extending our vacation

In an effort to squeak the absolute last bits out of my vacation I have opted to plant myself on the couch and have my version of girlie drinks rather than get anything done. This drink was tested and ultimately honed over the last day or so and it is definitely making my Sunday afternoon a bit brighter.

Pomegranate Cosmopolitan

1 part vodka (we received a bottle of Bison Grass vodka and this turned out to be the best to bring out the drink)
1 part triple sec
1 part lime juice
1 part pomegranate juice

Toss it all in a shaker with ice, shake, and serve.

Sorry about the lack of pictures.... all efforts were thwarted. Maybe it is so delicious that it cannot appear on film?

I have not fallen off the map.....

I was just here

Our friends got hitched in a Jamaica and it ruled. However between helping them out and our travels the posts have been rather sparse. But stay tuned after the holidays.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

I have been wanting to try pasta with carbonara sauce for some time and last night the stars aligned. Sitting at work yesterday I realized that we had all the fixin's for carbonara at home. I know that I could have just gone to a restaurant, but I frankly go out for Italian food very, very rarely. Not that I do not like Italian food.... I just don't get jazzed over what generally turns out to be mediocre food that has been turned into an excuse to eat 16 pounds of mozzarella cheese. Please, I can do that on my own. There are a select few places that I will go and when I do rarely do I order pasta. It's just not my style, there are other way tasty things are to be had.

This turned out great and was a snap to throw together. I tweaked a Tyler Florence recipe sightly. I used four strips of lower sodium bacon, omitting the olive oil, the bacon grease was plenty. We also used less cheese; about 2/3cups rather than the full cup. The spaghetti was also whole wheat. It was still cheesy and wonderful. Not at all as heavy as I thought it would be. In my high class way, I likened it to pasta with butter and parmesan for big kids.

Belated Turkey Day

The Hubbs and myself hosted Turkey Day for the first time this year. It was fun, we had a houseful, and a GINORMOUS turkey. We intended on taking pictures of various wonderful dishes but alas we really only to pictures of the bird. Mostly because it was comically large.

We tried to place items of known size by it for comparison but I don't think it really captured moment. This 22 pounder was ordered from Homestead Farms about 15-20 minutes outside of Albany. The turkey was well worth the price. It was honestly one of the best tasting turkeys that I have ever had. The fact that it got to live a nice little life on a farm wandering about was very evident.

Given the sheer amount of leftovers, turkey and otherwise, the Hubbs ate pretty much a Thanksgiving dinner style supper for almost a week before the remaining turkey was transformed into Mexican turkey lasagna.

Daring Bakers- November

This months Daring Bakers challenge came from Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater. This caramel cake was quite delicious and a great addition to our Thanksgiving table. You can find Shuna's original recipe here.

I absolutely fell in love with the browned butter frosting. I may just keep this in my bag of tricks in the future.
This months host was Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity along with Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie Duo, Jenny of Foray into Food. And helping out with alternative baking, Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go

this blog should really just be called 'of monkeys and soup'

Last night the Hubbs decided that he wanted to be in charge of dinner and I willingly let him have at it. He found a really nice and fairly easy recipe sweet potato and butternut squash soup here. He adapted it by using delicata squash because we had it on hand and they are wicked yummy and easy to work with due to their petite size. While I can take virtually no credit for this dinner except for grabbing a few things at the Coop, I am very much looking forward to the leftovers for dinner this evening.

Chicken Soup for the Hubbs Cold

The Hubbs has come down with a doozy of a cold and in an effort to get him on the mend I created what turned out to be a very hearty and tasty soup. This is not a light broth to be daintily slurped before your main, this is the main. It is also fairly quick as far as soups go, but I did take a few short cuts along the way.

Roasted Garlic Chicken Soup with Israeli Couscous

1 head garlic
1 medium onion
2-3 good sized carrots
2-3 stalks of celery (helery)
1 1/2 cups shredded chicken (I used the dark meat from a rotisserie chicken)
5-6 cups organic free range low sodium chicken broth (or whatever you prefer)
1 cup uncooked Israeli couscous
Couple hand fulls baby spinach
Few hearty shakes of turmeric
salt
olive oil

Slice the top part of the garlic off drizzle with a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt and wrap in foil. Set this in an oven/toaster oven at 400 degrees and let it roast while you get going on the rest.

Get a nice relatively small chop going for the onion, carrot, and celery (helery) and place it in a soup pot on medium with a little bit of olive oil till they are tender and getting translucent. Once they are softened add broth and bring to a slight boil. Once boiling add the couscous and turmeric and let simmer for about 10 minutes. After ten minutes add in your shredded chicken and heat through. At this point your couscous should be cooked and tender and your garlic should be nice and soft. If its not just keep the soup on low and give it a few. When the garlic is roasty and tender squeeze out the cloves (mash them a bit if you need to)into the soup and give it a nice stir. Add a few handfuls of baby spinach and mix it up till wilted and add a bit of salt if needed.

This was hearty on day one and virtually solid in the fridge, you can add a bit of water or broth to loosen it up, but once heated it was a bit less thick.

I would love to say that after three servings of this over the weekend he was totally cured.... but you can't say it didn't help a little.