Top Chef Weekend

We just had a Top Chef Weekend. For those you who do not watch Top Chef (shudder), it is a show in which some of the best chefs in the country compete against each other for the title of Top Chef and win lots of money and prizes. This is no Hell's Kitchen, these guys are professionals and can actually cook beautifully and creatively. For Christmas, Momma Stanton got us the Top Chef Quick Fire book and Matt picked out a few recipes to try out for the weekend. On Friday, he made mussels in an orange and fennel sauce with pan seared scallops over angel hair. The next night he made a Paella. And they were both fabulous and delicious. Looking forward to more Top Chef Weekends to come!

Maybe we will even have our own Quick Fire challenge one of these weekends :)

Happy Holidays

We had our first holiday season as a married couple this year and got to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas in our home. We had a lot of fun cooking, decorating, and merry-making.


For Thanksgiving, we tried something new, an oil-less turkey fryer. You get a tasty turkey with crispy skin without all the oil and potential explosions. We spent most of the day outside on our patio, which is always nice. I also tried making cheesecake for the first time, a pumpkin cheesecake, and it was delicious. Samantha helped me with a lot of the cooking. We finished the weekend off by going to the FSU game. We had great seats and got to visit the F Club (thank you, Kourtney & Brian). Overall, it was a great weekend.

We started the Christmas decorations early in December to get in the spirit. Matt did an outstanding job and we were definitely the best Christmas house in the neighborhood! Maybe best in all of Archer... We also watched a lot of Christmas movies, I will have to have Matt list out all of the Christmas movies we watched this year. Sooo many. Right now, alll I can think of is National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Santa Conquers the Martians. We also saw the Christmas Carol at the Hippodrome with Momma Stanton for our Christmas preview weekend. And we made Christmas cookies ala Martha Stewart, yummy.

For Christmas Eve, we tried our hand at Prime Rib (Roast Beast) and had a lovely dinner with family and our bestest friends (Marc, Jenny, and Momma Pepin). And then, we received one of the best gifts ever (not the Food Network Magazine subscription or the copy of The Annotated Alice or the Killer Bunnies game, which are also some of the best gifts ever) - Mom made us a book of The Stanton Journal. It has all the pictures and entries, and it is awesome. Now, we need to make sure we keep up on our blogging for next year. Then, the Christmas Elves came and delivered our pajamas, so it was time for bed. Chirstmas Day was fun and relaxing. We just hung out most of the day in our pj's and had fun opening up presents and watching more movies. My BFF, Erin, came to visit later that weekend and we had nice couple of relaxing days together. Always a treat! And of course more Christmas movies and we opened up the Killer Bunnies game. It's a funny, complicated, little game, but good times, nonetheless.

We are very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends and we had a beautiful holiday season. We will always remember this year. Our first year as Mr. & Mrs. Stanton and our first holiday season in our home. It has been a very special year for us.

Bon Appétit

I have been cooking. Haven't posted about it in awhile. But rest assured, I have been cooking. Some of my recent feats have been chocolate chip cookies, mannicotti, spaghetti and meatballs, pork stew with parsnips and butternut squash, apple cake, and that's about all I can think of right now. Sunday night's meal was Boeuf a la bourguignonne (AKA beef burgundy). It's a dish I have been wanting to make for a long time - just never got around to it. I was inspired to make it after finally seeing Julie & Julia this past Saturday night. Each of them make the dish in the movie and I decided it was time to give it a try. It is not a terribly difficult dish. It just requires some extra steps and care to develop the rich flavor. I also had the opportunity to use my Le Creuset dutch oven - always a pleasure to use.

Fall

Fall is the busiest time of year for us (especially me), as evidenced by the lack of blogging... It's a new school year, a new football season, and a new holiday season. And we have been making the best of it all!

I have been busy with my teaching assistant activities as well as my own course load. But, I still made time for fun. I took another pottery class - actually it was the same pottery class I took over the summer, but still lots of fun. I've also been spending extra time on campus, running. No, not running gels or samples (which I have been doing :), actual running. I even did my first 5K in October. Matt and I are training for our first half-marathon - 13.1 miles. A little scary...

In October, we celebrated Mom's 50th birthday at Epcot Food & Wine Festival. We had a lot of surprises for her and she had a great time. To kick-off the weekend, we went to the Polynesian Luau Dinner - they had great food and fire dancing. What more could you want! Afterwards, we went monorail bar-hopping. Not sure why we never thought of it before... We just hopped on the monorail and hit the bars at each hotel. It was a lot of fun. Will definitely do it again. The next day we surprised her with Kelley's 50th custom shirts - each unique in design with photos and captions - and we did the F&W Fest. One of our best ever!

We also recently joing the Gainesville SCUBA Club. First time in several years Gainesville had a SCUBA Club and we attended the inaugural meeting *exciting*. They have a meeting and an outing once a month. This month we went to Devil's Den - haven't been there since our check-out dives. But unlike our check-out dives, I carried 2 tanks! It was a short distance, but I did. The SCUBA workouts have been paying off :) This past week, for the second Club meeting, we attended a spearfishing seminar. Not sure how I feel about spearfishing yet, but Matt is excited about it. He wants the JBL 53" sawed-off magnum speargun. Maybe Santa will bring him one.

As for football season, this is my 11th consecutive year of season football tickets! So, we've been hitting the home games. And for our away game of the season we went to the SC game. We took a bus trip to Columbia, SC with the Fighting Gators Touchdown Club to cheer on the Gators. Always a great time! Matt has been busy with his Fantasy team. He will have to comment on that as I don't know much about it. He did say today 'fantasy football is the bane of my existance' - so I do not think he is having a great season.

And the holidays... We are hosting Thanksgiving this year. We are still finalizing the menu and gameplan. it will be good times. We will start decorating the house for Christmas soon. And Matt has been getting together MANY Christmas movies for us to watch this season. And for New Year's, we will go up to Georgia with some friends and visit the family. Can't wait!!

Tea Time!

Well, I haven't cooked anything interesting lately - been really busy with work and school and getting ready for our upcoming NJ trip :) BUT, I did make some really good tea!

If you haven't seen the signs of my tea obsession (and there are so many signs), then I must tell you that I have a tea problem... I've been drinking tea all my life (as most good southerners do) with little ill effect, that was until Jenny (McPepin) introduced me to Teavana -the really good stuff. She even supplied the paraphernalia!

So, I made some iced tea - Fruit Garden - and took it with me to school today as a treat, since Tuesday is now my looong day. I must say it was quite delicious. I know it is not really cooking, but you do have to get the water temperature and the steeping time right and make sure it is sweetened appropriately. So, I will call it my recipe for the week - or my tea of the week. Although I am way more excited about my tea of the weekend...

I will not be bringing my tea supplies to NJ as the airport security may find it suspicious - 'No, I swear it is just loose tea and an infuser'. However, I will not go without - me, Matt, and Momma Stanton have plans to go to Alice's Teacup! This is by far the best tea house I have ever been to and I am confident in saying that is my favorite in the world. I have not been to that many tea houses, but it combines TWO of my most favorite things - Alice in Wonderland and Tea - what is not to love. Erin took me to Alice's Teacup for my Girls' Weekend before the wedding and it was so much *fun*. The decor is awesome and the tea selection is impressive to say the least. They also have fabulous scones! Hmmm...maybe that will be the next recipe I tackle... Anyway, I am really looking forward to it - will post more next week!

What's Cookin' Part 2

I recently decided that I too, will feature recipe a every 1 to 2 weeks. I will attempt to cook the winning dishes from Top Chef, either the elimination challenge or the quick fire. That way, we'll see if the food really is as good as they say on TV. First up, Arctic Char with green stuff. It appears that Fabio from last season will help guide me through the recipe. Can't wait. Not sure where to find arctic char though...

What's Cookin'?

So, I have not forgotten about my plans to cook through the Joy of Cooking - just been really busy and have not had to time to blog :( I've been busy writing and Shawn came to visit for a few days and we celebrated Marc's birthday (in style I might add! - will blog about in the future, but need some pics) and we had an 80's weekend of Def Leppard, Poison, and Cheap Trick, and on and on...

Anyway, the first recipe I tackled from Joy of Cooking - I am going to start calling it JOC - was the Salsa Fresca. Now, I know what you are thinking - 'What is so special about fresh salsa?' Well, I admit it is VERY easy to make, but I have never made a real salsa. I have made corn salsas and fruit salsas and my avocado salad, which is a salsa of sorts. But I have never made a real salsa. The ingredients were brief - tomatoes, onion, lime juice, jalapeno, radishes (?!?), garlic, and cilantro. Just chop and throw everything together, salt and pepper to taste. And it was special in a way, we had some good friends come over and we enjoyed a simple meal outside on our new patio. Matt grilled some burgers with bacon, jack cheese, and guac and we had some fresh salsa with our chips.

And that is the point of my JOC mission - to enjoy some new recipes for our everyday.


And for our everyday this week...

Lentil Soup with Greens
I *love* making soup! It is so much better (and more fun) than a can. And this week is a soup week. Last night we had one of our fav easy meals - grilled cheese and tomato soup. I tried a tomato soup from the Martha Stewart Everyday Food site, the Classic Tomato Soup. It was quite good, but my current favorite from the same site is the Creamy Tomato Soup. If you have not checked-out this site for recipes, you must! I have loved everything that I have tried. So back to JOC, tonight I tried the Lentil Soup with Greens. This was a very hearty and yet healthy soup. You start with a mirepoix (onions, carrots, celery) and I added some bacon, and you just saute, then add the lentils, diced tomato, thyme and water. I also added some zucchini and kale towards the end. Finish with some balsamic and parmesan cheese. We had it with a green salad and some multi-grain bread. It was very satisfying. A good meal after a long day...

And that reminds me... All this cooking talk makes me think of one of the projects in my perpetual queue of craftiness - a decorative project for the kitchen. After all, our kitchen is *bitchin'*!!


This is from the book Subversive Cross Stitch. Shawn gave this book to me a few Christmases ago :)