Feast of the Seven Fishes

Pin It now! For Christmas Eve this year, Michael cooked us a feast, literally.  As an Italian tradition, Christmas Eve is all about fish and seafood and a lot of families make a big feast of fish stew, baccala, stuffed clams, etc.  Michael made EVERYTHING (and I made the salad - yeah, I helped!).

Appetizers

Bacon-wrapped scallops

Mini crab cakes

Steamer Clams

Lobster and Fish Cakes

Shrimp Cocktail

Soup & Salad

Fish Stew

Mixed Green Salad with Apples and Candied Walnuts

Main Course

Crab Stuffed Halibut

Lobster Ravioli with Lobster Wine Sauce

There were only six of us and there were certainly more than seven fishes, but we ate everything (even though the meal lasted over five hours) and were beyond full.  We ended the night with a mouth-watering raspberry and chocolate mousse cake from Martha's Country Bakery.  I liked how Christmas was quieter this year with less traveling.  It gave us more time to drink, talk, eat, and be merry. 

Christmas Cookies & Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Pin It now! This holiday season, I think we did well trying to stretch it out as long as could.  We started by making Christmas cookies - my Mom and I have been trying to make this an annual tradition.  We used the same gingerbread cookie recipe from a couple of years ago, and after a disastrous first attempt at sugar cookies (which turned into giant cookie the size of a sheet pan), we went back to basics and used Alton Brown's recipe.  My favorite was the gingerbread, but it seemed like the linzer-like sandwich cookies were the hit this year.

Michael and I also hosted an ugly Christmas sweater party this year at a bar down the street.  It was hilarious and some people were really creative (uh, pinning Santas where you don't usually pin Santas), while others borrowed sweaters from their mother-in-laws.  We held a contest where the bar staff chose their favorite - Justin's grossly oversized snowman sweater won, with Greg's original 1980's Pierre Cardin sweater coming in second.  Everyone was a little surprised Trish's homemade, Christmas-lit, music-playing, ornament-adorned sweater didn't win, but there's always next year.  There were a lot more funny and funky sweaters, but I don't think I got all of them.  Again, next year.

Labor Day Eats

Pin It now! What else is new?  We ate and drank this weekend.  There might have been pickle back shots, carnitas tacos, pork buns,

There was a blue moon this weekend too.  It got lost in all the lights in the photo below but believe me, it was fabulous. 

Happy July 4th! (with orange creamsicle Jello shots)

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Enjoy your middle of the week holiday.  

Hopefully you have the rest of the week off!

And make some Jello shots - your friends will love you!  I made a combo of orange creamsicle Jello shots and Jello shot slices adapted from this recipe.  Happy Independence Day America!

Orange Creamsicle Jello Shots
3 large oranges
2 small package orange flavored Jello
1 1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup juice from the oranges
1 1/2 cup (or a lot more) orange whipped creme vodka (I used vanilla vodka)

Directions:
1. Slice oranges in half. Juice the oranges and reserve the juice. Using a spoon, scoop out all the remaining flesh and pith.
2. In a bowl, mix jello and boiling water until powder is dissolved. Add orange juice and vodka and mix thoroughly.
3. Put the orange halves in muffin tins. Pour the liquid into the halves.  I poured the remaining liquid in Jello shot cups.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for approximately 4 hours or overnight. You can also put in the freezer for 15 minutes to speed things up.
4. When jello is very firm firm, slice each half into 4 sections. Makes about 24 shot slices + more Jello shots.

Catch Up

Pin It now! Hi there, remember me?  I'm not going to mention that I haven't written for over a month.  Ok, there I said it but let's move on.  I've been busy with work, cooking, weekends, birthdays.... here's a 10 second photo montage of what's been happening here in BK.

Our non-existent winter and the fabulous transition into an already very warm spring.

Trying to get through Hunger Games before the movie comes out.

Getting back into volleyball and anxiously awaiting the start of dodgeball.

Running outside again (signed up for this 5K).

kagetter on flickr

Celebrating Chinese New Year (four times)

Chinese New Year

Pin It now! Chinese New Year...twice at a neighbor's apartment, once at ours (where I made everything except the Peking Duck), and lastly at my cousin's (new and gigantic) house in NJ.  We better have a lot of good luck this year.

And I can't stop watching this New Year Shuffle that Lorraine sent me.  I already jump up out of my seat whenever I hear this song and having it used for a dragon dance makes it that much better.

Happy Holidays!

Pin It now! Some scenes from the week...

Have a wonderful holiday!

Lots of Holiday Parties

Pin It now! My work holiday party was uneventful, which is always a good thing for a Compliance department.  Two co-workers did end the night with an ugly sweater showing though.  These were one of the guy's mom's old sweaters!  I told them I wouldn't post showing their faces, but would ask which one everyone thought was the "ugliest". I'm not sure... they're both pretty awesome.

On a very different note, we had our annual Jingle Mingle last night.  Most of the NJ kids made it and we had an amazing amount of food.  I was in a food coma most of the night and I'm not sure how I managed to get home from Hoboken with more food than I brought.  Adele, Elf and DDD also got us through the night.  Another fun night!

The Weekend

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How was your weekend?  I never thought I would say it, but I'm excited it's gotten colder.  It didn't feel like December (or the holidays for that matter) with 60 degree weather.  Now that it's 30s/40s and windy, I feel like we can enjoy our holidays Northeast style.  I started the (long) weekend with a gift wrapping party at work.  Every year, our division holds a toy drive and then we have a party to wrap all the toys.  It was as close to Santa's workshop (with beer and chips) as we could get.  We wrapped 350 gifts and now they're off to the Children's Rescue Fund.  Now if only I can motivate my neighbors to donate more than the 12 gifts we have right now for our building toy drive...

We also had a building holiday party.  Seriously, this place is amazing...the holiday party had a sushi station, pasta station and a band.  It was nice to mingle but there are so many more people that have moved in that we didn't know.  It was nice when we knew all our neighbors and people in the elevator, but it's starting to feel like the large building it really is and can get lost in. 



And I stumbled on the Holiday Train Show in the Grand Central's NY Transit Museum Annex.  I've been trying to go every year, but couldn't seem to find the tiny store.  Finally, as I was trying to make my way home before our holiday party (first trying to catch the ferry connecting bus but missing it even after tracking the bus with the website's gps, then walking the entire Grand Central Terminal, and connecting twice on the subway), I found my way to the train show.  So cute...there's something about miniature scenes that are so wonderful.