Gramma’s potato peelers!
Category Archives: Food & Cooking
Thanksgiving 2021
All of the googly eyes make this delicious appetizer tablescape perfect.
Roasted cumin lamb skewer!
They weren’t the best but they weren’t bad!
Cookies with Papa!
Ted Lasso biscuits!
They aren’t in a pretty pink box but we ate Ted Lasso biscuits tonight. Super easy and super tasty. We’ll be making these again!
- 2 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
- 1 ⅓. cup confectioner’s sugar
- 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 ¾ cup ap flour
- ½. (scant) teaspoon kosher salt
Step 1: Heat the oven to 315F and pan spray an 8×8” baking dish.
Step 2: In a medium bowl, mix the butter and sugars together vigorously until smooth.
Step 3: Stir in the egg yolks.
Step 4: Add the flour and salt, mix just until the dough comes together. The less you mix the dough, the more posi vibes your biscuits will have.
Step 5: Press dough into an even layer in the pan and bake at 315F for 45 minutes until a thin, golden brown layer forms on top.
Step 6: Cool completely before cutting into 2 even columns and 6 even rows.
A whole lotta yum.
It could only be better with everything bagels (I used Hawaiian) and red onion!
DANGER! DANGER!
Crumbl!!
So after seeing Crumbl cornbread cookies mentioned TWICE yesterday on my Facebook feed, when Heidi and I found ourselves right down the street from one (by Costco in Kenosha), we had to try it. Some other choices jumped in the box, too.
Of course we dug into them as soon as we got to the car. And um, holy shit. The cornbread cookies are TO DIE FOR! They suggest eating them warm and I can agree wholeheartedly. The churro was good but REALLY sweet.
I posted on Facebook and guess what? I learned that Gurnee is getting a Crumbl, too! This could be dangerous!!
If anyone wants to check it out, grab the app!
Mexican Chicken Tomato chips?!
Continuing with the Asian chips we bought on our anniversary…
Smells like Chicken biscuit crackers, tastes like tomato soup. Weird. Not bad, not great. Passable.
Smoked cream cheese? Yes, please!
OMG Y’ALL. Smoked cream cheese.
- Spicy Lime Chili
- Brown sugar/smoked paprika/smoked garlic
- Everything bagel seasoning
Needless to say they were delicious and the five of us finished off all three bricks. My fave was the everything bagel.
The recipe is easy: coat a brick of cream cheese in your favorite rub/flavorings of choice and then put on the smoker at 225° for two hours.
Anna’s birthday lunch!
Chinese Sauerkraut or Pickle Fish?
Soooo on our anniversary we stopped at an Asian grocery store and I splurged on like 10 different bags of awesome sounding potato chip flavors. Except… Some don’t have names on them—just photos.
We tried this nameless flavor tonight that we decided was some type of soup with broth and mushrooms and peppers…? They were definitely yummy but I really wanted to know the flavor. I reverse image searched and googled to no avail so finally went to friends on Facebook and learned that the translation must not be exact because it was listed as both Chinese Sauerkraut and Pickle Fish. But others translated the actual language on the bag and got salted fish and Laotian pickled cabbage fish flavor.
Then there was this exchange:
Lordy, taking a closer look—no, those definitely aren’t mushrooms!
But I liked them so all was well, whether they were salted fish or Chinese Sauerkraut!! I can’t wait to taste the other flavors!
Epic Paloozafest Blowout
Y’ALL, IT’S TIME TO PARTY!
We’ve all been cooped up with Covid and missed ALLLLLLLLLL the excuses to party…and you know we like to throw a house party…so we’re doing them all at once!
- Post-Covid Celebration
- Cascade Housewarming (7/2020)
- Tom’s USMC retirement (6/2021)
- BFF Anna-versary (8/2021)
- Our 20th Anniversary (8/2021)
- End-of-Summer/Back-to-School
Saturday morning and the Jello shots are here and ready thanks to Angela (she took the assignment when I ran out of time). But look at how well they fit in our garage fridge? It’s like it was meant to be.
About an hour before the party and I wasn’t even dressed yet. You think “Oh there’s only a little bit to do” but all the little things add up! Angela came over to help with a bunch of it and I’m eternally grateful. (Anna was picking up my kids from a class and getting the cupcakes.) It takes a village to throw a big party!!
Getting closer—getting the mixed drink dispensers ready! Peach Bellini, Rum Punch (empty), Vodka and lemonade, Beergarita, Bahama Mama.
David making his famous Trinidad rum punch! Yes that’s two full bottles of rum going in.
I forgot to take a pic of the food table but the dessert table was insane so I did takes a pic of that! We wouldn’t have needed to buy cupcakes at all! We had a few different kinds of cookies, two smoked cheesecakes, a German chocolate cake, a white cake, mini cupcakes, and Sam’s Club cupcakes!
Local-ish TiVo peeps!
We had to do at least one LipSense selfie!
The ribs were a hit. The pulled pork was amazing. And we have a ton of leftovers!
The only pics I snapped outside during the party!
The slide was a huge hit as expected. A few adults did go down towards the end of the night—butb it was actually cold by then so it didn’t last long.
David ended up making drinks for people at the bar…
And as we were saying goodbye to people, I discovered someone left a fern in our empty pot! (I had wanted to get succulents planted in it but never got to it with all the house stuff.) Turns out it was Ava, one of my gardener friends!
We just have great friends—from everyone who offered to help to the ones who loaned us things to the ones that jumped in to help before, during (putting away leftovers and doing the first round of kitchen clean up, and after (cleaning up the yard and house)… Thank you. We had a great time and I think everyone else did, too! Now to clean up some more and relax…
Prepping the butts!
Tom already had multiple racks of ribs smoked and in the sous vide for a day, but the butts are more last minute! This means we’re getting close to party day!
When the kids are away…
You can leave at the drop of a hat for dinner out with old friends and new friends an hour away to celebrate National Tequila Day! We drove to Aurora to meet at El Jefe.
Anna and Jami were meeting for the first time but they said it was like they already knew each other! (They met just by posting in my Facebook business group and then friended each other.)
The Al Pastor tacos (me) and octopus (Tom) were both delicious. We also loved the guac trio, the oysters, the flaming cheese, and the margaritas!
The only bad thing was that the music was SO STINKING LOUD that we couldn’t even hear anyone at the ttable—so we really only got to talk to the people directly next to us.
Meeting new friends!
Cheri is one of my clients who I just hit it off with and so tonight we finally got the husbands together. I pulled together a pretty good charcuterie board and we all had a great time visiting at the bar listening to 90s music!
Lunch foursome!
One good thing about Tom not having a job yet is that we can meet friends for lunch! Yes I only took a picture of the sushi and not us!
Brunch!
Peach Bellini, peach crepe with homemade whipped cream, and candied bacon.
Internet ax murderers found each other!
A TiVo member was going to be passing through on a road trip so we all gathered for dinner! It was so great seeing them after almost a year and a half!
Dinner at The Turf Room was amazing, too!
PASTRAMI SALMON BRUSCHETTA
SMOKED FAROE ISLANDS SALMON, GRILLED SCALLION GOAT CHEESE MOUSSE,
PICKLED MUSTARD “CAVIAR”, GRILLED PRETZEL BAGUETTE, MICRO GREEN
MONTE CRISTO CROQUETTES
FOREST HAM, BACON, PEPPER, ONION, PEPPER JACK, SWISS, CHEDDAR, SAMBAL SOUR CREAM
SEA SCALLOP CARBONARA
PAN SEARED SEA SCALLOP, SWEET PEA, BACON, SHALLOT, PORTABELLA MUSHROOM, LINGUINI, SMOKED WHITE WINE PARMESAN EGG YOLK CREAM
IMPERIAL AMERICAN WAGYU FILET
8OZ IMPERIAL NEBRASKA AMERICAN WAGYU FILET, GRILLED ASPARAGUS, ROMESCO SAUCE, LEMON OIL
SOUS VIDE FRENCH TOAST
NUTMEG, CINNAMON, VANILLA BEAN, BACON SYRUP, VANILLA BEAN ICE CREAM
Ice cream surprise!
Kim had stopped by with her boys to see if Katie wanted to go get ice cream with them (her oldest, Tommy, a first grader, has a crush on Katie and wanted to ask her). Katie had a friend over so Kim said she’d just go pick up some ice cream for everyone. So everyone enjoyed some ice cream on the porch!
Her youngest (and my birthday twin) was just living his best life!
Introducing a new friend to the infamous bar and the fire.
And while we were out here, her son (same grade as Owen but they never met before) was in playing with the kids!
Another delicious brunch!
This might be happening tonight.
Linda had never had jello shots…so we figured why not?
Anna and I each needed one thing at Aldi.
HAHAHAHAHA. We’ve learned our lesson over the months—always ALWAYS get a cart.
It’s crazy to shop with two enablers.
- Want a Sangria? Yes, how about a white, too? Yes.
- Bellini? Yes, of course. Six? Yes.
- How many cheese bread? 10? Sure!
- Peanut butter cups? Duh.
- The boys want a Summer Shandy. Okay I’ll get two.
We just ended up splitting the bill since we are still eating together 5-6 nights a week. We’ve both discovered that we love crowdsourcing meals!!
I’m finally cooking scallops!
I love scallops but am always nervous about cooking them. But since they were defrosted from our freezer issue…they had to be cooked!
They needed a bit more sear (I took them off too soon) but they were yummy!
Guess what we just discovered?!
The damn garage freezer motor stopped working so we had a mad rush to go buy a freezer. And of course there are basically none in stock anywhere so we get what we get.
At least we’ve done this multiple times and we have a system down pat.
I’m not 100% sure why we’re not getting the full life expectancy out of our freezers but my guess is that they don’t like to be moved multiple times over hundreds of miles. Or be in the garage.
Brunch is served!
We’ve started doing Sunday brunch with Anna and David. Sometimes we order out, sometimes we go out, and sometimes we cook. Today we cooked.
- 2 kinds of bacon (sweet and hot and Kirkland regular)
- 3 kinds of sweet rolls (cinnamon, apple cinnamon, and caramel)
- 2 kinds of scrambled eggs (plain and cheesy)
- 2 kinds of drinks (fuzzy navel Bellinis and Bloody Marys)
- 5 kinds of fruit (not pictured—apples, oranges, cantaloupe, strawberries, and pears)
- and friends and parents!
The first batch of Papa’s cookies!
It’s time to smoke the briskets!
Anna had three briskets in her freezer and we’re both on Project Freezer Cleanout…
Poor bacon.
This is how my day is going. And guess what? It happened on the second batch, too.
