hull-ollo!

so i KNOW it has been a while, but i am not the only one, so harrumph.

much has happened over the past few weeks, dinner parties, christmas, more dinner parties, pool games, jake ivory's, new years, library books, one year anniversaries, hugh laurie marathons, oh and some dinner parties. i am never entertaining again. ever. until we get a proper dining table, at least.

christmas break was enormously short. we slept away the mornings and cooked big meals in the evenings and it ended too quickly. here are some of the menus from that week:

mushroom ravioli and butternut squash ravioli
red onion salad
baked apples
(sara and rivitUUUUso double date)

cornish game hens with sage/thyme/oregano stuffing (with homemade bread)
parmesan dill mashed potatoes
roasted vegetable medley with cheese
chocolate croissant bread pudding trifle (homemade whipped cream for the first time!)
seriously good homemade brownies
sugar/crack tree cookies and biscotti

butternut squash ravioli
homemade bread and herbed butter
leftover pudding and brownies
(sharon indian girls - divya did the pasta machine work, which is the hard part)

chicken parm with homemade sauce
(for josh's cousin and brother, very rushed and not up to snuff, unfortunately)

bruscetta
homemade fettuccine alfredo
(more) red onion salad
(becca, sara, merry and carrie did ALL the work here - i really cant take much credit)
ladies, send out some pics from that night, i think there were a couple of good ones

then a very fun new years and a very laid back anniversary. the cake kept quite well and we ate a lot of it. so much so, that i gave some to my sister and mother because it interfered with our new diets. we cut our portions in half, which it took about a week to get used to and i can already see a difference.

those are the highlights i can remember. it has been so long... hmm recently, i have been reading about/watching the netflix of jeeves and wooster. i got a truckload of the p.d. wodehouse books from the library and am burning through them. i wish we lived in a time when we said "toddle pip!" every time we left a room. sigh. the stories are really endearing, but as soon as this phase is over, i am going to need to take a break from british authors. maybe back to russian?

oh - made risotto for the first time! i was very intimidated, but then when i tried it, i saw how easy it actually is. i wanted to take a picture for you all, but as i went to click the shutter, the camera ran out of batteries and i was too hungry to wait for it to charge even a little, so it will have to wait until next time. i am going to try butternut squash risotto next. should be just as easy as mushroom.

tonight we are having people over for the premiere of 24, which is all very exciting. josh is making chili and i am going to experiment with some crostinis or just be lazy and make my basic one. either way, i need to use the baguette i bought yesterday.

tomorrow is the day off so i am going to make lasagna, noodles from scratch and everything. although this time, i am going to try out a new dough recipe - the semolina has worked well, but it is time for a change. oh, and also want to try to make foccacia from scratch (with the bread maker's help of course...)

here are some pics from the last few weeks. enjoy!