Baked Cranberry Sauce

I love cranberry sauce. Mr. Surly, however, does not. I did not want to have a Thanksgiving dinner without cranberry sauce, but I didn’t want to make it just for me since I would only eat a tiny portion. I found this Bobby Flay recipe that claimed to have non-cranberry sauce lovers gobbling it up. With bourbon as an ingredient how could this not be fantastic.

I have a generous bar hand and added 1/3 c bourbon. It had a strong, distinct taste of bourbon, a little too strong for me. No problem, though, I just popped it back in the oven for a few minutes to cook off some of the alcohol.

I’m happy to say this is getting eaten up rather quickly. I really like Bobby Flay’s recipes, I might need to look into buying one of his cookbooks.

French Onion Soup

I have never been a fan of onions and, until last year, I’ve never eaten french onion soup. The idea of eating onions in broth never appealed to me. Last winter Mr. Surly asked if I would make him some french onion soup; he’s a fan. I decided to use a Williams Sonoma recipe, because, even though some of their recipes are a bit involved, they always taste fantastic. Luckily, this recipe is easy, it just cooks for a long time. I hate onions but I love the soft, caramelized onions in this soup. This is a staple for us when it’s chilly outside and we want a nice, light soup to warm us up.

Cranberry Nut Quinoa Salad

I have a bunch of quinoa I need to eat. I would, for some reason, buy quinoa each trip to the grocery store, forgetting I already had some. This happened for about 3 consecutive trips. I don’t have any excuse for this, other than quinoa sounded good when I saw it on the grocery store shelf, then I’d go home and discover I already had some in the pantry—oops. Desperate to use some of it, I tried to make looking for interesting quinoa recipes. I came across this recipe someone gave me last year during my gluten free/vegan elimination diet phase.

For a recipe with few ingredients this was so good. I served it in roasted acorn squash “bowls.” The quinoa was just as delicious for lunch the next day minus the squash. I love just about anything that includes balsamic vinegar.

This would be a nice, different side dish for Thanksgiving. Speaking of Thanksgiving, I can't believe it's this week! I thought I had another week to prepare and plan. This is going to be a busy week in the kitchen. Is anyone else freaking out about Thanksgiving dinner?

Busy

I have been so busy lately I haven’t been able to post any recipes. Not that I have been cooking much, but still. I’m so behind in emails, reading my favorite blogs, and Christmas shopping online. My doctor put me in a clinical study to get more opinions/insights on my condition andI have been really busy going to the hospital for various tests, meetings with specialists, etc. I haven’t had time to cook, nor even play with my new camera. As for the purse, well, at least I have been using that. I can’t say enough good things about the purse; I love it, and get compliments on it all the time. It’s the perfect size, my camera fits in it perfectly.

I have lots of things on my to do list and hopefully I can get some recipes posted this week.

Hello, Lover

I really need to get back in the kitchen so I have something to blog about other than non-food related things. Last week I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my camera.I went from my old, beloved canon point&shoot to the Nikon d90. I really wasn't aware of how much of a noticeable difference it would make in my pictures I've been debating buying a dSLR for a little over a year and I extensively researched different brands, lenses, etc to make my decision. Everywhere I looked (Consumer Reports, CNET, techgeeks, photography magazines, etc) every single place ranked the Nikon d90 as #1. I hesitated because at $1200 this was a huge investment to make for just a little hobby of mine. I considered buying the comparable Canon since it was a little under $1000, and I'm familiar with the Canon menus and software. But I really wanted to get the best if I was going to spend that much money on a camera. I knew that buying additional lenses was gonna cost me a lot as well. After more exhaustive research (I can't help it, I'm a science major, I love to research), I read that the Nikkor 18-200mm lens was like having 3 lenses in one. I figured this lens would be a good one to get because I wouldn't need to buy, nor carry, multiple lenses. I ordered this special B&H kit so I could get the d90 with the 18-200mm lens instead of the standard 55-200mm lens (which almost every reviewer said they never use). Bonus for it being $300 off, so it "only" cost me a little over $1200. The lens alone sells for about $800 and the camera body for $900. So I decided to just finally buy the thing. My camera arrived on Monday and I'm in love. It seriously makes such a difference in my photographs, even just on the auto setting. I haven't had time to read through the manual and I know it's going to take me a long time to learn all the features, but I'm really happy with my purchase. B&H is still running the same deal so if anyone else is considering upgrading to a d90, I would definitely recommend this kit.

I also ordered my "camera bag". I fell in love with this bag last month, but couldn't justify buying it--until now.

I know it's just a regular handbag, but I'm going to figure out a way to add some padded removable inserts to secure my camera. Plus, I can use this as a regular purse as well. My bag should be here today (they only had the black in the store and I wanted have this blue "peacock" color, so they had to ship it from another store); I'm eagerly waiting for the UPS guy to show up.


If anyone has any dSLR photo tips to share, I'm all ears; I hate reading manuals. Hopefully this new toy will inspire me to get off my lazy butt, get back in the kitchen and start cooking again. Then I can finally post some recipes.



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This is not an advertisement for any of the products above (Nikon, B&H, Canon, Marc Jacobs). I just bought, and love, these items.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

This was my dinner the other night. For most people this would probably be a great side dish, but I could only eat one of these before I was full. I just threw together a bunch of stuff I had in my fridge. I didn't measure anything out exactly, I just added things until I had what looked good and I seasoned to taste. Oh my, for being thrown together this was so good. I plan on making this for Thanksgiving, maybe adding an apple and some walnuts (which I didn't have when I made it this time). This reheats really well, so it can be made in advance and reheated, which for me is a bonus. The brown sugar crusted squash is well complimented by the slightly tart cranberry stuffing. Yum.