Erin's Baby Shower

ok - i'm FINALLY getting around to blogging about erin's baby shower.
lacy (our trusty photographer) was SO on top of things when she gave me a CD of all the lovely photos about 3 months ago!! too bad i just got around to uploading said pictures :)

so - let's get started ...
although, its been a while since the shower (in mid november) so i hope i can remember everything!

the shower was held at debbie's house. she has such a great space for a baby shower, birthday party, whatever! we've even held events such like an olympics party ... it's just a really great house with a beautiful backyard. i wish my backyard was 1/2 as nice as theirs - and i'm rather fond of our yard! but i digress ...

the party was a saturday afternoon at debbie's house ... mostly held in the beautiful backyard. but, we kept the food and candy buffet inside. but, more on that later.

here are a couple of photos of the backyard space.
we had 5-6 tables set for 4, complete with rented tablecloths in the shower colors of blue, green & brown; a drink station with personalized wine glasses (i personalized them with wine charms i made with each guests name, as well as the origin and meaning of their name - this was one of my favorite "touches"); we also had a little area with a comfy chair for the mother to be and a present table in close proximity to her. we also set up a table for the activity of the day. since i'm not fond of "shower games" and thankfully neither is erin (mom to be) ... we did an activity instead and it was a real hit.

ok - enough chatter - here are the photos of the outside space and other various "touches"






















and now about our "activity ... as i mentioned, erin is not a fan of shower games.
thank goodness for that - i really can't stand 99% of all shower games i've ever played.
and that's terrible of me - b/c EVERYONE plays them! i'm just a brat, i guess :)
anyway - so i had to get pretty creative when it came to filling our time with something fun to do. so i scoured TJ Maxx for WEEKS to get inexpensive onesies ... and i purchased fabric markers in various colors (from Michael's - with coupons of course) :) ... and we had a little "craft time"! i think everyone had a good time with it ... and they really turned out great!





the last picture shows the "winners" that erin chose! very cute.

and here are some pictures of the food table ...
the menu consisted of:
grilled chicken breasts with chimichurri sauce
orzo with asparagus & pistachios (one of erin's favorite "jeanine's kitchen" dishes) :)
prosciutto wrapped melon
fruit salad cups
green salad with cranberries, almonds & citrus vinaigrette

for dessert we had:
yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting (and blue sprinkles) :)
mini cherry cheesecakes
onesie sugar cookies (i WISH i would have gotten a picture of those!)



and here's the candy buffet table.
instead of a party favor that would probably be thrown in the trash, or collect dust in a closet, i set up a candy buffet and the guests filled up little paper bags with color coordinated candy! here's a picture of that ...



i also made a banner that read "How Sweet" to hang over the candy buffet. it didn't make it into this photo - but you can see most of it in this one!



and here is my favorite part!
the dum dum centerpiece! you can't really tell, but this dum dum ball is on top of a vase filled with color coordinated M&Ms ... a layer of brown, a layer of green & a layer of blue.




and that's about it!
it was a great time - and a beautiful fall day!
can't ask for much more than that!

so i'll leave you with one last picture ...


aren't these girls so cute? :)

aaaaah!!! it's march

that's a "scary" ahhhh ... not an angry one.
i just can't believe 2009 is flying by so fast!
i just read my last blog from january. man, am i a slacker or what??

i have so much to document!

since supper club january 2009, we have had a supper-club-slash-super-bowl get together, we have traveled to puerto vallarta for gabi's wedding and i have spent a week with my siblings - acting as mom/sister, chauffeur, teacher, etc. (very exciting) ;)

however - i STILL haven't downloaded pictures from the first supper club.
what a slacker!!

so - i'll use this post as an "in-between" post.
and the next post (hopefully not in MAY!) will consist of details from the above-mentioned activities, as well as photos!!

oh ... and i gave up sweets for lent.
so i'm anticipating being super cranky for the next 2 supper club meetings.
please forgive any not-so-pleasant posts about the desserts from the next 2 get-togethers!

hope to be posting again soon!!

Gourmet Club 2009 (January Edition)

we finally did it!
we started a gourmet club ... i started calling it a "supper club" but danielle dubbed it "gourmet club" and i liked it better ... so "gourmet club" it shall be!

so last night was our first meeting and it was a fabulous time!
the goals of this "club" are the following:

1. for good friends to make some great food, preferably something you haven't made before
2. don't stress about your dish ... if it doesn't work out, stop at safeway on your way over! (just make sure it's something good!) :)
3. relax and forget about any stresses or troubles we may have

and our first night accomplished all of our goals!

here's the rundown.

we decided to do the gourmet club while at the cabin over new year's weekend, so we didn't have a set plan for our "january meeting". so this month was thrown together rather quickly and dubbed "cocktail party" night. danielle hosted the soiree at her place and we were all quite glad - because she is THE.BEST.HOST.EVER! we all love parties at her place. and she also made a dessert (more on that later). adam was the "barkeep" (nicknamed by heather - hilar!). heather made a savory dish, traci and i also made savory dishes and lyndsay made a dessert. while eating all the superb food, we shared our successes and horror stories about our dishes, why we chose them and whether we have made them in the past. after eating we played a game of apples to apples. traci and heather caught on VERY quickly - a little too quickly because traci cleaned up! we had to extend the game b/c she won so fast. but she ended up kicking all our butts anyway. and then we moved on to a NEW(ish) game at danielle's casa ... and i just realized i really should have taken a picture of this ... but she has a set of 8 chalkboards (i think - maybe it's just 6) and they're all lined up together to make one big chalkboard. so we played PICTIONARY! and danielle had the great idea to use the apples to apples cards. it worked perfectly and we had a blast! all in all a GREAT first get-together for us foodies.

now here are the details on the food!

heather - a delicious terrine made with goat cheese, pesto (homemade pesto!), sundried tomatoes and toasted pine nuts. this was served with pita chips and displayed with kumquats on the plate. it was so beautiful! it looked like a mountain or volcano! and it tasted SO good!

traci - rolls with barbecued beef. VERY good! traci had the first "horror story" of the gourmet club. she tried to make bbq beef but said that it didn't look quite right :). those of you who know traci know how funny she is ... so of course it cracked all of us up that this was her explanation for why her dish didn't work out :). but she made a fabulous recovery by bringing store-bought bbq beef. i told her she could have gotten away with telling us she made it ;) ... but i guess that's the fun of the club! we'll all have successes and horror stories at some point!

jeanine - i made roasted shrimp cocktail (a barefoot contessa recipe). i followed the recipe but i also added 3 cloves of chopped garlic and i think it made SUCH a difference. it would have been too boring without the garlic. the recipe comes from ina's latest book - back to basics!! i was really happy to get to use my new cookbook. the recipe also calls for a homemade cocktail sauce but it was still VERY easy and delicious.

danielle - not much of a "horror" story, but her original idea didn't work out as she planned. she wanted to make mini napoleons. if you don't know what a napoleon is - here's a picture of the delicious pastry. napoleon's - how i LOVE napoleons! (or anything with pastry cream for that matter!) anyway, danielle thought she cut the puff pastry too small so she baked tiny little mini puff pastries and baked them and we had deconstructed napoleons. i still couldn't stop eating them! even if they weren't what she originally planned to make.

lyndsay - molten chocolate cakes. i need to find out where she got this recipe b/c she made them in a muffin tin! and the reason i rarely make molten chocolate cakes is that i don't want to deal with all the individual ramekins! so i will certainly welcome a muffin tin recipe for these delicious concoctions! they were VERY good and very rich (although i managed to eat the whole thing) and lyndsay had the bright idea to serve them with a scoop of coffee ice cream on top.
d'lish! ;)

adam - aka barkeep (per heather) ... adam made a fantastic cocktail! first a short story ... adam got an iphone for christmas. it was ALL he wanted so basically EVERYONE (including yours truly) who bought adam a christmas present most likely contributed to adam's iphone and/or his many interesting applications on the iphone. one of the coolest applications is "bartender" (at least i think that's what its called). so adam chose something with bourbon (yum) and decided to make a bourbon smash. however he re-named it "EVERYBODY IN THE POOL!" and i will admit that if it had not been january, that's how we all may have ended up if we had one more of those babies! it was SO GOOD! and it has been "favorite-d" on the iphone for future use.

the drink consisted of blackberries (the original recipe calls for raspberries, but blackberries were on sale - and i prefer them ... so i'm thankful for safeway's sale of blackberries) :), lime juice, & mint leaves muddled in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. then adam added a little simple syrup, bourbon and cranberry juice. it is all shaken with ice and poured (not strained) into a glass. SO good!

i think that covers the evening!
i took a few pictures - but as usual, i left thinking i should have taken more!
i don't have pictures of apples to apples, pictionary OR the group! :-/
bummer summer.
i will post the pictures a little later and maybe by then i will think of something i left out of the above description!

danielle also offered to host for february ... hooray for danielle and her fabulous hosting abilities - and DESIRE to host us crazy folks! we are having a RECORD PARTY!! i am so excited i can hardly wait for february! danielle's dad got a record player for christmas so we are going to have a 70's party ala swingtown (minus the swinging) ;)

we will make fondue and dress in costume and arrive with dippers and records in hand.
i am pumped! can you tell? ;)

thanks for reading this NOVEL ... but i am so excited we have kicked off the gourmet club so well! i decided to document every detail!
let's see if we can keep the momentum going for the next few months of 09! ;)

happy inauguration day tomorrow everyone!

look who's back!

well ... for now.
i'm not making any promises. but i finally got a picture of something i made recently so i decided that it calls for a celebration ... or a blog ;)

monday night we got together with our friends "the brewers" for dinner (hence the crazy messy kitchen) and pumpkin carving!

here is my dessert creation: spiderweb no-bake cheesecake from Martha Stewart!










here is the carving process ... and everyone in their various places throughout the house, yard, etc. Megan was drawing at the table, matt was cutting out his template in the craft closet, andy was missing and the rest of the brewer clan were hard at work on the back patio ...




this is what i was doing while everyone was hard at work on their pumpkins ...
once again my timing was off and i was way behind on dinner. here i am, hiding behind the flowers and processing up some chimichurri sauce. don't worry - i was able to make a pumpkin eventually ;)



here are the completed pumpkins ... from the left -

my sorry attempt at a Notre Dame pumpkin
andy and trisha's pumpkin - they were too lame to do individual pumpkins ... dorks
matt's alien pumpkin
tom's cute face pumpkin
debbie's cat pumpkin - i saw it lit up at her house last night. it looks so cute!
megan's scary big mouth pumpkin
chris's spider pumpkin - see how it's 2 pumpkins together? :) he brought black pipe cleaners for the legs! :)




to top the night off, andy and trisha decided to have a jalepeno eating contest.
we had glasses of milk and honey to help with the burn ;) and matt is holding a bag of jalapenos that we picked from our garden. this whole bag was from just a few branches! there are SO many more left on the plant!



we had a great time!
i'm glad i finally posted a blog - MONTHS later!!

hope to check in again soon!

Gabi's Visit

yay!!

my friend Gabi came to visit last weekend.
it's been WAY WAY WAY too long since we have been able to spend time together.
and i'm so glad last weekend worked out so we could hang out a little bit.

enjoy some pictures of my friend! i miss her already ... :-/






we went to salty senorita. it was a fun place with a great patio.
we left JUST in time for the Grapevine for some karaoke.

i say "just in time" b/c a party bus of "cougars" were dropped off just as we were paying our bill. whew! dodged that bullet.

i vaguely remember one of them asking Max for something -
a condom or his phone # ... i don't know.


either way - classy, cougars. classy.



we made a friend at the Grapevine.
his name is Shane. Shane was a fun guy.
i call him "smiley shane".

you can see why below ... he sang a mean "tim mcgraw" :)






good times.

easter, oreo balls and a sister

... ok, so when i took these pictures i was thinking i was being clever & funny.
(road trips can do that to the best of us)

and now it just seems silly ... but i'm going to do it anyway.

pioneer woman and tartelette (a couple of REAL food bloggers & food photographers) are rolling over in their kitchenaids right now ... i couldn't say "graves" for obvious reasons.

here's the back story:

over easter weekend we (me, husband & sister) drove to LA to visit our family ... so i packed up a little bag of treats for the road. i threw in some leftovers from st. patty's day including some grasshopper bars and what was left of the oreo truffle balls.

when my sister started snacking on the oreo balls, which she affectionately refers to as simply "balls" (i.e. " j, do you have any balls left?") i realized i promised the blog-world that i would photograph the leftover "balls" and post them on my blog.

being a particularly quick-thinking individual, i snapped the following photos ...

so please consider the following ridiculous photos a "kept promise"

i know, it's pathetic :)

Not-So-Secret-Garden

hello blog-world! it's been a good long while since i've bothered to check in.

we have been working on our backyard for what seems like 134 years now and it's finally coming together in such a way that i look forward to going home, checking on our plants and maybe even eating dinner outside!

i love it!

and the weather is still fabulous for outdoor dining (in the morning & evening at least)

i'll have to post pictures later of the yard as a whole, but for now i'll just let you in on the latest additions.

this is my MEYER LEMON TREE!!!

i'm so excited about it. the genius that is my husband surprised me with this tree a couple of weeks ago and i'm so proud that he picked out EXACTLY what i would have picked myself!! of ALL the varieties of fruit trees in the world, he picked the one i wanted - and i don't ever recall discussing it with him! which is even MORE impressive! :)

this is a baby tree, but someday, it's going to have some beautiful meyer lemons ... and i'll make you all something delicious!

this is what a meyer lemon looks like ... sort of like an orange!! and that would be because it is thought to be a hybrid fruit - of a lemon and a tangerine!

and next up are the herbs. please bear with me, but when i planted all the herbs i decided to take a picture of each one individually so i can keep track of their growth :) i don't know why it matters to me, but i wanted to see how long it took for them to grow from their baby sizes (when i bought them at lowes/home depot) to the size where i could cut from them and still have some left to grow for the next meal ;)

so let's start with the classic simon & garfunkel album "parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme"

i also have a little oregano plant ... and i'm going to plant basil and cilantro as well.

that stuff grows like a weed, though ... so i'm not really in a huge hurry to get it planted.

i'm afraid it will take over! :)

here are the other plants ... the oregano and a gardenia bush!

i can't wait until the lovely smelling gardenias start to grow!

one more thing ... i bought this fun shepherd's hook and hung a hummingbird feeder and a potted geranium plant from it! i love looking out my kitchen window and seeing this colorful sight!

and for good measure, a shot of the herb garden, complete with a cute "herb" sign i bought at homegoods MONTHS ago. it's just been waiting patiently in my garage until i decided to grace the garden with some actual herbs. :)

ok, i think that's all for now.

sorry for the long hiatus before this super-blog about my garden.

and sorry if it's boring for you.

but i'm pretty pumped about it!! :)

over & out at 12:01pm!

have a super fabulous afternoon!

~ Garden-J