Hungry kitten

Yes, thankfully he's eating on his own now, but he's not exactly clean about it yet (it doesn't help that I still mix formula in with his wet food along with some dry food). He's also still working on using the litter box consistently - though fortunately he seems to avoid going on the rugs (minus one mishap with a blanket, but he was on the couch and too scared to jump down).

Gingerbread houses

This past weekend, I was in LA with Stu for his company's holiday party and prior to going, I found out that a cooking school in the area was having a gingerbread house class. I love cooking and craft classes, but this was particularly relevant because when I was 10, I needed to make a gingerbread house for school, and it was a complete disaster. My mom set me up with graham crackers and some frosting that was much too runny, and I basically ended up with a house of cards drizzled with some frosting. 21 years later, here's a much better product. Notice my tiny wood pile to the right of the front door, which I made out of broken pretzel sticks versus the Tootsie roll version in the 3rd picture - clearly I need to be more adventurous and not so hung up on proportion with my gingerbread houses. In the right corner is a small fire pit - again, bigger would have been better. Stu was equally excited about the class, but unlike me, he had wonderful memories making a gingerbread house for school. This is his thatch-roofed house in the desert, complete with a swimming pool and rainbow slide. If you look closely at the left corner of the house, you can see the remains of a cactus made out of a pretzel log that didn't survive (the arm fell off within minutes).

This last one was the big winner of the day (in my opinion). Its owner brought in Twizzler Nibs to make the brick and used Tootsie Rolls for the wood pile. Notice the intricate garland around the fence. The woman's two daughters were in the class with us, and just as she was finishing, one of them griped, "ugh, mom, yours is so perfect." I have something to aspire to next year...

Meet Carrot, the kitten

Clearly, if I don't make any promises, it means I'll be better about posting.

Here is a pic of the 4-week-old kitten that I am fostering for the Animal Rescue League until he is old enough for adoption (8 weeks). I picked him up the week before Thanksgiving when he was just barely 3 weeks old and had to start off bottle-feeding him, but he is thankfully eating on his own now. Thanksgiving morning we woke up to him limp and passed out in his litter box - after 36 hours at the emergency vet, he came home recovered from a little bout of hypothermia. Now he's relegated to a kennel that only has room for his little litter box and a heating pad, so he's desperately excited for attention and affection when he's out. So much so that he won't sit still. After an hour or so, this is how he fell asleep, jammed between our legs while we were watching football.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know last time I said I was going to be better about posting, but here I am again months later with no posts. My resolution is to not make any promises (which means I'll probably end up posting more often). With that said, I wanted to wish everyone a super happy Thanksgiving! I am so thankful to have so many wonderful friends (whom I love to keep up with through their blogs since I'm so bad about emailing).

Since we spent the past year traveling to so many different weddings and family events (I've seen my family more this year than I have any year since high school), Stu and I decided to have a quiet little holiday in Boston with the added bonus of having almost a week to play in the city instead of just a quick little weekend. We made it a sports-filled weekend including a Friday night Celtics game against the 76ers (Stu's first time in the Garden), a rainy but super fun Patriots game against the Steelers Sunday night (both of our firsts in Gillette Stadium), and watched plenty of football on TV (does it count if he fell asleep during every game except the Vikings/Bears on Sunday night?). Thanksgiving Day we volunteered at the Animal Rescue League feeding the over 100 cats and kittens and cleaning some cages before coming home to a dinner of turkey rolled in Stu's Uncle Jim's stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry jelly, croissants (with blueberry jelly from Mom in Michigan), and of course, green bean casserole. It was just the two of us for dinner, but we made it in 2 hours and devoured it and the leftovers for the next 4 days. Green bean casserole usually requires a 2nd batch, but somehow we survived on 1 - stuffing though required a 2nd batch as did the gravy. Thanksgiving is almost complete with green bean casserole but not without banana jumbos (banana bread cookies with buttercream frosting), so in between football timeouts, we managed to bake up a batch of cookies and some banana bread. Next up with the rest of the turkey leftovers (the only thing left from the feast)...turkey tetrazzini, mmm.

I would say stay tuned for some pictures, but I promised I would make no promises...

Boston!

With the time change and Stu's work schedule, it's usually easier for me to fly out to LA (not to mention it's a whole lot warmer there in the winter than Boston), but he was in NYC last minute for work this past week, so we were able to make another weekend in Boston happen! I was in Chicago for work for the week, but after I got home on Friday, we wandered around town on a perfectly sunny afternoon including lunch on the patio at Parish and sushi and Liberty Hotel with Lauren and Matt. Saturday we fought off the urge to sleep in and made it to Nantucket by noon for a full day of sunshine on our own private beach. Sunday was thankfully cloudy and cool back in Boston, so we took advantage of a day full of sports and napping on the couch. Here's a pic from the Barking Crab - with the lobster pager that they gave us while we were waiting.

Two in a row...

Wow, don't get too excited. Seems I reintroduced myself to blogspot and even figured out how to change the links to the right so that I could add friends' blogs! For good measure while I'm at it, here's a pic of Stu and I over New Years in Breckenridge - the afterparty from Emma's wedding!

Chicken and Sausage Gumbo

I know, it's been forever since I posted (I swear, I got errors a few times and kind of gave up), so who knows if anyone will ever see this, but Stu and I came up with a super delicious gumbo recipe this weekend. It probably serves 6-8, so you can either feed a bunch of people or you'll have lots of tasty leftovers!

Heat a little oil and sautee the following together in a giant skillet:
3 cloves of garlic
1 giant sweet onion (or 2 medium ones)
2 bell peppers (any color – recipe called for green, but I prefer red)
1 can of diced tomatoes (16 oz or so) – add a 2nd can if you like tomatoes
1-1.5 lbs sausage of your choice (we used mild italian sausage)
2 tsp fresh thyme (or ¾ tsp dried thyme from a jar) – I’d never cooked with this before, it’s tasty!
½ tsp white pepper (or black, but I prefer white for soups)
2 tsp cajun seasoning (or cayenne pepper + extra oregano + extra pepper)
A dash or two or three of oregano (or use fresh)
Salt to taste
Red pepper flakes if you want more kick
You can also add Gumbo File, found in the spice section (not too expensive – made from sassafras) that adds a delicate taste plus thickens the broth a little

Mix together in a stock pot and bring to a boil:
1 rotisserie chicken (prepped like you would for Chicken Tortilla)
64 oz chicken broth
1 large can of tomato sauce (16oz oz or so)

Add the mixture from skillet, and add a little cornstarch and water mixture if you want to thicken up the final product.

Serve in a bowl over cooked brown rice (or mix cooked rice into soup mixture before serving).

Enjoy with cornbread and anything else Cajun!! Serves 6-8.