Photo Friday

Since I have not posted in so long - and only once this year - this will be an extra long Photo Friday post. Lots of photos. Enjoy!

My Valentine's "bouquet."

Blueberries were on sale this week and they were GIANT!

My sweet doggies just love playing in the new snow.

Neptune & Panda

Snowing again today. Usually in the distance you would see mountains.

More wrestling.

Kind of artsy. Melted snow (water droplets) on the car window - my mom's house in the background.

Another one of the water with a large birch tree in the background.

My mom's cat Willow. I've been visiting her while my mom is on vacation.

Photo Friday

Last Friday, November 23, 2012, about 9:00 am on our way to Anchorage for a little non-combat Black Friday shopping, hanging out, and lunch. It was our annual "Saturday after Thanksgiving" shopping day, a day early due to conflicting work schedules. More photos from that day soon.

Photo Friday

My poor neglected blog. I know it's not Friday but I had to go ahead and post this. It has been almost a month since Halloween and I'm just now getting around to sharing these photos. They have actually been in my drafts folder for almost that long and I just completely forgot they were there.

Our vet's office and local newspaper had Halloween pet photo contests, so I entered a couple of photos. I thought this one turned out cute. That is Neptune in the front (a grape) and Panda in the back (a pumpkin but she had already ditched the hat). They are pretty good sports about it all.

Sometime in the last couple of years Neptune started barking and attacking the vacuum, and broom, and mop. He's not picky. Here he is waiting for the vacuum to make its move.

This last one is a little hard to make out, but there is thick heavy frost on all the trees. This was a few weeks back as well. We've had a cold winter so far, but no real snow.

French Dinner Party - A Viking Cooking School Experience

This past week my hubby & I took a "French Dinner Party" cooking class at our local (Anchorage) Viking Cooking School. They put together a fun, informative, hands-on class in their fancy Viking Kitchen above their appliance and kitchen store.

A few years ago we took a class here on Japanese Steak House cooking and came away with a full belly (there's always too much to eat!), some new skills & knowledge, and a recipe packet full of the recipes we had made during our afternoon there. This time was quite similar, although it was a very small class. Just the two of us, and a sweet 9th grade home school student named Molly. It was a lot of fun and I was surprised at the knife skills and cooking knowledge of such a young lady. Take a look at what we made!

Each of us took turns on different aspects of prep and cooking.

Me brushing the bread w/evoo & butter. Next stop the oven.

We didn't use foie gras in the beef Wellingtons, but we did use duxelles. Sauteed mushrooms, butter, shallots, garlic and a little red wine. So good. I can neither confirm nor deny whether I had 2 or 3 sample tastes of this mixture before assembly.

Duxelles

Molly made almost the entire soup herself once we had all tried out the mandolin for slicing the onions.

French Onion Soup with crouton and Gruyere.

Each of us decorated the top of our individual beef Wellington so we could tell who's was who's. Molly didn't like mushrooms so no duxelles for her. I may have also added her portion to mine. We made a Bearnaise sauce to go with it.

Mine. A heart.

Dave's with a "D".

I had never attempted a souffle before this class, which is partly why I chose this one. Come to find out they're not that scary. Now I just need a set of ramekins that are oven safe. I see many souffles in our future. Both savory & sweet.

Spinach Souffle

Just after we started our class the cooking school manager came in to tell us a local TV news crew would be coming by to film a short segment on healthy cooking. I guess they just call and tell you they're coming?! Interesting. She didn't know really what it would be about or what they were going to do. Turns out they got to eat the spare souffle we had made and raved about it.

We finished off our meal with white chocolate mousse with raspberry coulis.

White Chocolate Mousse with Raspberry Coulis

Fun way to spend an afternoon for sure.

Photos for Tuesday

This past weekend we stayed in Anchorage in a nice hotel with a great view. We had dinner at their restaurant on the 20th floor. I had a giant plate of King Crab legs. And butter. And then creme brulee for dessert. Oh yum!

Here's the view of downtown Anchorage, looking east, from the restaurant.

And the view the next day from our room. It had just stopped raining when I caught this one.

Our cat Harley is so accustomed to having the dogs around she was very clingy this morning before we picked up the dogs from the kennel. She sat as close as she could get and then made this silly face.

Spring - It's not really here yet

Someone asked about spring here...um, well, it's not really here yet. This is a pic I took of our house yesterday. It's not all snow, we are up a little from the street, but the snow piled up from the street is level with our front yard. That's a lot of snow. Mr. Moose came by yesterday for a snack. Crab apple tree salad, and Rose Tree of China buds for dessert. I don't mind him trimming the crab apple tree, it needed to be done. I wish he just hadn't stayed for dessert.

This was yesterday too. This moose has been hanging out in our neighborhood for a couple of weeks now. He makes the rounds to the yummy trees I guess. Ours must be some of the tastiest around.

Menu Plan Monday #43 - March 12

Started to put together a menu plan last week but didn't get back to it, and since I'm running behind I'm not going to link this one up with the other Menu Planners - but I will share a picture I took in London! I took this the first night we were there (after we'd had a little nap!). Imagine stepping out of the subway station and looking up to this!

It's only Wednesday and we've already had a change to the plan, but that's okay. At least I have a plan. This week is pretty busy, and I just now changed out tonight's dinner idea for two reasons. 1. When I made the menu plan I thought we would be here for dinner. Then we were supposed to be in Anchorage tonight, then that plan changed and now we will be here. 2. I didn't thaw yesterday was I was supposed to for tonight, so I moved the Meatloaf muffins to Sunday and now I feel like I'm coming down with a cold so I want soup. Just found a yummy sounding recipe for Chicken Pot Pie Soup and luckily I have everything on hand.

Monday: Boca Chik'n Parm w/spaghetti - the "spaghetti noodles" I used were actually the tofu shiritaki noodles and they were really good. Not to mention they are 0 PointsPlus for 1 serving!

Tusday: Crockpot pulled pork

Wednesday: Chicken Pot Pie Soup - another recipe I'm trying from Skinnytaste. She has the BEST recipes!

Thursday: dinner out in Anchorage. Was supposed to be Wednesday so I'm moving Salmon Thursday to Friday.

Friday: Salmon Sweet Potato Cakes

Saturday: Chicken Rollatini - this was so good last time I just have to make it again!

Sunday: Meatloaf Muffins - I'm excited to make these again. They are really tasty and they make enough for leftovers or to put in the freezer for another night.




Here's another crazy London photo taken near Camden Lock. It's a whole store of mannequin legs modeling tights. I love it!

 

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!