Monthly Archives: December 2010

What this new year needs is biscuits and pie

Well, it’s New Year’s Eve. How exciting and yet terrifying. I mean, after midnight tonight, it will officially be 2011.  And I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed. I mean, I love my Camry and all but I kind of thought by now I’d have a flying car, or at least a pegasus that was hooked up to a cart of some sort. But no. My vehicle is still a non-magical, non-nuclear powered terrestrial vehicle.

But if I can’t have a personal automotive levitation device, I might as well have the next best thing this new year: brunch. I love brunch. First of all, it’s a delightfully crunchy-sounding word. Brrrrruncccchhh. It’s like weekend-in-a-bowl. It’s also flexible, relaxing, laid back, amenable to last minute plans, sociable and full of delicious flavors and my friends and I are indeed fans of delicious flavors (and also of the TV show Psych). Thus, we are big believers in the awesome healing powers of a good brunch.

Our last brunch was a bit last-minute. It was a couple weeks ago and the planning started on Friday, I think, with Paul messaging me as to whether we were interested in brunching at his place on Sunday. On Saturday, he laid out his menu ideas and we assigned tasks during a quick phone call and then we went grocery shopping for whatever items we didn’t already have in stock. On Sunday, Josh, myself, Brian and Rita trooped over to Paul’s house to get the party started, so to speak, with him and his roommates. Continue reading

Baked Pumpkins: tasty meal in its own adorable bowl

Ever since we got a couple of adorable little pie pumpkins in our farm share back in October, I’ve planned on making this dish.  Sure, it’s two months after that, but thanks to the wonders of living in a 150 year old brick house that doesn’t retain heat very well, the pumpkins were still good and ready to go.

Like most of my…life in general, I didn’t really have a plan, more a set of guidelines: fill pumpkin, bake.  I happened to have some hot Italian sausage I picked up from Steinhauser Farms at the Lunasa market a while back.  I thawed it out to use in a pasta dish earlier this week and wanted to use up the rest of it and this seemed like a good way to do that.  I also had some extra sharp white cheddar and thanks to a stocking-up trip to the store, I got mushrooms and arugula as well.  That’s it.  That’s all there is to this recipe–five main ingredients and some seasonings and olive oil.  You put it together, you let it do its thing in the oven and you have these adorable little self contained meals. Continue reading

This day is tamales! T-A-M-A-L-E-S!

Like awesome! Oh, wow!  Like totally freak me out.  I mean, right on!  Tamales sure are number one!”

Oh come on.  I know that every single one of you use cheers from Bring It On in your daily life.

But we have more important things to discuss than Kirsten Dunst’s witty, razor-sharp cheer-snark.  We have tamales.

This is going to be a long post.  If you need to use the bathroom, I suggest taking your laptop with you.

THIS GOT STARTED BECAUSE…

…I’m not really sure why.  At some point months ago, Chase and I were discussing tamales, probably as part of a larger discussion about Pilar’s tamale cart and street food in general.  We decided, “You know what?  We should totally make our own tamales sometime!”  It was just like that, only pretend we sound more sophisticated about it.  Flash forward to a short time later and I brought up the idea to Paul, who was like, “Yeah, I used to do that with my grandmother.”  Light bulb!  The three of us agreed, yes, we would have to do this.  We’d use Paul’s experience and his grandmother’s recipe and my kitchen and an entire Saturday and just get. it. done!

FOUR OR FIVE MONTHS LATER… Continue reading