weekly musings (well, attempts at weekly) from the kitchen where anything goes and everything happens! recipes, reviews, revelations and romps through the city streets with a girl and her bike.
Sorry about the delay, anxious readers. I was sans internet this weekend and too lazy and chilly to walk to the library to give you some holiday updates. My sincerest apologies... but I'll get you those missing posts today. You can count on it!
Did anyone notice how cold it got this weekend? It was cold enough to make me bundle up with knee high cashmere socks, a giant knit cowl, a hat, and fingerless mitten gloves in addition to my normal comfy cold weather clothes. Weather like this makes you want to stay curled up in bed all day and watch movies with your friends. It makes you want to order in, but then you don't because your friends are the delivery people and you don't want them to have to ride food over to your lazy ass in freezing cold, windy weather. So what do you do instead? Well, I'll tell you what I do - I make soup. I love making soup because it's so simple, relatively quick and always delicious. And to make my soup even more spectacular, I Christmas-ed it up by blending the colors of the holiday, red & green.
Using up some forgotten tomatoes that were starting to get mushy in my fridge, a bit of leftover pesto and a splash of cream, I made tomato soup from scratch. But you can't have a creamy tomato soup without a side of grilled cheese; that would just be dumb! But since all I had in the apartment was a chunk of slightly stale Italian bread from the grave store, I was forced to get creative with my grilled cheese. Hence, the open-faced provolone and mozzarella toastie with sliced mushroom meatballs and fresh basil. Yum! I love taking random leftovers from my fridge and making a super amazeballs supper. Especially when it's so cold outside that I don't want to leave my apartment.
creamy tomato & pesto soup ingredients 6 ripe tomatoes, quartered 1 small onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1 tbsp butter 2 c water 3 tbsp pesto 1 c heavy cream salt and pepper to taste directions 1. In a medium sauce pan, heat butter and cook garlic and onions until they are soft and reduced. Add water and tomatoes, bring the mix to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes. Put the mix through a food mill to get all the good stuff mashed together and return to the sauce pan. 2. On a low heat, bring to a simmer and add pesto, cream and s&p. Heat to liking and serve.
In case you haven't already taken notice to the fact that I lovelovelove Christmas, here's some more proof. I can watch Christmas movies all day, every day. And no, I'm not just talking about the 24 hour marathon of A Christmas Story (though I could probably make it through the whole day without getting sick of the movie.) Throughout the month of December, if there isn't holiday music blasting through the speakers, you better believe that there is a holiday movie playing in the background. And though I may not always take the time to sit down and enjoy every sparkly, heartwarming moment, I've seen most of them enough times to know what to expect and can often shout out random quotes to prove how much I love each movie. So what Christmas classics have been regulars in my dvd player this year? Let's have a look -
10. Love Actually I love this movie. Like, really really really love this movie. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it makes me feel festive and sad and lonely and hopeful and close to people all in the course of 136 minutes. I would put it up higher on the list because it's so good and the phenomenal cast deserves the recognition but I just can't put those kind of limitations on it. This isn't just a Christmas movie; it's an everyday movie about love that just happens to take place around the holidays. Plus it makes me cry too much and I don't like to cry.
9. Gremlins may not seem like the most festive of holiday stories but it definitely takes place at Christmastime and tells the lesson of never giving pets as gifts. Seriously, you should never give someone a present that requires that much responsibility - that's a chore, not a gift, no matter how cute and cuddly he may appear to be. Though to be fair, Gizmo is pretty damn cute. I probably would have given him some late night fried chicken, too.
8. Scrooged Bill Murray + classic literature = enough said. Plus how about the post-Ghostbusters tagline - "Bill Murray is back among the ghosts, only this time, it's three against one." Brilliant!
7. The Muppet Christmas Carol provides yet another take on the classic Dickens story of kindheartedness and love being the most important gift of the holidays. But this time, with Muppets. And Muppets are awesome! Also, I now feel that I have a special connection to Tiny Tim.
6. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is so funny that we put it on at the bar without any sound and find ourselves laughing anyway just because we know what's going on and it's visually hysterical! Chevy Chase is brilliant at a lot of things and though stringing up Christmas light might not be one of them, bringing out the holiday giggles is certainly on his done and done list.
5. One may argue that the holiday classic A Christmas Story is the end all be all of festive films and deserves to land in the number one slot all the time but I beg to differ. True, it is a brilliant film with great one-liners, creative characters, nostalgia and feel-good family fun. But I worry that it's gotten too big for it's britches. I mean, 24 hour marathons plus daily screenings? It's all a bit much, so I've knocked it down a few slots. But it's still one of my favorites and I'll never not think of it when eating Peking duck or changing a tire. This movie is the second best thing to come out of 1983 (I'm the first, duh!)
4. I recently watched the original Miracle on 34th Street after a very late night of partying with a few friends. We ate eggs and bacon and drank tea and watched as a precocious little Natalie Wood learned to believe in Santa Claus and Christmas miracles were made for all. This movie is so classic New York and so sweetly sentimentally reminds us all to keep the faith; it made for a wonderful winter morning with some great people. It's always a good choice.
3. One of the problems that I am often faced with around the holidays is my lack of cable. See, I own quite a few of my favorite holiday movies on dvd so I can watch them as many times as my little heart desires. Other ones I rent or catch online. This year, all I've wanted to do was order a whole cheese pizza for myself and watch Home Alone. But could I do that? No. It wasn't available anywhere online, it was never on cable when I was visiting someone with cable tv, and of the four stores that I visited to look for the dvd, none had it! They were even out of it at the few rental places that carry it in my neck of the woods. Les incompetents! I'm determined to get a copy by next year because this is truly a Christmas classic and I want to watch it year after year.
2. A combination of sappy sweetness and incredible goofiness that cannot be beat - Elf. It takes place in New York so I immediately love it. Every line is quotable and each scene recreatable. And I love smiling, smiling is my favorite, too! Will Ferrell is a genius and this is one of the best holiday movies ever... it might even be the best if it weren't for the fact that in a life without George Bailey, Mary is a lonely...
1. librarian! Yup, I love any movie that features a gal checking out books for a living; even if she's sad and alone on Christmas Eve. It's A Wonderful Life truly is the ultimate Christmas classic. It's thoughtful and beautiful and can be enjoyed with the whole family. I love watching the single showing every year and get a little choked up each time I see it. Maybe it's expected and maybe it's sappy, but this really is the best story for Christmas and it's my number one.
This was a pretty tough list to compile and honestly, it doesn't just change year to year but day to day depending on my moon. With that in mind, consider the following flicks to be recipients of an Honorable Mention with some frequent rotation into the top ten depending on my holiday spirit (which today is a little more goofy and comical but can be sad and reflective or bright and hopeful depending on the day) -
* Holiday Inn
* White Christmas
* The Bishop's Wife (I just saw this so maybe it'll move up in the ranks as I familiarize myself with it a bit more)
* Babes In Toyland
* March of the Wooden Soldiers
And before you all get up in arms and throw me down a chimney shoot, the only reason I don't have Nightmare Before Christmas on this list is because no matter how Christmas-y it is, it will always feel like a Halloween movie to me. That and I watch it year round so it doesn't get limited to the holiday movie box that gets packed away at the end of each season.
Finally! It sort of kind of feels like winter in New York City. This is the first day in many days that I actually needed to bust out tights, a hat & scarf and a proper wool coat. I also wore a sweater vest in true librarian chic style (sorry no pic, I forgot my camera at home.) In honor of the seasonally appropriate temperature (and my girl Vanessa's 30th birthday - love you!) I'll be indulging in one of my favorite winter traditions tonight - a hot toddy!
warm up with a hot toddy -
1 shot of bourbon (Wild Turkey is my fave)
1 tbsp honey
boiling water to fill the glass
orange slices
1 cinnamon stick
1 few cloves
1 star anise
you can add a tea bag if you want a little caffeine boost -
I like chai because it adds to the spiciness of the drink
What do you mean you've never heard of a Holiday Ham Party?! When I told my daddy-o about my upcoming Holiday Ham Party, he told me that he didn't think there was such a thing, then Lizzie B flat out laughed at me! Well, if there wasn't such a thing as a Holiday Ham Party before, there is now - I mean, what else do you call a gathering of wonderful, hungry friends eating a 10lb ham, drinking seltzer and watching PeeWee's 1988 Christmas Special? Many thanks to the wonderful company of Isabelle, Vanessa, Felix, Victoria and Andrea for coming over and feasting... y'all are my favorite hams! We also had our wreath lighting ceremony, but I bragged about my awesome bike wreaths yesterday so no need to do it again. Well, maybe just a little more bragging because you, too can make an awesomely awesome holiday wreath out of tinsel garland and an old bike wheel! They're fabulously crafty and simply lovely.
It's really easy to make your own "homemade scalloped potatoes"- just add enough extra cheeses,
black pepper and paprika. You can hardly tell that these potatoes came
from a box. The key to semi-homemade anything is flavoring the ingredients that come out of the box or bag or what have you as though
you really were making it from scratch, minus the salt - boxed foods
already have plenty of that. If you're dishonest you can probably get away with pretending you actually did spend hours in the kitchen prepping and cooking and slicing and baking, but then Santa would put you on the naughty list and you wouldn't get that Easy-Bake Oven you asked for.
Okay, so I already gave up my secret about the potatoes (thanks again, Betty Crocker,) and I have to be honest about the ham, too. Ham is always already cooked and cured and this one went a step beyond that - it was pre-sliced and the glaze was a powder that just needed a teaspoon of water and a little heat to be completed. Give me a break, I cook from scratch nearly every other night, sometimes I need to take the easy road. Not that it would have mattered because both of my dishes paled in comparison to the beautiful side that Isabelle prepared. Her Thanksgiving green beans were by far the most talked about (and the most liked on Victoria's instagram. Even more than my wreath!) Yeah, you read that right - Thanksgiving green beans. Her plan was to serve this vegan, gluten-free (you like that, right Felix?) side at Thanksgiving, but it didn't happen so we were lucky and got to indulge in it at the Holiday Ham Party. The tartness of the dressing was a perfect compliment to the sweet honey ham and the creaminess of the potatoes. I think she got the recipe from one of the Iron Chef winners or Oprah but I'm not sure, so I'll make her post it later. I just remember that it had crunchy almonds, gooey chopped dates, tart orange wedges, fresh parsley and mustard - just a few of my favorite things. I had three servings of these green beans and I want my roomie to make more so that I can eat them every day for the rest of my life!
There you have it - a Holiday Ham Party! Just like Santa Claus, these festive occasions really do exist and I plan on making mine an annual tradition at the Sweetest Spot. In case you haven't yet, ham it up this holiday season with a Holiday Ham Party - it's not just so much fun to say, it's fun to do, too!
i don't even own a vacume - my dustbuster would hate this mess!
I'm a huge proponent of artificial holiday decor. Yes, I love the smell and feel of a real tree, I love the excitement that comes with going and picking out the perfect one. But sometimes I'm super allergic to those real live, natural, sappy suckers. And they're really expensive and messy and despite how green they are, it's not nice to the environment to chop down trees and I don't have the room in my apartment for one... the list of reasons I don't have a real tree goes on and on and on. It isn't just trees though - the mess exists with wreaths and garlands, too. So if I can fake it, I will. Don't get me wrong, I love to have a little bit of real live Christmas magic, but I usually settle for a sprig of mistletoe or a poinsettia plant. Beyond that, my tinsel tree and bike wheel wreath are enough. They're awesome also.
If you like riding a bike, and you like Christmas, and you like recycling and crafting things out of random objects, this is the project for you! Grab an old bike wheel, hub, spokes and all. Wrap a strand of lights around it. Maybe toss on some tinsel garland or bows, a bell or two, whatever your little heart desires. Plug it in and hang it up. Voila! Quick and easy holiday cheer with minimal mess and everlasting enjoyability -
Using up some forgotten tomatoes that were starting to get mushy in my fridge, a bit of leftover pesto and a splash of cream, I made tomato soup from scratch. But you can't have a creamy tomato soup without a side of grilled cheese; that would just be dumb! But since all I had in the apartment was a chunk of slightly stale Italian bread from the grave store, I was forced to get creative with my grilled cheese. Hence, the open-faced provolone and mozzarella toastie with sliced mushroom meatballs and fresh basil. Yum! I love taking random leftovers from my fridge and making a super amazeballs supper. Especially when it's so cold outside that I don't want to leave my apartment.
