Monday, December 12, 2011

More rain today!! Living in Nevada for so many years I've forgotten what it's like when it rains day in and day out. It is warm rain, however, and I am not here on vacation, so I guess I can't complain too much.

We went to Starbucks this morning for coffee and a Danish, and then to the grocery store for a couple of things. I now have pretty much everything I need for the rest of the week (mostly just more chicken). We also stopped off at another grocery store we didn't know was there. It's a lot like Whole Foods, but has a wine and gourmet food section that is fantastic! And it's a LOT closer to the condo than Whole Foods. I guess this will be the new favorite gourmet/organic grocery store for this household! A quick stop at the Barnes and Noble Book store (same shopping center) and it was home again. I was finally able to get an article done for Examiner.com on gingerbread houses. I wrote it twice yesterday but ended up losing it because of Internet problems! Brother! Guess I felt I had to write it and get it off my plate, so to speak.

We polished off more of the Pumpkin Walnut Cranberry bread by toasting it. The bread really does grow on you! It makes great toast. For lunch I made a Cherry Tomato Tart Tartan. It is interesting what you take for granted when cooking at home! I have lots of equipment to use which makes life easy. Not so here-you work with what you have. So instead of making the Tart Tartan in an 8 inch frying pan, I ended up making it Ina bread pan, lol. It still came out well, although I wonder if the cherry tomatoes would have caramelized more if the dish had been baked in a heavy frying pan. Oh, well.... I also put a small square of puff pastry over yesterday's Ham-Emmenthaler "quiche" and served that along side the Cherry Tomato Tart Tartan. Very good!

There was a cheese snack in the afternoon and for dinner, there was Cardamom-Dusted Chicken Thighs with a Rich Vanilla Sauce and Moroccan Couscous.

I served a green salad on the side with a Balsamic vinaigrette. All yummy stuff (one would hope I could put all that training to good use, lol!). Dessert was sauteed strawberries with whipped cream. That turned out a little too "saucy" but had good flavor. Something else to work on!

We found out what all our Internet problems were yesterday. Something knocked out cell phone and Internet serves all over Maui. So I guess we weren't the only ones having problems! Everything worked this morning, so it must have gotten fixed last night.

I spent more time on the computer looking at special Christmas appetizers. I feel better having an "arsenal" of recipes ready, than to have to scramble at the last minute looking for that "special recipe". All it takes is time and since I have the time, I did some recipe gathering. I was also able to talk with Jordan and catch up, see how he's doing without me! (Just fine.).

More of the same tomorrow! And who knows, maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.....