Jen Caputo

Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation

I was lucky enough to win two VIP tickets to Share Our Strength's Taste of the Nation charity event, thank to POM! The event featured some of our favorite Chicago culinary favorites like Rick Bayless, Stephanie Izard, Graham Elliot, and Adam Seger.  All in all there were 65 chefs and 25 mixologists. It was hosted at the Aragon Ballroom where you got to help yourself to anything they had to offer!  The theme was street food.

 

We got there a bit early so while we waited in line, that foodtruck behind Adam delivered us our first taste of delicious tacos. Nicely wrapped (meaning I stuffed one in my purse and we ate it for lunch the next day!)

 

Beautiful displays of fabulous food lined the entranceway.

Thanks for the tickets to POM!!! They were serving up a sweet mocktail.

As we entered the ballroom.

Goose Island was representing with lots of beers including Sofie and Matilda.

 

This is Sonja, from North Shore Distillery (here in Chicago), we love her and her garden fresh cocktails!

Rick Bayless's booth.  He topped everyone's dish with some cilantro just before serving.

Stephanie Izard (Top Chef winner) takes a break with a beer while her sous chefs furiously work to plate delicious goat tacos.

Three Floyd's Beer booth.

 

Adam Seger is mixing up a Hum punch with lots of fresh goodies from his garden.

Look at the garnish, edible flowers, basil leaves, yum!

We only took this picture because we couldn't get over all the buttons this guy in the background had undone.  Granted, it was super hot in there, they didn't turn the air up because it would have taken $10K away from the charity.

The view from the balcony

Posing with a cocktail in front of one of our favorite mixologists.

Who, in this next series of photos, will teach you how to shake your cocktail like you mean it!

These two were mixing up cocktails in the same booth.  Both were delicious! The guy on the left made a strawberry mint vodka drink.  On the right, a grapefruit, brandy, and elderflower one - yumm!

 

 

Rick and Deann Bayless accept their 2010 Share Our Strength Sustaining Communities Award

 

Adam Seger (of Hum Spirits) on the left, and a lawyer by day mixing up a delicious strawberry cocktail on the right. See that bottle he's filling up, he gave that to us to take home!!!

Here's that strawberry cocktail as served with mint:

This event was ridiculously awesome.  Like I said, we were lucky enough to win the VIP tickets this year but there is no way we aren't going back next year.  100% of the ticket price benefits Share Our Strength's efforts to end child hunger.  Anybody who is anybody in the culinary world in Chicago is there. And you get goodie bags when you go home! Totally loved it!

Double Rainbow Tomato Birthday All the Way!

A little bit of a hodge podge post here.

We're up in Madison for the Great Taste of the Midwest. It's the friday before the fest. It's raining. It stops, just as we show up to Brickhouse, we go outside. What do we find?  A double rainbow all the way! Woah!!! Oh my God! Oh my God!

Do you see it?  I only had my 50mm f1.4 lens with me so I couldn't zoom out enough to get the whole thing. But can you imagine how funny it is to listen to 50 beer filled strangers recite "What does it mean..."

It was starting to look like a triple rainbow, but then it dissipated. We never found out what it meant.

When we got home on Sunday, we went tomato picking in the backyard.  12 lbs later.

 

 

Yesterday was my birthday. To celebrate, we went to dinner at Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard's brand new restaurant, The Girl & the Goat. Here is what we ate.

 

We started off with a loaf of bread, filled with corn. It came with whipped goat cheese and corn relish.  The two cocktails in the background were delicious.

 

We'd actually partially tried a similar dish to this one at one of Stephanie's Wandering Goat dinners. We wanted to try the finished product though.
hiramasa crudo - crisp pork belly - aji aioli - caperberries
one of our faves of the night.

 

A delicious salad.  Perfectly balanced. 
shaved kohlrabi - fennel - blueberries - evalon - toasted almond

 

Since it's normally one of my favorite dishes, I was expecting more from this dish. Probably the biggest let down of the night. Not that it wasn't yummy...
escargot & goatballs - romesco, bagna cauda, almonds

 

This was our other favorite.  Mmmmmm.... can you believe those servers tried to take the plate away from us before we'd sopped up all of the delicious juice?!?
seared scallops - braised veal - caponata - marcona almond butter

 

At this point, we figured we had one more small plate in us.  We asked to see the menu so we could decide between a dessert or another savory dish.  The waiter pretty much insisted that we get a dish that combined them most.  I know I said that two other dishes up there were our favorites, but this last one was beyond a favorite... it was perfection.  And it came with a birthday candle for me!

fried potato dumplings - lemon-poached eggplant - figs - honey yogurt

I know, I know... eggplant in a dessert?  Well believe it or not, this is the second eggplant dessert I've eaten and I loved them both!

 

Stay tuned for my review of the Taste of the Nation event!!!

LOST

After a weekend getting ready, it was finally time for our Sausagefest/Lost finale party. And oh guys... it was good.

There was lots of sausages

And lots of fun people

and LOST luggage

 

And Dharma Beer

 

And Senet (the game young Jacob and MIB were playing two episodes ago)

And adorable 3 week old babies wearing the 6 month old dharma t-shirt I bought him when he was 3 days old even though it was twice the size of him.

And eventually, it was time to settle down to watch the finale.

And it was freaking beautiful.

I really can't think of a more perfect way to watch the finale than with 20+ friends in the backyard, under the stars.  It was simply magical.

Visiting my Nephews

We went to Michigan this weekend and I got to stop by and visit my newphews, including the newest member of the family, Blue:

Did you just squeeeeeeee?!? 

How about now?  Look at those eyes!!!!! He's a Blue Pit. 

You might remember his big brother Diesel.  Diesel is a pit bull/bull mastiff mix.  He gets very jealous when Aunt Jen comes over to take pictures of Blue.  He feels the need to prove how much he loves Aunt Jen and how worthy he is of pictures.  Hence the following:

Yes... Diesel is now a very big boy.  As a reminder, this is what he used to look like:

Anyway, after a cuddle session, I took the boys outside for a photo shoot.

Diesel immediately grabbed his favorite stick and took to posing with it.

 

So Blue grabbed one more his size

But quickly felt inadequate and asked Diesel to share his.

Aww... poor Diesel... he didn't want to share... But Blue wasn't about to give up...

 

You win this round Diesel....

Time for round 2

Looks like he might have a piece!

Round 3

There we go Blue, you have to try for the bigger end rather than the side that has 1/2 and inch hanging off.

Or you could just give up and try this one which is more your size.

Have you two been behaving?

And where were my other two nephews, Lex and Leo, this whole time?  Hiding on top of the kitchen cabinets of course.

Unfortunately, I had to get going so I said goodbye after snapping a pic of the baby boy with his parents.

Cheese. Cheese. Cheese.

WARNING: Picture intensive post to follow!

 

Adam and I scored tickets to the 2010 World Championship Cheese Contest held in Madison, WI (where we got engaged!) So on St. Patrick's Day, we took the day off of work and headed up to Madison.

Our first stop was at the Yahara Bay distillery where we were greeted by the owner's step son who offered us samples of two of their Gins, Vodka, Aged Rum, Apple Brandy, and Limoncello. 

We loved all of it (And how it was made from local ingredients like Washinton Island Juniper berries and Wisconsin grown honeycrisp apples).  We took home two bottles of Gin, 1 bottle of Apple Brandy (wish we got more!), and he tossed in a small bottle of the aged rum since it wasn't available for sale.

Then it was off to lunch at our favorite Madison restaurant, The Old Fashioned.  (Where we split cheese curds, a cheese burger, and beer cheese soup since we were worried we might not get enough cheese later). 

After that we headed over to Middleton to visit Capital Brewery but on the way, Adam insisted we stop at the Mustard Museum.

This place has a "museum" downstairs filled with old bottles of mustard from all over the world. Upstairs, there are more bottles from all over the world but you can actually buy those.

  

Even Meijer's brand has a place on the shelves of the museum.

 

Got mustard?

The store upstairs:

 

The sun was shining and we were looking forward to enjoying the unseasonably beautiful weather so we made our way to Capital Brewery, grabbed a few beers and enjoyed them in their Bier Garten.  And I was worried it might be crowded :P

Finally it was time to check into our hotel so we could get on with the main event! 

For $20 we got to spend 2 hours sampling cheese from across the globe.  There were 15 international cheeses and 11 Wisconsin Cheese Makers for a total of about 35-40 different cheeses!  We got there early, and they let us in early so I got to snap a bunch of picture of undisturbed cheese.

Get ready for some cheese overload!

 

 

This booth was run by Fromagination (right across the street from the Capital). They had a 12, 10, and 5 year Cheddar from Hook's.  We heard whispers that they had a 15 year in their store so we stopped on the way home to pick some up.  But at $60 a pound we only spray for a quarter pound :)

    

The Japanese Umami Gouda below on the right here was one of Adam's favorites.

 

Check out the coolers.  Wouldn't you die to roll one of these cheese filled puppies into your basement?

Besides all of the delicious cheeses, there were also appetizers:

So, what was our best in show?  It would be this 8 year from Widmer's.

We went back and forth between this one and Hook's 12 year most of the night.  Ultimately, we decided the 8 year had the better flavor. 

Probably one of the best $20 we've ever spent (except for the way we felt the next day, LOL).

Last Minute Cocktail Party

We didn't have anything exciting going on this weekend so at the last minute we rounded up whoever was around and hosted a big cocktail party.  Over the next few days I'll be sharing some of our appetizer, syrup, garnish, and drink recipes that we whipped together for about 15 folks this Saturday.

In the meantime, here are some of the party goers.

 

Thomas is inspecting one of the 2 bottles of Absinthe that people brought to share.

Erin and Kristin squeezed 2 bags of lemons to make ginger-mint lemonade. Which they then deemed too sour so we made them into cocktails instead:

By adding bourbon to the ginger-mint lemonade concoction we had drinks a plenty for a good hour.

Dave and Hugh sample some Absinthe Drips

 

Everybody gathering in the kitchen to whip up more drinks.

 

Dave contributed an ice cream cake to the party.  We decided it needed a candle but with no birthdays to celebrate we dedicated it to Kristin's doodlebonger.

Dave eats his piece right off of the butchers knife we used to cut the cake.

The hosts

Me and my favorite girl

Brent & Anj keeping the couch warm.  Where are your cocktails?

 

So stay tuned for some amazing recipes.  I'll start with the garnishes and syrups!

Crazy Heart in Oak Park

Now how's this for a Monday night.  Adam won tickets through XRT to a viewing of Crazy Heart.  But here's the kicker.  Prior to the movie would be a concert by Oscar nominated song-writer from the flick, Ryan Bingham.

Ryan wrote the theme song ("Weary Kind") from the movie along with T. Bone Burnett.  It is up for Best Original Song at the Oscars this year.  Ryan also appears in the first 15 minutes or so of the movie! 

The movie was showing at the Lake Theatre in Oak Park so we left work a tad early to head down and visit Marion Street Cheese Market for dinner. We loooooove our cheese :) 

We split:

baby spinach salad: candied hazelnuts + Roth Käse blue cheese + cranberries + white balsamic

midwest cheese plate: capriole goat, sazon creamery big ed’s, roth kase gruyère surchoix, edelweiss emmenthaler, hook’s blue, midwest preserves

midwest meat plate: la quercia prosciutto, la quercia hot coppa, russo soppressata, maille mustard and cornichons

We got to the movie theatre just in the nick of time.  Ryan (that's him on the right, posing with Jeff Bridges and T Bone) came out and played us about 5 songs (including Weary Kind), then they showed the flick.

We really liked it. The music was great, Jeff Bridges (one of our all time faves - we even have a wall in the basement dedicated to our all time favorite movie - The Big Lebowski) gave an amazing performance.  If I had to give any criticism (this may be considered spoilery but I don't think it is....) it would be the lack of major conflict.  I can definitely appreciate them not throwing in conflict just for the sake of throwing in conflict but at the same time, a lot of things were built up to make them seem like they would provide conflict but then they just didn't... Don't get me wrong - I definitely recommend Crazy Heart!  Especially when you can see it for free preceded by an intimate concert from one of the Oscar nominees :)

Not a bad way to spend a Monday night, huh?

Thrift Store Finds

This is Miss Flighty (aka Alberta Straub).  She hosts a podcast called Cocktails on the Fly, which we love.  Unfortunately she hasn't put out a new one in over a year and a half... I don't know why, I miss her.  Does anyone know why?

Anyway, see in that picture above, that glass that she is pouring the Sidecar into? (in the lower right corner). Well we've been lusting after a set of glasses like those for a few years now.  But we didn't know what they were called and we could never find them at any stores. 

Well Saturday morning, I came across this snippet in the Food Network magazine

Ah ha!!! An answer... they are called Champagne Saucers! (And now that I think about it I've totally heard that phrase before and this is the glass I would picture if you said that phrase to me)

The Calvin Klein ones featured in the picture are $30 a piece..... no thanks.  We googled and ebayed and could not come up with any for less than $10 a piece.  Which is way too much money for people like us (who already own about 10000 cocktail glasses).  Apparently not too many people make them anymore so most of the ones you can find are vintage and thus pricey. 

Inspiration struck.... let's check the Thrift Store.  So we up and headed for the Salvation Army.  And for 48 cents a piece we picked up this set of 6!

Ha!  $10 for one or six for less than $3.

I believe that is roughly a 95% savings...

We also picked up the funky looking pitcher for only $2

Do these have a name?  There were 3 of them (all slightly different) at the Salvation Army so either one guy purged his collection or they were actually quite popular at some point in time.  I think it's pretty damn cool and am looking forward to whipping up a few rounds of drinks for friends at our next dinner party.

Adam wanted to show you guys how he put our new glasses to use shaking up one of Miss Flighty's favorite drinks - the Aviation.

Ingredients
2 oz Gin
3/4 oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
1 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice

Start with some crushed ice in your champagne saucer to chill the glass while you make the drink.  At the same time, make sure there is NO ICE in your shaker yet (lest it try to dilute your drink while you are pouring)

add your gin

your maraschino liqueur

and squeeze your fresh lemon juice

Ok, now you can add some ice to the shaker

shake it up baby!

dump the ice out of your chilled champagne saucer and pour the cocktail through a strainer (so the ice stays behind)

offer one to your lady first

after you've tried it of course! mmmmmmmm

2 other Salvation Army finds are hiding in this picture

Can you spot them?

Ok I'll tell you, it's this cute little birdy

I think he's made of some kind of metal. He's really heavy for his size!

And this vase/goblet/candlestick holder which I plan on making the base of a cakestand ala this idea I found at design*sponge. (I couldn't find a plate I liked though).

Valentine's Day 2010

What a romantic valentine's day we're having.  We're both sick!  100.6 degree temperature for me!

That didn't stop us from making one round of cocktails last night though.

 

We whipped up these Cranberry Margaritas from a recipe I spotted in Sunset magazine. We skipped the Cranberry juice cocktail though because who wants juice cocktail in a recipe with otherwise all fresh ingredients?  Not us!

For valentine's day breakfast this morning, Adam whipped up this amazing french toast from some bread I made from scratch.

Topped with blueberries, bananas, and walnuts.

I was working on Adam's card on Friday night when he came in and asked if it had a pop-up.... it didn't... so I added one!

I'm not sure if you can tell but the bright pink stuff is velvet flock... so it's all soft and fuzzy

Adam gave me this card (hopefully you recognize john locke from Lost):

He stuck it in my laptop so that when I opened it up in the morning I'd find it. (although I actually found it at 3am when I couldn't sleep because i was sweating to death in my fever-y state)

I looooved it!!!!

Currently, my man is in the kitchen cooking us up some Rib Eyes, potatoes, and brocolli (I of course had to make a batch of my favorite rosemary sea salt rolls).

No 100 degree temperatures or nagging coughs are going to keep us from celebrating Valentine's Day right :)

Camp Randall Classic

On Saturday, they froze Camp Randall Field (the football stadium up at University of Wisconsin - Madison) for a Michigan vs. Wisconsin hockey game.

The U of M alumni association had charted a bus up to Madison from Chicago which sounded like a blast to us!  We invited our friends Brent & Anj to come along.

 

There were 5 busses full of Michigan alumni, beer, wine, and food.

Contrary to what this picture may show you, most folks on the bus were our age ;)

Even though it's only a two hour drive up to Madison, this was more of a rolling tailgate so the bus ride wound up taking closer to 3.5 hours.  Which was fine with us because as I mentioned, the bus was full of beer & wine.

Clearly an outdoor hockey game in Wisconsin in February isn't the warmest place you can hang out so we all donned about 14 layers of clothing...

And contrary to what Adam's finger may be indicating... Michigan did not come out #1 at the end of this game :(

Even though we'd just taken the lead with only about 5 minutes left on the clock at this point...

I have to say, as a huge fan of the Detroit Redwings, I kept getting confused that I wasn't supposed to be rooting for the red and white team  :P

Florida Trip Recap

Before I recap our recent Florida trip... did you see that my kitchen remodel was featured on Young House Love yesterday?!?!?

It's so exciting to be featured on my favorite blog ever. If I showed you my blog stats you would die laughing at the spike in page views yesterday.... Literally jumped 1000%. Ha!

---

A few weeks back we took a long weekend trip down to Florida to visit my parents.  Our friend Chuck is a lawyer down in Miami so he drove up to meet us at my folks place on Friday night.  We did a bit of night fishing on the dock before heading to bed with plans of waking up early and taking the boat out for either a leisurely ride up the Inner Coastal or hopefully some deep sea fishing!

But, when we woke up it was cold and windy and a boat ride was out of the question at least until later in the afternoon.

So instead, we took a drive up to Fort Pierce in search of some manatees.  There was a story on the news about how all of the manatees were hanging out in the warm waters near the power plant so I figured this was my big chance to finally see one up close and personal.

This is as close as  we got...

yep... they may have been hanging out at a power plant, but not the one in Fort Pierce.  Instead we mulled around the big farmers market and  around town a bit.  It's really an adorable place, with lots of fun art such as:

Made from junk found in the area. 

Well it was nearing 11am and a boat ride was looking less and less likely so we started driving back when we found ourselves distracted by a sign that said "Honeybell Mimosa's 2 for 1"

If you don't live in Florida you probably don't know what a Honeybell is because they are only in season for 1 month out of the year and you can't get them anywhere else (unless, like me, your parents send you big flat rate boxes full of them). 

Honeybells are the sweetest, juiciest oranges ever and these mimosas were hands down the best we ever had.  And with the 2 for 1 special they were only $3 each!  If you are ever in Fort Pierce in January, stop at Buckshot Bay for them - they're a must try!

At this point it was almost noon and we figured we should head back to Hutchinson Island and check on the water to see if we could go out for a ride yet but then my dad mentioned this drive through bar where you could get a six pack of rum runners to go in Fort Pierce. He claimed that the Rum Runners were delicious (and potent), so of course we had to stop.  We picked up a six pack and took them to the beach back at my parents place to enjoy.

They come in these juice bottles and you are supposed to drink them in the paper bag with a straw so that you look really classy :)

See those big goofy smiles?  It means the rum is kicking in ;)

Well... the weather still wasn't ideal for boating so we headed out to lunch at the Riverwalk Cafe in downtown Stuart where we decided it would be fun to take bad pictures of everyone (including our cute waitress) (hmm... it appears Chuck escaped the bad picture taking)

We then decided to show Chuck the rest of the island including bathtub beach (which is shut down), sailfish point, and then the beautiful beach and rocks at the House of Refuge.

 

 

At this point it was about time for Chuck to head out so we bid him goodbye.

Of course the very next day the weather cleared up enough for us to go out deep sea fishing and ride around the inner coastal...

We only stayed out on the ocean for an hour or so as the waves wound up being a little bigger than planned and the fish weren't biting.

We took the boat to Shrimpers for lunch and then under the draw bridge to the Return of the Jolly sailor for a quick round of cocktails.

Besides these fun adventures we pretty much spent the rest of the time laying in the pool on innertubes with magazines and beer.  My favorite way to while away a day.

Our dinner with a Top Chef

Wednesday night we had the opportunity to attend one of Stephanie Izard's (a Top Chef winner from Chicago) Wandering Goat dinner.  These dinner parties take place at private residences for a group of people who are lucky enough to snag tickets before they sell out in 45 seconds.

The theme of Wednesday's dinner was sustainable seafood and the bar was stocked with beers from Dogfish Head and Three Floyds. (If only Dogfish Head owner Sam Calagione, pictured at the left, could have been there as one of the side dishes... hubba hubba! LOL)

Visual stimulations aside... let's move on to the venue.  The Wandering Goat dinner took place at the world's coolest bachelor pad.  The house was formerly a church in the Logan Square neighborhood.  It was gutted and turned into a gorgeous house a few years ago with 2 kitchens!

The food was created before our eyes at one of the three stations in the 2 kitchens.  You had to move around the house to get to try everything because the dishes all came out at different times.

So let's get to the food huh?

crisp calamari, pork sausage, bagna cauda, ruby grapefruit.

If you would have told me that one of my favorite flavor combinations of the night would come from a pairing of grapefruit, sausage, and calamari I would have said you were crazy.   But there was nothing funny about this amazing dish.  Loved it!

 

poached sturgeon, beef stew, melted brussel sprouts, black olives

While this wasn't one of our favorites, it was still a wonderful experiment with foods I would normally never put in my mouth (brussel sprouts and black olives) and the sturgeon was cooked perfectly!

 

crisp oysters, sesame leaves, bacon, french lentils, roasted mushrooms

This my friends, was my favorite of the night. That sauce had hints of lemon and garlic and the crisp french lentils... well I'm definitely going to have to figure out where to buy some of those.  I don't even care for mushrooms but this dish was pure heaven.

 

seared scallop, black garlic, fermented black beans, manzanilla olives, celery

This guy was our least favorite of the night.  I blame the fermented black beans. That's just not a flavor I can appreciate.

 

spot prawn soup, crisp pasta, fennel, creme fraiche

Those who know me, know that red peppers are my least favorite food in the whole world.  As far as I'm concerned, they ruin everything they touch.  They were featured quite prominently in this dish.  Yet, I loved it.  Just goes to show you, prepared the right way, anything can be delicious. Stephanie claimed this dish was the nights winner on her twitter page.

 

sliced hiramasa, crisp pork belly, aji aioli, meyer lemon

:(  We didn't get to try this.  I was so busy snapping pictures of it that I didn't reach out and grab one of these plates and it turned out, that had been all of the hiramasa they had left.  A lot of people I spoke to said it was their favorite.  Stephanie did serve us some of the pork belly ala cart though and it was scrumptious.

 

smoked trout salad, caperberry, blood orange, smoked almond

light, crisp, and refreshing.  yum!

 

brandade, crisp potato, salsa verde, smoked tomato, shredded ham

We loved the crispiness of the potato and all of the fresh cilantro in the salsa verde.  This was the last dish we had for the night and I can't remember much more about it...

 

black dog gelato

 

There were two different flavors of gelato, our favorite had toasted almonds and sea salt sprinked on top.  I will never eat ice cream again without sea salt sprinkled on top. Soooooooo good!

 

Here's a couple action shots of the chefs plating things up for hungry party goers

 

Look how cool we are hanging with the Top Chef!

This dinner was not cheap but for the experience, it was worth every penny.  We had great conversations, beer, and food like we'd never had before. What more can you ask for?

Thanks, Lake Effect Snow

Thanks to this we're holed up in a hotel in Benton Harbor, MI instead of seeing our sweet little kitties for the first time in 2 weeks :(

My Babies

The snow will not stop coming down in Chicagoland. But nothing warms the heart more than seeing all of my babies still nestled in bed together.

This is how we torture our cats

It's Christmas time, meaning we need to stuff our cats in these t-shirts from the $1 aisle at Target as has become tradition.

Don't let their faces or stiff bodies fool you - they love these shirts!

Well first, we put a santa hat on Kitty

But then out came the t-shirts, which sent Mr. Meowmers running for the hills

but the t-shirts pretty much paralyze them so they could only get so far before Adam corralled them in the new bay window

Are you not cracking up already at the look on Mr. Meowmers face right now?  Or his cleavage?

There's got to be some kind of way out of here.....

Please please please let us out of here

why do you hate us?

you let him go.... how about me?

Thanks for dropping him back off on top of me

Do you see how their t-shirts proclaim them to be "Santa's Little Helpers"?  LOL!

I wish I may I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight!

An escape is ever so near

Look at his fat booty!!!  He's sooo big! (I discovered this weekend while making chicken noodle soup, that he can actually stand on the ground and reach the countertops with his paws - what cat can do that?!?!)

But he's so pretty, n'est pas?

This one might be my favorite.

So, do you guts torture your pets during the holidays?  Do you have pictures to show to make my cats feel better?

Fall Nesting

I think they refer to this as fall nesting... this weekend my house was taken over by pumpkins.

First came the decorative pumpkins, picked them up at the farmer's market for $2. Saturday was the last day of the Farmer's Market for the whole season :(

The small pumpkins and gourds (on my cute new green table!)

The woven pumpkins

 

The glass pumpkins

and then, the baking pumpkins

which got sliced

and baked

and pureed  (this is what I did while passing out halloween candy. I had to wash pumpkin off my hands about 87 times)

and bagged

and turned into Pumpkin Five Spice Sweet rolls.

Ok, seriously... I didn't take a picture of these :(  They were so good!  I made 3 pans and gave one to my neighbors. One is still in the fridge. Maybe I'll take a picture when I bake that batch.

and turned into Pumpkin Butter

which is even better when smeared on crusty toasted bread with a little regular butter

and then there are pumpkin seeds...

which dried overnight on their baking sheets

and then were seasoned and baked this morning. Salted, Salted & Chinese Five Spice (Ground Cinnamon, Ginger, Anise, Star Anise, cloves), Lime & Chile

And I probably have enough pumpkin left over in the freezer now to make pumpkin flavored desserts for the next year.

Tonight, I decided to tackle Julia Childs' Boeuf Bourguignon. Apparently it was my goal to spend as much time as possible in the kitchen this weekend as I started that recipe 3 hours ago and it's still got at least 2 more before it's ready. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm serving these Buttered Rosemary Rolls alongside it. I've been watching the rolls rise for a few hours now and I cannot wait to see them all golden and rosemary topped!

Somebody loves me!!!!

So you may remember me speaking of Calamondin's before. The only place I've been able to find them is down at my parents place on Hutchinson Island. They're almost my favorite part of going down there.. So I bought a tree and tried to grow them myself.  Back in the spring, my tree looked like this:

Now it's dead....

I don't know what happened... I think it got too much water (not from me, from the Illinois rain of about a month or two ago).

I instantly plunged into a deep depression.

But today, a box arrived, and look what it was full of...

Oh those are Calamondins!! A whole box full!!!!

The box was labeled "Trick or Treat". 

Oh man was it a treat.  I literally jumped up and down.  LITERALLY!

Wanna know what the first thing I did was?

Got out a glass and filled it with Perfect Ice Cubes , and then the juice of 5 calamondins.  They are tiny little guys but they are 100% juice. just cut them in half and squeeze them between your fingers and all of their juice just oozes out.  I probably only needed 3 calamondin's in this drink. They are very concentrated. But I was soooo excited I kept squeezing.

Next, I added Vodka.  And promptly realized that by drinking out of this jar which has markings for every 4 ounces I was easily able to see just how much vodka was going into my drink...  well, we have a few shows to watch tonight (like Flash Forward!) so no problem!

Then, I just topped with Club Soda.

Did anyone else notice Calamondin's disappear between the last 2 pictures?

Dammit Adam, that is my stash!!!!

Thank you soooooooooooo much Mom and Dad!!! You have no idea how happy you made me tonight!  3 hours later I'm still drinking my Calamondin Cocktail.  Well.... it may have gotten refilled once..... ;)

Best drink ever!

I definitely owe the grand finale kitchen renovation pictures but we're still loading up the cabinets and such so I'm going to wait a few days until we're totally done. 

Expect some sneak peaks in the next few days.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid, Thieves

Well that's it... I'm officially done driving my car to concerts in downtown Chicago.

For the second time in 16 months I've had my car window smashed in while enjoying a concert in the city.

As we're looking for a parking spot, Adam drops Erin and I off on the corner. At the last second, we decide we don't want our jackets or purses in the Sweat-ro where we were seeing The Gossip. So we open the car back up, toss in our stuff, and by some stroke of genius, I think to pick up our coats and drop them on top of the purses. When Adam parks the car, he thinks enough to take the GPS down and put it in his jacket pocket, which he then also tosses in the back seat on top of our coats.

Yes, we are brilliant! No thief will ever think there is anything valuable hiding under those jackets!!

Low and behold, we get back to the car to find the window smashed in, the glove box and center console both ripped open and their contents strewn everywhere.

What did they take?

• The GPS charger
• The GPS suction cup
• My car's user manual.

That's it.

Seriously.

No jackets, no purses, no GPS, no power inverter, neither of the two phone chargers that were right next to the GPS charger. Not even any of the money in the center console that was wide open!

Seriously.

Worst. Thieves. Ever.

I'm just dying to know what they're planning on doing with that users manual...

 

In case you are curious, we didn't bother filing a police report or calling the insurance company as we learned the first time this happened in Chicago... nobody really cares. And getting the window fixed is cheaper than my $250 deductible.

 

Oh and you know what else is awesome? Driving home on the highway at 1am when it's 40 degrees outside and you are missing one whole window. And having to wear sunglasses because you are afraid a piece of glass may fly loose.

A break from the kitchen reno!

I thought I'd take a brief break from the kitchen renovation to talk about our super fun weekend!

We started off by heading up to Pontiac, MI to see Sufjan Stevens at The Crofoot. He hasn't toured in 2 years and wasn't playing here in Chicago so that concert was the basis of our whole Michigan trip this weekend.

 

As always, Sufjan was amazing! He even played Majesty Snowbird which is my fave unreleased Sufjan song ever!

We had to wake up bright and early on Saturday morning (in the 5:00am hour) to head over to Ann Arbor to start tailgating for the Michigan vs. Indiana game!

And wouldn't you know it - we won!!!

That's 4 straight games so far this season. 1 more than the entire last season. 100% less losses than last season too! 

Speaking of last season, when we got home from the game, I was checking my email and up popped this one from Scrapbook Trends.  See that scrapbook page? It's mine!!!

The page is called "The Worst" and it's about the Michigan vs. Purdue game we went to last season. Both teams had the worst ratings in the Big 10 at the time and we took an early lead which made us start chanting "We're not the Worst!" over and over. 

But then we lost... so we were, indeed, the Worst...

At least it got me published in Scrapbook Trends!  Look for that layout in the October issue :)

By the way, it's a hybrid layout that uses one of my templates from Sketch Collection #26

2009 CBS Picnic

The annual Chicago Beer Society picnic is something we look forward to all year. For just $5 you get all the fabulous microbrew you can drink, and you get to sample the very best ribs, salsa, chilis, and desserts the Chicago beer community can cook up.

In previous years, Adam has won 3rd best salsa, and 1st best dessert.

This year he decided to enter the salsa, dessert, and chili competition (having never made chili before in his life!)

He started at the farmer's market to get fresh tomatoes for the salsa and fresh sweet corn from the farmer's market.

Then he headed out to our garden and finally picked this super ripe Jalapeno that has been on the vine for about 3 months now.

While he was out in the garden he realized our hops were finally flowering!

Yum!

The tomatoes got roasted

as did the peppers and garlic

It all got blended together and was fabulous but it didn't win any awards. Adam blames me. When people asked us what number our salsa was I kept telling them we were 18. We were 19... Salsa #18 placed third.  Oops. And you're welcome #18!

For the chili, Adam smoked 3 chickens the night before. We shredded them in the morning, added chicken broth, beans, the fresh sweet corn and spices..

He served it with fresh chopped cilantro, lime wedges, sour cream, and jack cheese.

It took 2nd place!!! (Out of 20 chilis!) Not bad for someone who has never even made chili before.

For dessert, he cooked up his famous (and 2008 1st place winning) Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies.  This year they took 3rd.

Unfortunately they gave out the awards in the final seconds of the Michigan/Notre Dame game (we'd brought a TV out to the picnic so we wouldn't miss it).  Adam ran as fast as he could when he heard his name and only left because it was a commercial.

Congrats Adam!!

Friend and 2008 chili winner, Thomas, took home the big honors again this year for best chili!

 

A few pictures of Charlie, Adam's brother's girlfriends dog. He's like a big bear. He got to enjoy many of the delicious ribs :)

Now to start planning our entries for the 2010 picnic!