ktmoomau

Going to Napa for 2 1/2-3 days. We have a res at Ad-Hoc as a little homage to our Honeymoon dinner at the French Laundry. We also have a Vintage VW bus tour of wineries. We will go to Hagafen, Paraduxx and Pestoni. Domaine Carneros looks interesting as I am a Tatt fan and like sparkling. Need to look up what other places we might want to visit... suggestions happily accepted. I have a huge amount of wineries on my google map, that I don't remember where they came from. Perhaps a food and wine article, or perhaps from James May and Oz Clark's special- not quite sure, so they could be total trash. (Curses former self for not filling in more details on the comments section of her google map). I haven't figured out any other food yet, we will have lunch with our tour. And I am sure we will check out Oxbrow for one meal.

I have gone about three times. I like brunch the best- and enjoyed the bloody mary. I think Southern style food suits well for a brunch though. Dinner is fine, but wasn't special, but it does serve dinner fairly late compared to some other places. About the same pricepoint and satisfaction of Northside 11, but I like the atmosphere better. The bartenders are nice. I can't remember what I ordered any of the times. I am surprised I didn't write reviews, sorry.

A co-worker brought the big pie into the office one day for us as a treat, we really liked it. I have meant to take Hubby here because I think he would like it.

Or Fine Sweet Shoppe?

I am sure there must be a place in DC proper. Not in DC proper Heidelburg Bakery in Arlington has a large selection of interesting cookies. What about Buttercream Bakeshop?

We have had a hectic time of it. Between trials, being sick with the crud, Christmas parties and events, and just being dead tired from all that said activity, cooking has been more of a what do I need to use from the fridge. We also have had my friend staying with us while her floors are replaced, and she is Keto, so juggling Keto, WW, and me being lactose intolerant has been interesting. I wouldn't recommend it for normal households. Last night friend was gone and we had ground beef and venison tacos, with sauteed portabellos, bell peppers and onion, lettuce, tomato, salsa and grated gruyere because I had no cheddar to speak of. The night before was peppers stuffed with eggplant, mozz, leek, tomato sauce and italian sausage (yikes hot pork sausage is a huge amount of WW points). I broiled some potatoes that had been boiled with butter until they were nice and crisp. Last week I made beef mole in the instant pot with the last of the mole paste. Hubby ate that with mashed potatoes and spinach. I ate it over mashed cauliflower. We had a side of shishito peppers. I know I have made other things, but I have no idea what.

I am following your advice, and being content with staying steady and not gaining during the holiday season. I have tried to pick my poison in terms of not going crazy on sweets, booze and cheese. I try to make myself pick 1 or 2, sometimes I eat all three though- oops. And I am trying to make up for it on other meals, so there is a balance. And I am trying to pick cheats that I will really enjoy. I have been holding since Thanksgiving at the same weight (well I went up and down 1 pound) but just hoping that Christmas week isn't a big gain. I am going to my Mom's and then in-laws. I might bring a few foods with me that I know are safe things just to add in.

Good to know, let us know if you have new projects we should watch out for!

Closed. So sad- this was one of our favorite spots in Del Ray! Best of wishes to Eric and their restaurant group on their other projects and to the staff, hopefully they are gobbled up quick, I know lots of people need good staff.

Great recs! I use that no knead bread technique all the time and love it, and she won't mind a used copy of the Beard on Bread, so I could likely get her both! Thanks all, so helpful!

Hello All, I am looking for a good bread cookbook for my SIL. I would say she is a good intermediate home cook, who could make sense of most books. I have a bread book at home that is ok, but I don't pull out all the time. I more often go searching for a recipe that suits my fancy, but I also bake regularly. Any bread books you really like, or that would be good for someone starting out in the process? I don't see her keeping starters all over, as they have a pretty small place, so something that focuses less heavily on breads that need starter would be good.

They look great!!! So sorry I missed this, looks like it was delicious! Good to know on the lard/spice issues- there are so many different recipes with variations. DR Cooking Club for the win! And a perfect time of year for tamale making.

Tonight was fasolakia, eggplant stacked with turkey, tomatoes and mozzarella and then either leftover stuffing or mashed potatoes.

I don't want to commit to something specific, since I might be late, but I will bring a snack and libation!

I tried making some ranch dip with greek yogurt and the hidden valley packet, and to me despite liking ranch dressing made with greek yogurt with a recipe, the packet mix to me just tasted awful. So nixing that. Well trial last week and Thanksgiving gave me my first week of not eating under my points. But after Saturday (my second family Thanksgiving) I went back to eating pretty healthy. So I don't expect to lose anything this week. I am hoping I don't have a big gain. I mainly used extra points for bread, wine and cheese and 2 slices of pumpkin pie! So I enjoyed the splurge briefly, but now back to reality.

I accidentally posted my post on the other thread- oh well. My Mom's turkey this year seemed very solid- more than in years past, I was a bit concerned that it was frozen. Matt had to oven finish the turkey he smoked for his work Thanksgiving because it got so cold outside his smoker gave it. The whole house smelled like smoke, and it was a deep color (he had dry rubbed it after brining), but not super burnt because he foiled it and oiled it. I didn't eat the finish product with skin, but judging by how little came home, I would say it must have been good. Things I am making with Thanksgiving leftovers: Mashed potatoes- freezing most of these, but will use some to mix with stuffing and make "waffles". We also have some boiled potatoes that we didn't mash- that I will put most of them in beef vegetable soup I think and bake with parley butter another night. Green beans- oh man we have a lot of green beans left- mainly because they weren't great. My SIL was supposed to bring them, but they couldn't find them in the grocery until the last minute, so they just brought steam in the bag ones, which I cooked at the last minute and added butter. Leftovers are going to be made into beef vegetable soup and tonight for fasolakia. Turkey- we have so little left! But it is going to be used tonight to go on top of the waffles with the fasolakia on the side. The remaining I was thinking about using for posole, if we aren't souped out after beef vegetable. Cranberry sauce: I will have some of this for sandwich topping, but I also am going to make pastries for company coming this weekend, with some goat cheese. The remainder will likely go into regular waffle batter, as I make mini waffles and freeze them and then pull them out for breakfast. This leaves the gravy- which I am just not sure what we will do with it. It's so good, I hate to waste it, and Hubby loves gravy, so we will see. What are you all making with your leftovers?

Well Thanksgiving was... great! My Mom and Hubby did all of the Thanksgiving lifting going shopping while I was in trial (except a short trip to TJs). I made the turkey (Alton Brown's Good Eats as usual), and it turned out great. I will say though I miss the Fulton's turkey, the new one was great, but not quite as great. Hubby made Giada's ciabatta stuffing with the vegetarian turkey and veggie broth. Mom made the sauerkraut, mashed potatoes and gravy. SIL brought green beans, friend brought cranberry sauce, cheese ball and others brought pies. OHHH I also made these pumpkin rolls, which were great: https://drizzleanddip.com/2016/10/14/pumpkin-rolls-with-rosemary-and-sea-salt/ The little boys were a bit of a mess, but then we turned on Nemo and they calmed down. Now... I need to use up all the leftovers... There are lots of potatoes.

Ugh, I have trial Monday and Tuesday, that I hope is wrapped Tuesday, so that I can devote Wednesday to prep. I ordered a turkey from Mom's. They are using a new farm this year, but seems like it will still be great. We will have a vegetarian this year, so I am going to make a few more things more vegetarian. We will see how a veggie "sausage" works in the stuffing. A sane person would find a good bakery and order pies.... BUT I often tempt fate. I really want to make a pumpkin pie with the pecan topping that they made on Bon Appetit. I feel like I can whip out a pie in no time. Thank goodness my Mom will be here and can grocery shop, prep and etc. Matt is also smoking a turkey this weekend for his office can't wait to see how that turns out.

Posole: I had roasted the last of my garden tomatillos with garlic, onion, poblano and serrano peppers to make salsa. But as it hadn't been eaten up, I pureed it, then added chicken stock and brought that to a boil. I had a large container of shredded chicken from the instant pot that we hadn't finished, as well. I broke up, and toasted off a can of hominy in the oven, then added it to the broth, and then added the chicken. After about 20 minutes, I added a healthy portion of cilantro paste (somehow the paste doesn't have the same reaction on the tongue as eating the cut up leaves and stems, which is good). It was very good. It was a bit of a riff on the Chris Morroco Bon Appetit recipe. Served with saltine crackers- classy all the way.

I went to the old location today- and Wow, just Wow!! I wanted to try a bit of bread, which meant not eating rice for my WW points to be even somewhat ok, so that I could eat pizza tonight with other people at a party. So they made me a plate with chicken kabob, veggie kabob, chickpeas, a potato side and spinach- and were not at all judgey about it, it wasn't a problem, that was really nice. Everything was really good! The sides aren't cooked with dairy, so I didn't have to worry about that. Even just the simple spinach was really flavorful. I didn't leave any chickpeas for leftovers, they were too good. The staff was really nice. This would be a great place to go fully vegetarian this way. But the chicken was good, I know want to try a lot of other parts of the menu. I took about half home with me as a leftover. Anyway, so good, I am glad I finally stopped by. I had meant to before, it's just hard because that corridor has a lot of my old favorites- Lebanese Taverna Market, Caribbean Grill, Taq Poblano (my favorite location), etc, etc. But this is so good, I need to try out lots more of the menu!

This week has been crazy. I made shredded chicken in the instant pot earlier this week that we could have on salad or in wraps or etc. Tonight I managed to cook and we had chorizo tacos because chorizo was the only meat I had that wasn't frozen, except for the shredded chicken. I also used the last of the tamales from before it got cold to make a base for posole, which will use up the last of the shredded chicken if I can remember to buy some hominy tomorrow.

Probably better than Shoppers, which is where I get my husks

Despite their original location being within walking distance, the new Shirlington space looks so cool, I want to go there and check that one out!

You are the best. Now I really do owe you some boar, hahahha!

I doubt a weeknight would make it any better to be honest. I have nothing planned the weekend before the superbowl, I could make that. But I really will try to drop by on the 8th if you have it that day. I just watched the Bon Appetite You tube on tamales, and they use a huge amount more fat than I do, and their dough has a slightly different consistency. I have used the recipe on the instant masa bag with very good outcomes, IMHO.