If you’re not doing so well, or perhaps you’re just having a hard time staying motivated this winter, here’s a little inspiration for you.  In January 2009, Ben Davis realized he really wasn’t happy with life and needed to make some changes.  He took up running, started making healthier choices, lost 120lbs and gained happiness, choosing to Do Life!   This is his 120lb journey.

If Ben’s story didn’t inspire you, you may actually want to check to make sure you still have a pulse… 

Ben blogs at Ben Does Life.  Follow him in his ongoing journey!

A few photos from the Cookie Swap:

Andrea’s tree… with Christmas gifts already wrapped on December 10th.  Are you kidding me?  I hadn’t even started my shopping yet at that point!

Awesome tower of cookies that Andrea and her mom made – including homemade marshmallows!

The hostess with mostest.  This is possibly the happiest I’ve ever seen Andrea – I think she was several drinks in at this point, so that makes sense

Photos from last weekend – the Annual Baking Extravaganza with Mom:

I made Oatmeal Cranberry White Chip Cookies  on my own before heading over to my parents’ house (yes, just about every cookie I make has oatmeal in it).  They had already made four different kinds over there without me.

They were also looking pretty festive over there – pretty impressive since they just moved into the new house a few weeks ago!

The beginnings of Pecan Tassies…  these cookies are the worst to make, but they’re so good to eat!  I guess it’s worth it.

Here’s a picture of Dad supervising…  I have a picture of mom, hard at work, too, but it’s not the most flattering photo, so I won’t post it.  She actually looks kind of pissed – certainly not as happy as Andrea looks in the photo above.  Clearly we hadn’t had enough to drink yet.

Actually, after all that work, I think we’ve all earned my normal Christmas Eve tradition of celebrating with a few Gin and Tonics!

Merry X-Mas from The World According to Kate!

Florence Griswold ran a boarding house in Old Lyme in the early 1900’s.  Many Impressionist artists of the time were drawn to the beauty of Old Lyme and chose to stay exclusively in her home, which eventually became a sort of bohemian artists colony.

The grounds of the museum are really quite beautiful – with several gardens and views of the Lieutenant River.  I spent quite a bit of time taking pictures of the house and the gardens before actually entering the museum.  I apologize for the quality of the photos – I didn’t take the good camera to begin with and then later realized my white balance was set weird.  D’oh!

Once inside, we watched a couple of informative videos about Florence and the house and one of one of the exhibits, and then we spent some time looking at all the art.  We then went on a tour of the house, which has been completely restored to circa 1910, when so many of the artists stayed there.  It was particularly fascinating to see all the painted panels in the home.  The dining room and many other rooms in the house have paintings on the panels of the walls that were done by some of the artists staying there.  One would actually have to be invited to paint a panel and it was considered quite the honor to get that invitation.

The exhibit that I probably enjoyed the most, though, was The Rambles  – a huge outdoor sculpture of woven sticks and branches overlooking the The Lieutenant River.  It was pretty incredible – you could even walk through it!

After more wandering around the grounds and a quick stop at the gift shop, we decided it was about time to find some lunch.  After reading a few reviews on Yelp, we decided on the The Morning Glory Cafe, which was just a couple minutes (if that) down the road from the museum.   This ended up being the perfect choice for our afternoon out.  It had outdoor seating, with views of the river, and a simple menu consisting mostly of sandwiches and salads – which is just what we were looking for.

I chose the Veggie Glory Wrap, which had onions, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, and spinach and provolone cheese, served along side a nice crispy order of their Sweet Potato Fries.

Mom had the MGC Panini, which looked amazing – Prosciutto with roasted red peppers, basil and Feta, served with fries.

After lunch, we ran a couple of errands and finished our day with a stop at the Old Lyme Ice Cream Shoppe, where I had the best thing ever!  No really, the best thing ever.  I had Sam Adams Double Chocolate Bock ice cream.  I have been saying for the longest time now that someone needs to combine two of my favorite things – ice cream and beer – and they did it!  And it was amazing…  It was like a really good chocolate ice cream with just a little kick at the end.  Perfect.

Here’s mom enjoying her cone outside the shop.  I thought the shop was absolutely adorable.  I honestly think I would make a trip down to Old Lyme just for the ice cream!

It really was a perfect afternoon – took a beautiful drive, saw some great art, ate an excellent lunch, and finished it all with ice cream (which, of course, is the ideal way to end all things)!

Now, how was everyone’s Tuesday, July 5th?  ::Groans::  That’s what I thought… it’s going to be a long 4 day week!

To celebrate this weekend, I made my famous black bean quinoa burgers. Kevin and I pretty much live on these during the Summer.  You can get 6 to 8 good size burgers out of the recipe and they make a great quick meal during the week – especially weeks like this one, where you know you’re not going to feel like cooking after you get home from work!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup Quinoa, cooked per instructions

1 can Black Beans

1 cup Bread Crumbs

1/4 cup Tahini

1 Large Carrot, grated

1 chopped Jalapeno

1/2 cup chopped Red Onion

1 Tsp Adobo Seasoning

1. Cook quinoa per instructions on box and set aside.

2.  Mash black beans with a fork – or, if you have a food processor, a couple pulses in the food processor will make this a really quick process.  Mix in quinoa, bread crumbs, tahini, carrot, jalapenos, red onion and Adobo.  I usually do the veggies through the food processor too!  Form the mixture into patties.  I normally get between 6 and 8.

3. Grill those bad boys!

Here’s mine, served with my Southwest Quinoa Salad, Vegetarian Ranch Beans with faux meat crumbles and pickle!

Have a great week, everyone!  The weekend’s just a few more days away!

1/2 lb pasta

2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 Soy Sausages (sliced)

1 medium yellow onion (sliced)

2 cloves garlic

1/2 lb Portobello mushrooms (sliced)

A few handfuls of chopped greens of your choice (I used spinach and arugula)

1/2 cup White Wine

Crushed Red Pepper

Salt and Pepper

Parmesan Cheese

This all came together pretty quick.  Cook pasta per the instructions on box.  Brown sausage pieces and then remove from pan.  Add onions to pan, then garlic and mushrooms.  Once those have cooked for awhile, add the greens of your choice, white wine, and a bit of the pasta water.  Once the greens have wilted a bit, return the sausage to the pan.  Toss with cooked pasta and season with crushed red pepper, salt and pepper and parmesan cheese.  I served mine with a thick slice of whole wheat ciabatta and lots of wine.  Enjoy!

As I’m sure you know, the Super Bowl is tonight.  Some of you will probably tune in to the Puppy Bowl and others may watch the Lingerie Bowl (this one was new to me, too).  Conan decided to combine the two, which is pure genius and a prime example of what makes Conan so awesome.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Puppies in Lingerie!

Tonight, I will be heading over to my parents’ house to watch the game and have a joint birthday celebration for me and my brother.  There will be all the normal Super Bowl munchies… not sure what I’m going to bring yet.

What are you guys doing for the Super Bowl? Does it involve puppies?  Or lingerie?

So it didn’t exactly photo well (not to mention the complete lack of natural light I had to work with), but here’s the cassoulet plated:

INGREDIENTS:

4 tablespoons Butter

1/4 cup Flour

1 medium Onion (diced)

2 stalks Celery (diced)

2 Carrots (diced)

Salt and Pepper

1/2 lb Baby Portobello Mushrooms (sliced)

3 cloves Garlic

Sage

Rosemary

Thyme

1 lg can Diced Tomatoes

About 1/2 lb of Squash of your choice (I raided my freezer here and used a slightly odd combo of zucchini and butternut squash)

A couple handfuls Chopped Spinach

1 cup Vegetable Stock

1 cup Red Wine

3 cans Cannellini Beans (drained)

3/4 cup Breadcrumbs

1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese

INSTRUCTIONS:

First, melt the butter and add your flour in a large heavy bottomed pot to form a roux.  Stir frequently.  You’ll know it’s done when it’s a nice medium brown.

Next, add your carrots, onions and celery, and season with salt and pepper.  Once they’ve softened up a bit, you can add the mushrooms, garlic, herbs, tomatoes,  squash and spinach.   Add the red wine and vegetable stock to the mix.  Bring to a boil.  Add the beans.  Cover and Simmer.  Cook until carrots have softened.  This took me about 30 minutes.

Top with a mixture of breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese.  Throw in your oven set to 325 degrees for roughly 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

If you need to bring a dessert to some sort of social gathering this time of year, I highly suggest you make this.  It never fails to impress and it’s actually pretty simple to make.

Ingredients

The Topping:

3/4 cup brown sugar

6 tablespoons butter (chilled)

1/2 cups pecans (chopped)

The Crust:

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup sugar

6 tablespoons butter (melted)

The Cheesecake:

24 oz cream cheese

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

5 eggs

1 lb canned pumpkin

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

The Topping:

In a small bowl, cut the butter into the brown sugar until well mixed.  Stir in chopped pecans.  Set aside.

The Crust:

In a separate bowl, mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted butter and press into the bottom of a 9” springform pan. Place in the refrigerator for now.

The Cheesecake:

Preheat oven to 325 F.

In mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth.

Add sugar and brown sugar.

Add eggs one at a time.

Blend in pumpkin, whipping cream and pumpkin pie spice.

Pour into crust.

Bake approximately 2 hours – until center of cake doesn’t move when pan is shaken.

Remove from oven and spread topping over your cake.  Bake for an additional 15 minutes.

Cool and refrigerate overnight.

Well, my family goes a little overboard on all holidays, and Thanksgiving, of course, is no different.  Yesterday, I spent my afternoon/early evening over my Aunt Debbie’s house just like every year with about 20 family members and way too much food.  No, really.  I know everyone says they had too much food at Thanksgiving, but this just our dessert table -  just to give you an idea of the excess I’m talking about.  That’s 10 desserts (I counted) for just 20 people.  Call me crazy, but that just seems a little out of control to me…  Next time this happens, I think we should select a buddy and a dessert and nobody can leave until the table is clean!

J Restaurant/Bar met all the criteria!  The food was great, there was on site parking, the service was fairly quick (although our server did take awhile to get us the bill when we were ready for it) and the restaurant is located just minutes from The Bushnell…and we got 20% off our entrees because were going to the show!  Perfect!

To start, we all had the White Bean and Potato Soup… Our server told us and the table around us that the soup would be White Bean and Spinach.  There was no spinach in the soup, but it was still really good.

I had the Seared Ahi Tuna, which was served over a really yummy arugula salad and fried dough. Yes, fried dough!  How cool is that?

Mom had the Seared Sea Scallops and Polenta.

Mary had the Pork Special with asparagus.

Overall, everything was really delicious and they had a very nice wine list.   As I mentioned before, we did have a hard time getting our bill when were ready to leave (my one complaint), but we still made it to the show in plenty of time!

After the tour, we headed back to the Old Port area to return to our busy schedule of walking and eating…

Kevin and I stopped back at Gritty’s for a couple of drinks and something to eat while we waited for Tom and Heather who had stopped back at their place to get changed.   Again, sorry, no pictures from Gritty’s… but I had a lackluster bowl of vegetarian chili (I guess it was okay, but I feel like what I make at home is significantly better) and Kevin had bowl of clam chowder, which was pretty good – and what I probably should have also ordered.  I mean, seriously, who goes to Maine and orders chili?  How thoughtless of me…

Tom and Heather finally showed up and we walked around town for a bit and found a good spot on the water for some more eating and drinking, because that’s just how we roll (and by this point, we really could have probably just been rolled).  Gilbert’s Chowder House is really all you could ever want when you visit a city like Portland –  fried fish, cold beer, outdoor seating on the water.  Perfect.  Kevin and I split an order of fried clams, which was more than enough for the two of us, seeing as we had just eaten.  

And look how happy Heather looks!  I’m pretty sure it’s due to all the alcohol…

After lunch (ok, 2nd lunch for Kevin and I), Heather and I made our way over to the 3rd Annual Picnic Music+Arts Festival , which was really really neat. I saw a lot of cool stuff that I wanted to buy, but I didn’t because let’s be honest, I just really don’t need any more stuff  lying around and we had a long day ahead of us!

We eventually found the boys sharing a pitcher of beer at table under an umbrella at the Portland Lobster Company.

We joined them for awhile.  It was really pleasant just being outdoors, on the water watching the ships…  I probably could have just sat there all day.

But alas, there was more food calling our name!

Tom had been doing some research while we were gone and discovered a place call Duck Fat , because they fry things in duck fat. We obviously had to go there!  If there is anything that listening to Faith Middleton on NPR has taught me over the years, it is that duck fat is just about the most wonderful thing in the world. And it really was great.  When we got there, we split a few plates among the table.  Everything was pretty out of this world!

We had the Belgian Duckfat Fries with 3 different dipping sauces – Curry Mayo, Truffle Ketchup and Thai Chili Mayo

Duckfat Poutine

Beignets!

Oh, and Heather ordered a Moxie…you just don’t see Moxie too often around these parts, but I guess you see it everywhere up North where it’s bottled.  This is for my friend Grabowski at work, who has found just about the only place in central CT that sells the stuff and regularly takes one to work.  He’s an enthusiast!  I guess you could say “he’s got Moxie” (that was horrible, I know – this is why I blog).

Anyway, we left Duck Fat and did some more shopping around town… and came across a Hookah Lounge.  Yes, a hookah lounge.  This was my first hookah experience.  It was okay; something different I guess.  Kevin and I really weren’t overly impressed. Tom and Heather have been to one in West Hartford and they tell us it’s better there. Maybe we’ll try it out some day.

We then headed back to Novare Res, the bar we had been in the previous night and really enjoyed.  We hung out and had a few beers and Tom and Heather actually split a plate of several types of cheese, which they said was really good.  It was then time to head back to our hotel and pass out, because we had brunch plans for the next morning!

The next morning we met up at Bintliff’s American Cafe at the recommendation of one of Kevin’s friends for what is one of the best brunches I have ever had.  Ever!  The place was really cute and I seriously wanted to eat just about everything on the menu.  I eventually settled on the Veggie Homefries, with two eggs sunny side up and a slice of their homemade Tuscan honey wheat toast.  A – Mazing!  Everything was so good… and I’m not normally a big breakfast eater!

After our brunch, it sadly was time to head back home to Connecticut.  I had work the next morning and I needed a little time to rest up and get ready for the week.  We had a really awesome time in Portland, though, and I would go back in a heartbeat.  I don’t know that I would necessarily spend my whole time eating and drinking again (really, there were a lot of other cool things to do), but it is definitely a great little city to visit if you’re really into food.

I’ve been meaning to blog about it all, but there’s just so much!  I thought I’d take some time to share some photos and a few words about some of the awesome places we went, though, to appease the angry masses (Mom and Dad! Ok, mostly mom…)  who have been asking me when I’m going to update.  I’ve decided to break it into parts, because there’s really just too much to put it all into one post.

Our first stop of the evening was Gritty McDuff’s, where Kevin and I each just had a beer while we waited to meet Tom and Heather.  Kevin has fond memories of a Beer Summit he attended at which Gritty McDuff’s actually brought a bar with them while most others just had boring tables.  I, sadly, have no pictures from Gritty’s, but I will say the beer was great and I really liked the relaxed atmosphere.  It was a little crowded, but everywhere was crowded – it was a Friday night.

When Tom and Heather showed up, we finished our beers and wandered around town for a bit and tried to decide where to grab some dinner.  Tom read a review somewhere of a place referred to as a “five star dive bar” and that sounded perfect for us!  To Bull Feeney’s we went!

I started with an Allagash White.  They had a pretty decent selection of beer, but I wanted to drink Allagash when I was in Portland, because they’re local (there are actually a TON of breweries located in Portland).

I also had an order of their fried shrimp, which came with a couple different choices for sauce – a sort of Thai Lime Chili Sauce and an awesome cocktail sauce with a big lump of horseradish in it!  Love it!

After dinner, the night was still young so we decided to continue on to a place Kevin and I had stopped by earlier in the evening (but didn’t stay because it was so crowded) that looked very intriguing – Novarre Res. This place was great!  I wish there was a place like that somewhere near us at home.  They had a really impressive beer menu and great food, too!  To drink, I had the Allagash Fluxus ’10, which was just about the most delicious thing ever!  We also split a Bahn Mi among the four of us.  Awesome, just awesome.

After Novarre Res, we decided it was time to part and head back to our hotel to rest up for the next day, which I will talk about in my next post.

Yeah, about the weather… The weather up until yesterday really hadn’t been the best.  It was mostly rainy and kind of cold for a few days there, which really was perfect for staying home and getting stuff done!  By Tuesday afternoon, however, I was getting a little stir crazy!  I needed to get out of the house.

Neither of us had had lunch yet, so I decided we should take a little drive up to J Foster Ice Cream in Simsbury and get ice cream for lunch.  I’ve been meaning to get there for awhile (ever since I tried their Pumpkin Ice Cream at a restaurant this past Fall) and, really, nothing makes me happier than having ice cream for a meal.  This was the perfect way to cheer me up

Have I mentioned that I’m also a big fan of long car rides? Call me crazy, but ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved a long ride in the car.  It’s a little odd, I know, but that’s how I roll.   Anyway, it’s a good 45 minute drive up to Simsbury from our house, which is probably why we hadn’t gotten around to trying out J Foster yet. Usually when we decide we want ice cream (which is fairly often), it’s after dinner and a little late to make the long drive when we have plenty of fine ice cream establishments in just a 5 or 10 minute drive.  It was perfect, though, for a random afternoon.

It’s a beautiful drive to get up there.  The store is located in a really pretty part of the state and the store itself is really cute.  It met all my expectations and more!

The surrounding area:

Outdoor seating!  Unfortunately, because it was a rainy day, we didn’t get to sit out there.  Next time, though!

The ice cream was awesome, too, of course.  It was really creamy and just tasted fresh and home made.  I got a scoop of Coconut Mounds and a scoop of Kahlua Heath Crunch.  The Kahlua Heath Crunch was really out of this world! 

Kevin, as usual, had a giant Sundae.  He said the hot fudge was really more like chocolate syrup, though.  What’s up with that?  He did say that the whipped cream was pretty good and the ice cream, of course, was stellar.

Overall, we were very pleased with our experience.  It was well worth the drive and I’m sure we’ll be back for more in the near future!

The Birthday Girl… this is honestly about the happiest I could get Heather to look in any picture.

Tom, getting ready to battle Fudgie

Fudgie The Whale (he looks a little scared if you ask me)

The Final Product! Tom won his battle vs the whale and the Birthday girl got the fluke!

In past years, we’ve spent long weekends in Boston for Heather’s birthdays (which is also my half birthday, by the way).  This year, clearly, was a little more low key. This year, none of us could really get away for the weekend to help her celebrate her birthday due to busy work and school schedules, but I think we just may try to get away sometime in the next couple weeks (I have all next week off from work).  Then, we’ll really celebrate!  But for tonight, a little ice cream cake with some friends was the perfect way to end the weekend.  And I was even home in time for Mad Men!

The Operation Beautiful mission involves putting post-it notes with really positive and inspiring messages in public places for other women to find and spread the positive vibes.  I think the work she does is so important and I wanted to take a moment to share a little something about it for those of you who are unfamiliar with it.

Here’s the Today Show segment from Thursday. Check it out and maybe start leaving your own notes!