Play like a Peterson!

"Hardcore....and a little dirty." 

A wonderful family motto. Next year Derek and I are making shirts.

Exciting things happened this weekend involving an epic family reunion eating fest, baking in Grandma's kitchen with legit baking equipment and yummy leftovers.

Nancy's Kitchen!

Complete with a stand-mixer older than me and a real double boiler for melting chocolate!

I was responsible for dessert and you never want to experiment in situations like this so I chose two rock solid recipes. Because it was a family reunion I opted for my Rum Cake (which was great with coffee on the dock the following morning) and Uncle Craig requested something chocolate so Double Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies made an appearance. I woke up at the bright and cheery hour of 6 to begin my baking. Everything went well and came out tasting fine with the exception of my horribly burnt rum cake. Psh. Okay so it wasn't black burnt but it's darker than I like so I just threw in some more rum. Plus licking the rum batter bowl at 6:30 made dealing with a burnt cake a little easier (Salmonella be damned Grandma!).

Some lovely cookies and a disfigured rum cake.

And onto a real recipe! (sort of)

The great part about trips to any set of parental units is the fact that you always come home with leftovers. This trip we were lucky enough to score some of Melissa's delicious (and made on a whim!) veggie salsa and random bits of cheese/salami/olives. Because we had all of these random things and we weren't too hungry we decided on a munchie platter for dinner. My personal favorites included Cabot horseradish cheese spread and Wagner's Sled Dog Doppelbock Beer.

The spread.

Melissa's Veggie Salsa

(from the kitchen of Melissa)

Ingredients:

Corn

Zucchini

Yellow Squash

Red Onion

Black Beans

Jalapeno Pepper

Cilantro

Directions:

1. Prepare veggies and mix them all together.

Sidenotes: I'm not sure if there was any salt or pepper to taste or if it was dressed in anything lemon/lime juice or some sort of vinegar....I'll have to check. There was definitely some elbowing for the last couple of bites which I obviously won because I.....played like a Peterson!

Pants on fire!

We cheated a bit to supplement our dinner of leftover Chicken Pasta Salad tonight. First we went to McCrossen's Tavern for a couple of pints in order to feel better about job rejections. It's a cute place but the Kite and Key still owns my heart. Although I hear they have great brunch for $20 with all you can drink mimosas/bloody mary's so we're going to have to check that out. After that we went to a new sushi place, Kansai,  that opened on our block and has gotten good reviews, we weren't disappointed. It was also cute and reasonably priced...oh yeah and BYOB. We split an eel avocado roll and a yellowtail scallion roll. Yummy.

Unflattering and dorky pictures follow.

Bits of drink (and you?)

The other day my dad informed me that "you are what you drink" and for some reason I found that to be incredibly amusing and insightful. It may or may not have had something to do with the gin and tonic I was working on. I normally take pictures of our drinks but never have a real reason to post them until now. If you are what you drink then I'm dark (beer), sweet (wine) and off beat (gin). Mr. Lawyer would be light (beer), dry (wine), and fancy (scotch). Some odd truths there I think. Complete polar opposites when it comes to our beverage preferences and that's why it works so well (except when he steals my gin).

Mr. Lawyer's beer....My beer.

And just to prove it's not a fluke...

In fact, I like it when I can't find my beer.

I like my wines from New York.

Sweet, Sweet, Super Sweet, Alcoholic Grape Juice.

And if you've never tried my off beat gins, I'm okay with that. But you should give it a go.

Entertaining with Cookies!

We've been super social lately so I have been entreating our guests with cookie platters! After going out for a bit to eat and a couple of brews, including the elusive B*Brew by Dog Fish Head, the boys came back to our place for a sweet treat of homemade Caramel deLites, Peppermint Patties, and Brown Sugar Glazed Bacon. Cutting up the huge cookies not only looks pretty but it makes a nice finger food/one bite sized piece that you don't feel too guilty about eating.

Dog Fish Head!

Yummy bite sized goodies!

A few days later we had the high school gang over for pre-birthday celebration and behold another cookie platter!