October | 2011 | strawberries in paris

Birthday Dinner for Daddy

October 28, 2011 at 11:21 am | Posted in Cookbooks, Dinner | 1 Comment

September and October are birthday months in my family. Mom’s was the beginning of the month and we had a nice dinner at Macaroni Grill and I gifted her my old iPhone recently and she is just LOOOOVING it. But for Dad I went more traditional and cooked him a nice three course meal, ahem actually Laurita and I cooked him a three course meal. He turned 57 (geez! we are getting old!) on Saturday and Laurita and him came out to Frederick for dinner. It’s been pretty crazy this year dealing with their divorce, but I have a feeling things will come back to a new “normalcy” in the next couple of months and I am thankful for that. I went searching in one cookbook for this meal. Claire Robinson’s Five Ingredient Fix. Laurita got there early and helped me finish the soup so I could get crackin on my sewing project! (see below for that!)

I wanted to make something big that dad could take home for leftovers and so I started thinking about soup and found this hearty potato “bar” soup in Claire’s book. It was pretty easy and verrry good. Especially with the addition of the bacon pieces!

Go for the jump to see my creation and the remaining dishes of the evening!

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Wordless Wednesday: Fall Dinner for One

October 26, 2011 at 7:04 pm | Posted in Dinner | Leave a comment

recipe

August/Sept Charm City Cookbooking: The Lee Brothers

October 21, 2011 at 7:00 am | Posted in Cookbooks, Dinner, Entertainment | 2 Comments

Well haven’t I been a most delinquent CBC blogger! And everyone can give me smack because I am usually so bossy for everyone elses posts! So we have cookbook club this Sunday! Indian food! But for now, let’s check out some southern food! This was Renee’s last cookbook club gathering as a resident of MD. (Don’t worry folks- she will be back in 2 years from TX! *Fingers crossed!*). And it was very fitting that this cookbook, the one that started it all, is what finished her tenure for now. The Lee Brothers – Simple Fresh Southern.

We started with strawberry wine coolers. Oh yes. They were deeelicious. Sweet and refreshing.

And here was my entree, of which I was super proud. Nice cut of steak from Wegmans… Finn grilled it up on the grill for me (awesome) and the parsley sauce was so flavorful and perfectly complimentary to the rich slices of beef.

Now go hop on over to the Charm City Cookbooking Page to see the remaining dishes!

Wordless Wednesday: Down on the (Winery) Farm

October 19, 2011 at 7:00 am | Posted in Travels | 6 Comments

Pumpkin Cupcakes for Fall Festive Fun Night

October 17, 2011 at 7:48 pm | Posted in Dessert, Entertainment | 4 Comments

Did ya’ll know I love my friends? I LOVE my friends and I love being Suzy Homemaker when it comes to our annual Haunted Forest night in Poolesville, MD. Normally I whip up a big batch of hot cider, but this year I wanted to trump that so I made the awesome hot cider and I made these pumpkin cupcakes.

Guess where the recipe came from?? Deb! See here for the recipe. I swear I should just rename this blog Elizabeth makes recipes that Deb made!!! She made them a couple of years ago and I went and copied and was so happy with how they turned out!

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Spaghetti with Swiss Chard and Garlic Chips

October 14, 2011 at 7:00 am | Posted in Dinner | 11 Comments

It’s Friday!!! Again so soon? Boy this week went by fast. Work was uber stressful in the beginning of the week and that sent me on a really fun emotional ride… but now that that’s under control, I realize what I need to do to keep myself sane: get up early to exercise, make good meals for myself, and keep myself busy with crafts during the week! I accomplished two of those later this week and I really hope I can do all three next week. It feels kinda lame to say this, but I really need to take my life one week a time, in order to heal and make myself happy. Thank God I have wonderful friends to talk to all the time and a supportive family I know I will have forever. What else do I thank God for today? Well garlic and swiss chard! Cause both of those together with pasta make a suuuuper tasty dish. As seen here:

Yep, I made this for a Thursday night meal and it had a real je ne sais quoi to it. I think it was the golden garlic, but it also might have been the chard! Yummm, also yummm to this cowboy cookie dough I’m eating right now and excitement for the new iPhone coming for me and the fact that I get to upgrade my mom’s flip phone to my old iPhone!!! Oh what a happy Friday it is. Go check out some of my cooking shots below..

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Wordless Wednesday: Orange in October

October 12, 2011 at 7:00 am | Posted in Entertainment, Travels | 2 Comments

Cowboy Cookies and Renegade Sewing

October 7, 2011 at 7:00 am | Posted in Cookbooks, Dessert, Pinterest | 12 Comments

Holllllaaaaa friends. It’s Friday!!! Thank the dear sweet Lord that I have made it through these two past weeks. I’m not going to lie, it has been rough. With the boot, inability to exercise, coming to terms with 29 and my singledom…alot has been on my mind. There is this pin on pinterest and I keep going back to it. When I was young, at 29 I thought I would have been married with babies, but alas I am not and I need to appreciate that I do have alot of things already going for me: a really great job where I feel fulfilled and productive and amazing friends and family who would do anything for me. And I have my hobbies… baking, crafting, and running! Hopefully the running will come back sooner than later. But I am so thankful I got my butt in gear tonight and got the former two things going on up in here!

Like these cookies, that will be delivered to a certain nameless person tomorrow evening. They came from the Baked Explorations cookbook, a book I should be pulling from more often! Those men know how to make delicious and creative baked goods. And after reading this post I agree that they are perfectly OCD in how they explain things, and I appreciate that so much! These cookies are the perfect combination of salty and sweet and chewy and crispy. Now about that crafting bit.. last Sunday my dear sweet Auntie Martha got me a sweet Kenmore sewing machine (I have named her Sally!) and finally I got to use it! So go check out my baking and sewing projects…

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Snazzy Searsucker

October 3, 2011 at 6:09 pm | Posted in Brunch, Travels | 1 Comment

I saved one of the best meals in San Diego for last (and dang! It’s October now and I am just finishing blogging about this trip! Crazy!). Becca had gotten a Groupon and so we went to this new fancy and snazzy restaurant downtown called Searsucker for brunch that Sunday. I feel extra snazzy writing up this post now seeing that Joy from Oh Joy! went there recently too.

As we were sitting there, I kept remarking to myself how much I loved the way they decorated the space, very Anthro-esque but I also thought this place was tooo hip for me! There were people wearing fedoras to brunch.. not so much my style… Go check out some pictures!

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