Mmm, Straus egg nog. It has a very short list of ingredients: milk, sugar, egg yolks and nutmeg (all organic). It was a little overly nugmegged for my tastes (I probably shouldn't have shaken it up before pouring it), but it was still good--smooth and creamy. Not quite as good as the nog they served at Mad Feast, but still quite delicious.

This tree near our apartment is turning all sorts of pretty colors and is laden with little berries. I don't know what kind of tree it is, but I like seeing it every morning. So autumnal!

Last Wednesday, we drove up to San Mateo and had grilled chicken burritos for dinner at La Cumbre. Yum! We got pearl milk tea for dessert at Quickly (it used to be Q-Cup; pearl milk tea places seem to change hands quite often). Here's a tip--don't order the fiber milk tea. I figured since my barley milk tea was good, the fiber milk tea might be similar. Oh, but it wasn't. It tasted kind of fishy, and it was green. No good! I guess I deserve that for trying such an unusual flavor.

We had two good Thanksgiving dinners this weekend. The first was on Thursday with Patrick's family, and the second was yesterday with my grandma, mom, stepdad and aunt. I made pies for both meals--Damn Fine Apple Pie and Cazuela (pumpkin, sweet potato and coconut milk) Pie (twice), both from In the Sweet Kitchen. I used Shuna's butter pie crust recipe for all the pies.

The pies turned out really well. My new pie plate performed beautifully. I used our KitchenAid to make the pie dough, which simplified things. I used Blacktwig and Macintosh apples in the apple pie, and it was indeed damn fine. The organic canned pumpkin that I used in the first Cazuela pie smelled a little funny (like canned pumpkin, I guess), which subtly affected the flavor of the pie. I switched to Libby's pumpkin for the second pie, and it smelled and tasted cleaner. Both pies were yummy though. We topped them with sweetened whipped Straus cream (I couldn't resist the cute bottle!).

We had leftover pie for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving. Simple pleasures :)

We had a little bit of leftover heavy cream, so this morning I made oatmeal with steel-cut oats, using cream instead of milk, topped with apples sauteed in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon (recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook). Yum! It was quite an indulgent long weekend.

I scored two turkey carcasses from our two Thanksgiving dinners, so I'm in the process of making a lot of turkey soup. I made no-knead bread to go with it (I'm totally behind the times on that one). I used wheat bran on the outside, and it didn't stick to the towels at all. I don't think I baked it quite long enough, but despite that I was impressed by the way it turned out. I used the bread to make grilled cheese (gruyere) sandwiches. Mine had a little blackberry jam in addition to the cheese.

Notes on the no-knead bread: as suggested on the page linked above, I used 1/3 tsp active dry yeast because I didn't have any instant yeast. I also increased the salt to 2 tsp, as Stef recommended (and I think I'll try replacing 1/3 cup of the flour with whole wheat flour next time I make it, like she did). I used our 5 qt. Lodge dutch oven, and I was happy with the loaf dimensions. It's so cool that something so easy (though time-consuming) produces such good results.

I hope you all had as nice a weekend as we did!

I realized last night that we have only one pie plate, and I'm going to be making two pies for Thanksgiving. I got around that problem last year by using disposable foil pie plates for the pumpkin pies, but this year I wanted to use real pie plates for both pies. I stopped at Crate and Barrel in the Stanford Shopping Center after work, but they didn't seem to have any pie plates, oddly enough. I thought about buying these holiday-themed sprinkles (gingerbread men, candy canes and snowflakes), but I resisted. I don't need specially-themed sprinkles when I have dinosaur cookie cutters!

I stopped at Andronico's next door to buy a few ingredients in preparation for the pie-making. They had pie plates, but only expensive ceramic ones from Emile Henry. I figured if I was going to buy an expensive pie plate, I might as well get it at Williams-Sonoma with our wedding gift card (I know, I can't believe we still have gift cards left from our wedding, especially at Williams-Sonoma!). I was delighted to find that Andronico's had Laloo's Molasses Tipsycake ice cream. Alas, I couldn't buy it because I still had to find a pie plate, and the ice cream would have melted in the meantime. Plus we still have pumpkin ice cream to eat. But someday I will return and enjoy the tipsycakes!

Luckily, Williams-Sonoma had a few different pie plates, all from Emile Henry as well (I guess if I wanted Pyrex plates I should've gone to Safeway or Target). The artisanale pie dish in caramel is everything I want in a pie plate (and sounds delicious!), so I decided to suck it up and spend the money on it. I figured I could leave it on the shelf while I browsed; who else would be buying a pie plate on a Monday night? I walked around for a little bit, admiring everything*. When I came back for the pie plate, it was gone! I walked over to the counter, and some lady was buying it--the beautiful French pie plate that I had my heart set on! Luckily, they had one more in stock, and they brought it down for me. That was a close call. I hugged that pie plate close all the way to my car. Phew! I can't wait to make a delicious apple pie in it on Thursday!

I am reminded pretty much daily of how lucky we are to live comfortably here. Being able to pick up a fancy French pie plate and gourmet ingredients on the way home from work is a luxury, for sure. I'm enjoying it while I can!

*Even though they're totally unnecessary, I want these ice cream sandwich molds. But first we need the KitchenAid ice cream maker attachment so we can make our own ice cream. But really, we don't need an excuse to eat more ice cream (though we could make sorbets or frozen yogurt, and those aren't so bad for us!). I've also been thinking about getting a good Le Creuset Dutch oven (probably the 7 1/4 qt in Flame, since our 5 qt cast iron Dutch oven is a little on the small side for most things), but it's too expensive. I should probably just get a Lodge 7 qt Dutch oven for a much more reasonable price. We do love our other cast iron items quite a bit. Who needs a glamorous two-toned enamel finish when you've got rustic country charm?

While Patrick was celebrating Wii Day today in Oakland, I spent a good amount of time in our kitchen. I made a batch of split pea soup with our hambone, and it turned out well. And then I made a Bundt cake using Shuna's Famous Gingerbread recipe. I don't have a kitchen scale, so I had to convert some of the measurements to cups with the Internet's help.

The gingerbread smelled really good baking, and it tastes yummy (I imagine it'll taste even better tomorrow, once it has had a chance to rest and mellow). I was expecting it to be moist and cakey, but instead it's firm and sturdy. It's not bad, just not what I was expecting. I'm not sure if this is because I played fast and loose with the ingredient measurements or if it's supposed to be like this. It's also possible that I overbaked it a little bit. I'll have to try making it again once we have a kitchen scale. I also want to try adding some minced chipotle chiles. Either Gourmet or Bon Appetit suggested adding them to gingerbread, and I think that could be tasty.

We've got a good pile of produce going, as you can see in the background of the first picture. Most of those apples (Blacktwigs and Macintoshs from this morning's farmers' market) will be going into the apple pie I'm planning to bring to Thanksgiving (there is also a pumpkin pie in the works, of course). I was looking back through my archives, and for some reason I never posted about how my Damn Fine Apple Pie turned out. And now, of course, I can't remember if it was good or not! I'm going to try the same recipe again this year, and this time I'll remember to report back on how it turns out.

Update, 11/20/06: The gingerbread improved in flavor and texture after 24 hours. Too bad I only saved a little bit for us to eat; the rest of it went to work with me today and is in my coworkers' tummies!

I am now the proud owner of two 2007 calendars--the blissen 2007 farmlife calendar (for work) and the Ditty Bops Vegetable-Bikini Calendar (for home, most definitely). Of course, we've only had their 2006 calendar since September, so maybe we'll have to hang up both next year. I've also purchased my 2007 Moleskine Weekly Diary already, because I loved my 2006 Moleskine. It kept me organized in style. No more student planners for me!