Chive Potatoes from Bon Appétit (April 4)

IMG_1264

Best Burger:

Spinach Goat Cheese Burger from Eat, Live, Run (June 9)

IMG_2816

Best Grill Meal:

Grilled Lamb from Cooking Light (July 4)

IMG_3133

Best Summer Pasta Dish:

Spaghetti with Tomato and Walnut Pesto from Bon Appétit (August 9) — made 110% better by the fact that Joey made it for me ♥

IMG_3600

Best Pancake:

The Easiest (Vegan) Pancakes from Oh, Ladycakes (October 15, but also many times after that)

img_4425

Best Salad:

Fall Squash & Fig Salad with Maple Mustard Balsamic Dressing from Yummy Beet // thanks to our salad-in-a-jar habit, we ate a lot of salads this year, but this one was my favorite.

img_4168

Best Winter Pasta Dish:

Garlic and White Wine Pasta with Brussels Sprouts from Minimalist Baker (December 15)

img_4704

 Best Cookie:

Two-way tie between:

Spiced Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Cookies from Displaced Housewife (October 13)

img_4323

And The Best Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies from Pinch of Yum (February 25)

IMG_1680

Best Granola:

Pumpkin Maple Pecan Granola from Edible Perspective // If you had asked me my favorite granola prior to this fall I would have told you nothing could come between me and the Lightened Up Summer Granola from Oh She Glows but then I decided to give this one a try and it instantly became my new favorite.  I think it’s those dates.

img_4442

Best Cooking Success of the Entire Year: Christmas + Our First Turkey!

Don’t get me wrong, I was blown away by the lamb we grilled ourselves for the 4th of July, but that was so low pressure compared to cooking a 20-pound turkey for 15 people on Christmas.  The days leading up to it, I kept wondering if this meal would end up on this list or on the other list.  Thankfully, it’s here.  The turkey was juicy perfection, the rolls were puffy mini cloud status, the rice/sweet potatoes/mashed potatoes/gravy/cranberry sauce all went off without a hitch and people went mad for the raw Brussels sprout salad (?!).

In other words, this meal was the crowning glory of my culinary life thus far.

img_4785

Food forecast for 2017?  Hopefully more pizza!  In all seriousness, culinary growth (even if it’s just in my own kitchen) is one of the biggest, most fun and most unexpected joys of my life.  Here’s to its continuance in the new year!