Christmas Odds and Ends

Christmas here at the House of Boy and Girl was spent with Michelle's family. Her grandparents, two brothers, and sister came over for the day. We all had a nice dinner - leg of lamb, potatoes, tabbouleh (from the recipe in the post below) and green beans, along with a couple of wines and assorted cookies and ice cream for dessert. This was Dan's first experience with lamb, and I think it turned out ok. A tiny piece at the first pass, and then a heaping pile of seconds.


The table, pre-feast (please note the new everyday use plates we got for Christmas)


Nathan demonstrates brotherly love to Joella


After dinner, we all played Trivial Pursuit, boys vs. girls. Grandmother and Grandfather were so eager to answer questions that they occasionally answered for the wrong team...



Fang and Errol got new blankets from Jeff's family. Fang had plenty of fun ripping into the package. Errol saved his fun for the blankets themselves.





Miscellaneous Christmas decor from around the house

Rick Tramonto's Moroccan Lamb with Tabbouleh and Crispy Garlic

We spent a day a couple of weekends ago trying new recipes. We picked several out of one of our cookbooks that we love to read, but have never actually cooked anything from: "Amuse-Bouche" by Rick Tramonto. Then we narrowed it down to two recipes and hit the grocery store. The first recipe we tried didn't turn out so well, so we're not going to talk about that one until we get it right. This one, however, was quite tasty and pretty easy. It's broken into three main steps: the tabbouleh, the garlic, and the lamb. We made the tabbouleh and the garlic a couple of hours ahead of the lamb. As you can see from the picture below, we turned it into two main courses for dinner, instead of the six amuse bouche sized servings that the recipe actually makes. It will taste good served hot or cold, I'd do hot in the winter and cold in the summer (duh).


Ingredients:
1/2 cup bulger
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons finely diced tomato
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 pound lamb shank or shoulder
1 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped celery
3 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves
2 cups dry red wine
Vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced paper thin

Instructions for the Tabbouleh:
1. Add the bulgur to a large pot of lightly salted boiling water. Reduce the heat and simmer the bulgur for 10 to 12 minutes or until just tender (ours took closer to 15 minutes). Drain the bulgur in a colander. Allow to cool and then transfer to a small shallow bowl.
2. Add the lemon juice, parsley, tomato, and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and toss until all the grains are coated with the dressing. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate.

Instructions for the Lamb:
3. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F.
4. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil in a medium-sized, heavy-bottomed casserole or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When the oil is almost smoking, add the lamb and sear for 8 to 12 minutes or until nicely browned on all sides.
5. While the lamb is browning, add the onions, carrots, and celery to the pan along with the thyme. Stir the vegetables occasionally.
6. Add the red wine and cook until reduced to a few tablespoons. Add enough water to cover the lamb and bring to a boil, stirring the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to dissolve any browned solids into the liquid.
7. Remove from the heat and cover the casserole with a tight-fitting lid. Place in the center of the oven and cook for 1 hour or until the meat is tender and almost falling off the bone. Set aside and allow to cool. When cool, refrigerate the lamb until serving. Discard the vegetables and herbs. (We think we'll reserve some of the veg and broth next time and puree it to make a little sauce to go with the dish.)

Instructions for the Garlic:
8. Pour the vegetable oil into a small, deep saucepan to a depth of 1 1/2 inches. Heat over medium heat until a deep-frying thermometer registers 325 deg F.
9. Fry the garlic slices in the oil for 1 to 2 minutes or until they turn golden. Watch carefully because they fry very quickly. Remove from the oil with a slotted spoon to a paper towel to drain. Transfer to a flat plate, season with salt, and allow to cool completely. As they cool, the fried garlic slices will become very crispy.

To serve:
10. To serve, pull or cut the meat from the bone and cut into small pieces. Place some of the tabbouleh on each of 6 small plates along with some lamb. Top each serving with crispy garlic.

(The picture above shows what happens if you turn the 6 small servings into 2 bigger servings. We used an 8" pasta plate for our service. In other words, if you're making this for a family of four, I'd double the recipe, and have an additional side dish ready.)

Decorating for Christmas

Joella came over on Thursday night to help us put up and decorate the Christmas tree. We had fun...

We did this for EVERY ornament :P

Michelle with one of our ornaments from Germany

Joella with a "warp drive" ornament

Michelle points the flash in the wrong direction while Jeff poses nicely by the tree

One of the ornaments from our wedding seven years ago

Thanksgiving

We packed up the pups and ourselves and drove over to St. Louis to see Jeff's family for the Thanksgiving holiday and weekend. We arrived a couple of hours before dinner which allowed us to get settled in before the house was invaded by all of Jeff's relatives. We had a nice dinner together, and then spent a couple of hours chatting and looking through old photo albums together before everyone headed home for the night.

Errol in his Thanksgiving garb

Aunt Mary Jane gets the pie fixins ready

Jeff's mom, Bev, with Errol and Jeff

Aunt Lynn, Nikki with Cousin Brad, Grandma A, Ken (Jeff's Dad), and Uncle Larry

Cousin Steve and his wife, Joyce, with Errol

Jeff and Grandma J

Fang sports a Thanksgiving bandanna

On Friday, Jeff and I got up early to go into the city to visit a couple of stores to look at plates and to visit our wine storage locker. Yes, we were aware of the potential dangers of shopping for plates on Black Friday, but it really wasn't so bad. The first place we stopped was a mall to visit Pottery Barn. We parked pretty close because it wasn't crowded at all, waltzed right in to inspect the plates, and waltzed right on back out. We had an appointment with our wine locker guy after that, and it only took about 10 minutes to clear out our locker and we were on our way again, this time over to Crate and Barrel. We parked close again, and the store wasn't crowded at all, so we were able to find our plates and get help ascertaining if they had anything in stock. They didn't, but we were able to at least see the plates we thought we wanted, determine that we did want them, and then order them when we got back home (they should arrive on Tuesday, yay!).

We got back to Jeff's parents' house in the middle of the afternoon and sorted our wine into smaller boxes for transport back home. Then we headed out again for a nice dinner at Annie Gunn's with Jeff's parents. We try to take them out when we visit over the holidays as a Christmas gift to them. We had a good time at dinner and the food was delicious.

Jeff's parents, Bev and Ken, open their 2009 puppy calendar

Ken waits patiently for dinner

Saturday morning was spent at the gym (had to work off those giant steaks from the night before). After that, we were invited over to one of Jeff's friend's parents' house to watch the KU-Mizzou football game, so we went over there at about 11:30. His friend, David, is married (to Janet) and has two cute daughters (Cora and Lucy), one of whom we hadn't met before, so it was fun to catch up with them, as well as with Brian, the older brother, and Sandy and Lawson, the parents. We got to watch the game in HD on a 50" or so television, which was cool. I think we'd be all over getting one of those if we didn't already have three perfectly funtioning old-school tv's and one living room that I'm not so sure I want to have to redecorate/rearrange to accommodate a huge television. Oh, and we're too cheap to upgrade our cable to get all the HD channels... :) Anyway, KU won the game, which was a pleasant surprise for two of us, and a disaster for the rest of the group. Ha ha.

Cora, David, Lucy and Jeff

Sandy and Cora (Grandma and Granddaughter, aww!)

Saturday night was spent over at Jeff's Grandma J's house for dinner and conversation with her and his aunt, Mary Jane. Mary Jane smoked her famous ribs for dinner and we had a traditional bbq meal with cole slaw and potato salad. Jeff's mom made a cake to share for dessert.

Sunday was spend with Jeff's Grandma A. We ate out for lunch and then spent the afternoon back at his parents' house with her. We snuck in another trip to the gym that afternoon and rounded out the evening watching a movie.

We drove back home on Monday on a really, really, really cold and windy day. We brought our winter coats with us, but managed to forget gloves and hats and scarves. Our rest area visit to walk the dogs was not a pleasant experience. Thank goodness for seat heaters in the car! We made it home in time to get in a trip to the grocery store and a couple of loads of laundry before we started the work week.

Yearbook Yourself

Yearbook Yourself is a pretty funny website that I found through a friend's Facebook site today. You upload a picture of yourself, make a few adjustments, choose a mall(?), and out pop several photos from over the years. There are some fabulous hairstyles in there!

Here are some of my results, starting with the recent years...

1998
(I think my current style can do this)

1996
(I went blonde for a change)

1994
(My graduation year - my hair was NOT this big!)

1990
(Smells like AquaNet!)

1986
(Crispy!)

1978
(If only I had this volume)

1972

1968
(Flip!)

1966
(Face framing cuts always do look nice on me)

1952
(I'm so very proper)

An afternoon of cooking

We tried a couple of new recipes yesterday afternoon, one for a dish we were already familiar with, and one for a dish we weren't all that familiar with. The familiar dish was tiramisu, which we've both had out at restaurants before, but never made at home, and the other dish was prawn bisque. Of course, prawns are not available in Wichita grocery stores, so we had to improvise and substitute shrimp instead. Both dishes came out pretty well. I think we soaked our ladyfingers in the coffee mixture a little longer than we should have, because the tiramisu was rather damp. It was really good, and just melted away in the mouth, but the moisture content was a bit higher than I'd like it to be if we were to serve it to guests someday. The bisque was pretty good, but we think we'd thicken it a bit more than the recipe calls for next time we make it.

Shortly after dinner, when it came time to do our huge pile of dishes and clean the stove that we spilled soup all over and take our showers after mowing the lawn and hitting the gym, we noticed that our water pressure was greatly diminished. We called a neighbor, who said that theirs was down as well (he was in the middle of giving his young son a bath). So, Jeff called the water company to report it. It didn't come back until after midnight, so we had a pile of extra yucky dishes to wash this morning and are both craving a shower right about now. I'm so thankful for indoor plumbing!

Here are some pictures of dinner and the recipes for the bisque and the tiramisu. Both were pretty easy, just dirty dish intensive.

The bisque stock simmering away

The finished shrimp bisque

We also had caprese salad with dinner

The tiramisu with topping applied in an "attractive manner"

The tiramisu after smearing the topping all over and adding CHOCOLATE!!!

Prawn Bisque Recipe
(from "The Cook's Encyclopedia of French Cooking" by Clements and Cohen)
Serves 6-8

1 1/2 lb small or medium cooked prawns in the shell
1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions, halved and sliced
1 large carrot, sliced
2 celery sticks, sliced
8 cups water
a few drops of lemon juice
2 tbsp tomato puree
bouquet garni
4 tbsp butter
1/3 cup plain flour
3-4 tbsp brandy
2/3 cup whipping cream
salt and white pepper

1. Remove the heads from the prawns and peel away the shells, reserving the heads and shells for the stock. Chill the peeled prawns. (We used the shrimp shells, and in place of the heads, about 1/4 of our shrimp bodies.)
2. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the prawn heads and shells and cook over a high heat, stirring frequently, until they start to brown. Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions, carrot and celery and fry gently, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes until the onions start to soften.
3. Add the water, lemon juice, tomato puree and bouquet garni. Bring the stock to the boil, then reduce the heat, cover and simmer gently for 25 minutes. Strain the stock through a sieve.
4. Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the flour and cook until just golden, stirring occasionally. Add the brandy and gradually pour in about half of the prawn stock, whisking vigorously until smooth, then whisk in the remaining liquid. Season with salt, if necessary (it was very necessary), and white pepper. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. (At this point, we decided the stock was a little thin, so we pureed about 1/3 of our remaining shrimp into the stock. This greatly enhanced the flavor and the texture.)
5. Strain the soup into a clean saucepan. (We skipped this part, deeming it unnecessary.) Add the cream and a little extra lemon juice to taste, then stir in most of the reserved prawns and cook over a medium heat, stirring frequently, until hot. Serve at once, garnished with the reserved prawns.

Tiramisu Recipe
(from "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian" by Jeff Smith)
Serves 6 (or 10, if you go with our size servings)

The Filling
1 1/2 cups espresso or triple-strength regular coffee at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brandy
2 egg yolks
1 pound mascarpone cheese
1 8-ounce package ladyfingers
4 oz semisweet chocolate, shaved

The Icing
1 cup fresh whipping cream
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar

Garnishes
Cocoa powder for dusting
Additional shaved chocolate

1. Stir the espresso, sugar and brandy together in a mixing bowl until the sugar dissolves. Remove 1/3 cup of the mixture to another bowl and set the remainder aside. Whisk the egg yolks into the 1/3 cup of coffee mixture. Add the mascarpone and whisk together until just smooth.
2. Line the inside of a 9 1/2 by 5 1/2 inch loaf pan with a large sheet of wax paper.
3. Dip the ladyfingers one at a time into the reserved coffee mixture and begin to place them crosswise in the lined pan. The ladyfingers should be soaked with coffee and may expand a little. Be careful not to soak them too long lest they fall apart. Continue with more ladyfingers, lining the bottom of the pan lengthwise with them.
4. Spread half the cheese mixture over the ladyfingers. Sprinkle with 2 oz of the shaved chocolate.
5. Layer again in the same manner with 7 more ladyfingers, the remaining cheese mixture, and the remaining shaved chocolate. Top the loaf pan off with the remaining soaked ladyfingers.
6. Fold the wax paper up around the top of the pan and cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 6 hours.
7. Invert the chilled loaf pan onto a serving platter and tap the bottom of the pan to remove the loaf. Remove the wax paper.
8. Place the cream, vanilla and confectioners' sugar in a bowl and whip until stiff. Spread the whipped cream all over the cake in an attractive manner. Place the cocoa in a fine strainer and dust the top of the cake. Sprinkle with additional shaved chocolate. Slice and serve.

Home maintenance

We worked our booties off this weekend. We started on Saturday morning with a borrowed pressure washer (thanks, Van!) and attacked some peeling paint on some trim on the front of our house and around our garage doors. We just had a few small spots that were peeling, but we didn't want the situation to get worse before we did anything about it. The trim is rough cedar, which makes it difficult to use a scraper on, so we pressure washed it, which effectively removed most of the paint, whether it was peeling or not.

Jeff washes the window

Jeff peels paint off the trim

I'm helping... really!

After getting the paint off the trim, we washed the brick, the porch, the back of the house, and the back deck, which was returned to its original gray color, rather than staying the slightly green hue it had developed. Then we took a break to run some errands (pick up winterizer for the lawn, pick up replacement glass for some of our light fixtures, pick up dog treats, detour to Linens-n-Things for their going out of business sale, score a cheap roasting pan and some wood hangars, pick up Chipotle for lunch) and let the trim dry. We spent the afternoon taping and priming the trim, and collapsed afterwards for a relaxing evening at home.

We took advantage of our extra hour on Sunday morning to get our grocery shopping done and toss some beef stew in the crock pot (thanks, Mary and Luis!) before church so we could spend the afternoon painting the trim and winterizing the lawn. Those tasks didn't take nearly as long as Saturday's tasks did, which meant we were able to get over to the gym for a quick workout before sitting down to enjoy dinner. We felt like very responsible homeowners when all was said and done. We also felt like bad disciples because the sermon on Sunday morning was about keeping the Sabbath... sigh.

Errol vs. the Vacuum Cleaner

We've had a couple of rather uneventful weeks since our last post. Our weekends have been spent cleaning the house and doing laundry (sorry, no exciting concerts or travels to report) and our weeks have been the normal routine of work, gym, and quiet evening at home, with a little Wednesday night church thrown in here and there, and a couple visits from Joella.

We did get to hear the columnist Cal Thomas speak at our church last Sunday night, and we enjoyed that. We didn't really know anything about him before we went other than he was the most widely syndicated columnist in the nation (or something to that effect). His talk essentially focused on what the Bible teaches us about our role as citizens. One of the most important reminders he gave us was that it is ultimately God's will that is going to determine which candidate will win the upcoming election, so even if your favorite one doesn't make it, we are obligated to pray for the one that does. (No, that doesn't get you out of going to vote.)

Now, lest you think we have no fun around here while spending our weekends cleaning, I give you...

Errol vs. the Vacuum Cleaner

No, we don't know why he does this. He only started doing it about a year ago. He managed to have a civil relationship with the vacuum cleaner for the first three years of his life, and then he apparently just snapped. He doesn't particularly like the hand vac, either. I will admit to a teensy weensy bit of encouragement of this particular quality in Errol because it really does make this chore more entertaining. :)

The weekend so far

We started the weekend with a Michael Buble concert on Friday night. It was great - the guy really can sing. The best, or perhaps most pleasantly surprising, part of the show was his band. He had a backup band of 3 trumpets, 2 trombones, 3 saxophones, a drummer, a bassist, a guitarist and a pianist. They were all outstanding musicians, and the orchestration of each piece was quite good. There was one trumpet player in particular who just blew us away with his talent. If these guys are ever in your area, you should definitely check them out. The show can be a bit irreverant at times, but the quality of the music was just phenomenal.


We spent much of the day Saturday cleaning our house, fun, fun. We didn't finish, so we'll get to do some more of that next weekend. We took a break late in the afternoon to see a couple of the houses in this fall's Parade of Homes. We toured a nice $2.5M home (that's a lot here in Wichita) with a nifty wet bar in the basement that looked quite similar to what I have planned to install in our basement sometime in the next 20 years. The house also had amazing trim work throughout and some very nice faux painted ceilings. The weirdest thing was that it had a warming drawer in the bathroom. Yes, a warming drawer. It wasn't disguised in any way, it was just this appliance sitting in the middle of a bunch of built-in drawers in a cabinet. We assumed it was for warming towels, and the builder confirmed that it was. We wondered why he didn't just install a heated towel rack, and he looked at us like we were crazy. The house also had a wine cellar area behind the wet bar in the basement that was about 12 feet by 5 feet. I'd venture to say that you could put 1000 bottles in there if you were smart about it. Unfortunately, they weren't, and had installed mostly regular cabinets and a few diamond racks in there for a bottle capacity of about 30. Sigh. What a waste.

After the house tour, we stopped off at the grocery store to pick up a rack of lamb and some other ingredients for dinner. Jeff's been wanting to "cook" all week (apparently weeknight meals don't count because they don't take as long). We made a yummy mushroom dish that we've made before, but this time we served it over some gnocchi. It was a nice accompaniment to the lamb and our green beans. Here's a picture of the mushrooms (note the use of our new dishes!) and the recipe:


Mushroom Stuff, adapted from a Tyler Florence recipe:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter
Extra-virgin olive oil
2 pounds assorted mushrooms (cremini, oyster, shiitake, chanterelle, or white), trimmed and sliced
Leaves from 2 fresh thyme sprigs
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup Cabernet Sauvignon
1/4 cup reserved beef broth or drippings from whatever you're roasting
Splash of heavy cream
1 tablespoon minced chives

Place a clean skillet over medium heat.
Add the butter and a drizzle of oil.
When the butter starts to foam, add the mushrooms and the thyme, then season with salt and pepper.
Stir everything together for a few minutes.
Add the red wine, stirring to scrape up any stuck bits; then cook and stir to evaporate the alcohol.
When the wine is almost all gone, add the beef juices or reserved drippings.
Let the liquid cook down and then remove from the heat.
Stir in the cream and the chives, and adjust the seasoning as needed.

We serve this sauce as an accompaniment to beef or lamb roasts, or over gnocchi.

A weekend with my grandparents

We spent the weekend with my grandparents at their house in Manhattan. We drove up there Saturday morning, along with all the KSU football fans. They lost, hah hah! We arrived in time for a spaghetti lunch with my grandparents. We spent some time in the afternoon walking on the Hudson Trail that runs behind their house. After an early dinner, we went over to Meadowlark, a retirement community, to hear my grandfather give a presentation on a trip to Tunisia that he and my grandmother took along with several other couples, one of whom now lives in Meadowlark and organizes Saturday night presentations like this one. This morning we made it to church, then had lunch together, and drove home this afternoon. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Walking on the trail

Errol

Fang

Flowers at my grandparents' house

Flowers at Meadowlark

My grandmother (on right) with her good friend, Wy

Grandfather lecturing

Grandfather again

Errol is doing much better now. The bleeding in his tummy seems to have stopped. He never showed any signs of feeling ill, so we're confident that he'll be okay.