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.

Our Weekends....Lately

Pin It now! Driving under gorgeous skies to NJ to celebrate Pete's 40th birthday. His sister added a few signs on his lawn to make sure everyone knew it was his birthday.

The dumpling eating contest was in our hood this year.  The men's winner ate 74 and the women's 46.  Gross!

Bellydancing with neighbors.  Neighbors opening a new Italian cafe with coffee and delicious pastries.  It was a soft opening this weekend and the official opening day is coming really soon.

Spending a beautiful afternoon brunching and shopping with my sister.

Staten Island Block Party

Pin It now! A couple of weeks ago, we headed out to Staten Island to my sister-in-law's house for a block party.  I'm not sure how it's taken me 7 years to finally go to one.  Let me tell you, it was fun!  There was an inflatable water slide set up right in front of her house.  It was gigantic and unfortunately only for the kids.  The night became even more fun when one of M's cousins "forced" us to do lemon drops.  After that, it was hula hoop contests, DJ'ed music, silly string mayhem, and good old family time.  There was also a lady walking up and down the street with a cart full of silly string, poppers, light swords, whistles - you name it, she had it...at 3x the price.  The kids kept buying and running back to their parents (or grandpa) for more money.  Smart lady...

The Last Few Weekends

Pin It now! A couple of weekends ago (yes, I'm still catching up from a few weeks ago!), we caught Grand Street Walks where they closed Grand Street off for a block party.  Allison and I really wanted to get our face painted but the line (with other children) was too long.  Next time.  We celebrated Bastille Day with bottles of champagne, macaroons, and lots of photos with berets (yeah, not sterotypical at all).

Michael and I also ventured out with Annie and Pauly B to South Williamsburg.  After a wardrobe malfunction delayed us, we began our ad-hoc crawl at Crown Victoria.  It's hilarious and amazing discovering random places - who knew there was a huge backyard lot in the middle of no where and where hipsters come early to drink and play cornhole?  We eventually made it to our original destination, Bia Bar & Grill, and pleasantly stuffed ourselves with Vietnamese food (minus the bahn mi, not on the menu, strange).  We did manage to shoot a Cowboy Mimosa though.  Because we apparently have a food addiction and find friends who suffer from the same ailment, we ended our night with late night eats at La Esquina.

Hello February

Pin It now! I know, we're already into the first week of February so it's not really timely to start a post the way I did.  I'm obviously way beyond in posting.  I still have to tell you about our four Chinese New Year dinners.  That's right...four...but that will have to wait until tomorrow.  Let's recap the weekend.  This past weekend and the entire year so far has been a great example of global warming.  It was in the 50's...in February!  Anyway, I started out with a bridal shower in Chappaqua.  It was originally going to be in Manhattan, but there was a little confusion about party-booking fees and all that fancy Manhattan ho-hum.  Ideally, the next option would have been in Brooklyn since the bride, several neighbors who were in attendance (yeah, me) and the groom's family were all coming from Brooklyn.  We all ended up in Chappaqua at one of the bridesmaid's house.  I admit it's beautiful up there and we drove through Pleasantville (sound familiar?), but after 45 minutes driving and only going 5 miles through Queens, almost having a car side-swipe us, and the GPS giving us bad directions, we had wished the lovely party was closer to home.  They did have delicious food (including a drop dead delicious pesto pasta salad) and a tiramisu cake, which saved trip.  Thank goodness for the delicious dinner at Jadis and much-needed dancing at Fat Baby with my girls that night to celebrate Cyndi's birthday to make up for a long afternoon.  As someone said to me today we partied like we were in our twenties.  (Sad...)

Yesterday, we went over a neighbor's place to watch the Superbowl.  Michael made pulled pork sliders.  Ridiculously delicious, and I'm not just saying that because he feeds me on a regular basis.  The host wanted to hide them so that she could have the leftovers for lunch.  They were gone in about 15 minutes.  They were that good. 

Like most of his creations, no formal recipe.  5 lb. pork shoulder cooked in the crock pot for 6 hours (garlic and onion powder, orange juice, and a packet of beef ramen seasoning).  We cut hot dog buns into thirds and topped the pork with pickles.  Oh, and I guess the game was fantastic too!

The (Long) Weekend

Pin It now! I took a couple of days off from work and this past weekend felt like a whole week off.  It was great.  On Friday, I started my day trying to find vanilla vodka and then making a test batch of orange creamsicle jello shots (more on that in a bit).  We agreed to dog-sit our friends' dog which seemed like a fantastic idea - I've always wanted a dog.  Our friends came by to drop off Allie, an adorable poodle mix, and told us she wouldn't be trouble at all.  Generally, she was a delight and such a cutie.  Specifically though, she freaked out wen we put her in her cage at night to go to bed and wouldn't stop crying and barking.  We felt bad so on Saturday night we let her stay in our room, but she was up all hours.  Every hour, she would circle the bed, want to play and tried to jump on the bed.  It felt like we were new parents with a newborn!  So sadly, I've changed my mind about having a dog.  Or only having a dog that doesn't shed and sleeps through the night.  I also met up with the girls that night to watch Crazy, Stupid Love.  Loved it.  It makes me secret crush adore Ryan Gosling, although not as much as when I saw him in the Notebook (in case you needed a frame of reference).  The movie was sad and funny at the same time, Steve Carrell was good like that.

On Saturday, Hubs and I were exhausted (him more than me since he got up to take care of the dog a few more times).  He was still able to haul massive bags of meat and vegetables back from the Meat Market in Hell's Kitchen (near our old apartment) back to Brooklyn for the party we were going to throw (more on that in a bit).  I'm not sure how he got all that food home in one try, but he did and saved a ridiculous amount of money since that meat market is so inexpensive!  The meat section is a big meat locker that you walk into and the butchers are inside butchering the meat right in front of you.  I'm not sure why it's so cheap though...  Saturday night, we celebrated our anniversary and Hub's birthday at Zenkichi.  We've passed this place every day and it's like a secret garden on the outside and a haunted house on the inside.  It sounds strange, but if you go there, you'll know what I mean.  We had the omakase menu and sampled eight delicious small dishes: Japanese yam miso soup, a late of amuse-bouche (my favorite was the baby yellowtail sashimi), asparagus-scallop-corn tempura, homemade tofu salad, miso cod, lamb chop tataki (I wish she had ten of these!), tuna donburi and frozen black sesame mousse (hubby had the Mineoka Tofu that tasted like panna cotta).  The meal was absolutely amazing!  We were both ridiculously full and ridiculously content after dinner.  If only we could go every night...

On Sunday, we continued our long weekend of anniversary and birthday celebrations, and Michael planned a full day of surprises.  I have to say I hate surprises... ok, not true.  I hate not knowing what the surprise is, I love the other side of the surprise and the end result of whatever the surprise will be.  I asked Michael dozen of times what we were doing but he held strong.  Finally, I found out (when we were actually there) that were were having brunch at Maison, one of favorite crepe places, AND the Cirque du Soleil show Zarkana.  The show was amazing - my favorites were the Wheel of Death, where two brothers are doing leaps and somersaults, at one point blindfolded, on two gigantic spinning wheels, and Ellen Chen who fingerpainted in blue sand these amazing (AMAZING) images of the first half of the show and then a preview of the second half of the show.

Ok, I think we need a little break before I get to the rest of the weekend....

Homemade Pizza & Hot Wine Sunday

Pin It now! My first attempt at homemade pizza.  It actually came out better than expected.  I guess it's true what they say about it - even bad pizza is good pizza...or something like that.

Pizza dough from Whole Foods
Crushed tomatoes with basil
4-cheese Pizza cheese (low sodium)
Pepperoni
Grated Parmesan cheese

1. Let the dough sit out in room temperature for at least 1-2 hours so it's easier to stretch.  Stretch dough out on a pizza crisper or pizza pan.  Let it sit for 5 minutes.  Stretch it out again.
2. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees
3. Lightly brush with olive oil or butter.  Use a fork to dot the entire pizza with small holes
4. Cook the dough for 10-15 minutes
5. Let it cool for 5 minutes.  Add sauce, cheese, and pepperoni and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.
6. Cook for another 15-20 minutes.
7. Cool for 5 minutes.  Enjoy!!

After our pizza lunch, we headed to see the French for their Hot Wine Sunday party.  Delicious mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, homemade apple pie, hot apple cider, cheese and more wine.  What more could you ask for on a freezing NYC afternoon?  Stay tuned, the French are hosting an Ugly Sweater Party in a few weeks.  Lots of fabulous photos to come...