The World According To Kate

Simple Guacamole

2012-05-05T14:38:10Z

Happy Cinco de Mayo, Everyone! I hope everyone is celebrating with a giant margarita! But Kate, it’s only 10 AM… Exactly!

This, oddly enough, may actually be one of my favorite holidays. A day of sitting around, eating Mexican and drinking Tequila… what could possibly be better? These are a few of my favorite things (queue Julie Andrews… boy that would be a different song if I wrote it: Red Wine, and Tacos and Cats that might hate me…)

Anyway, I thought this would be a great day to share my basic guacamole recipe. It’s delicious and comes together in just a few minutes, which is good, because you don’t want to waste any precious time that could otherwise be spent drinking!

Ingredients

2 Ripe Avocados

1/3 Cup Red Onion Diced

1 Jalapeno Seeded and Diced

1 tsp Minced Garlic

1 Lime

Salt

Place peeled Avocados in bowl and mash up with a fork. Add diced Red Onion, Jalapeno and Garlic. Squeeze in juice of one Lime. Mix together until smooth. Add Salt to taste.

Enjoy!

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

2012-04-29T13:09:01Z

You know those people who are always running a good hour late, and time just seems to slip away from them? And when you make plans with them, you know to tell them to be there a good half hour to an hour before you actually need them there? Well, that’s a large portion of my family. They run on Czlapinski time. It’s different from the time system followed by the rest of the universe, and it’s OK because we love them and we’re used to it. We all have our flaws, and to love someone is to accept them in their entirety – flaws and all. And while I typically do not run on Czlapinski time, my blog totally does. I don’t post about things until sometimes a good month or so after they’ve happened. I must apologize, because once again, my blog is running on Czlapinski time… I’m posting a recipe that I made for Easter which, according to my calendar, was a good 3 weeks ago. Where did the time go? Since i’m fairly certain my reader base consists mainly of my family, I think they’ll forgive me.

Like most holidays spent with my family, there was a ton of food, and the dessert table was absolutely out of control. My contribution to the table this year was this White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake, pictured above. It might not have been the prettiest cheesecake I’ve ever made, but it was pretty tasty – light, not too sweet, and the raspberries add a lovely tartness.

Ingredients

Crust:

1 cup slivered almonds
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

Filling:

8 ounces fine-quality white chocolate
4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
4 whole large eggs
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups fresh raspberries

Crust:

Grind almonds and crumbs in a food processor and add melted butter, blending until combined. Press over bottom and up the sides of a 10 inch springform pan.

Filling:

Preheat oven to 350 F

Melt white chocolate in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring until smooth, then remove from heat and set aside.

Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer at medium speed until fluffy, then beat in the sugar. Add whole eggs and then the 2 yolks, 1 at a time at low speed, scraping down the bowl after each addition.

Beat in flour and vanilla until combined, then slowly mix in the melted chocolate until filling is well combined.

Lay berries in 1 layer over crust and pour the filling into the crust. Bake in middle of oven 45-55 minutes – until filling is set, but center is still wobbly when pan is shaken.

Run a thin knife around edge of cake to loosen, then cool completely in pan on a rack.

Serve room temperature or chilled.

I don’t know why I can’t get any work done around here

2012-03-04T14:25:25Z

Kevin and I recently started the long overdue project of refurnishing and general tidying up of our home office. We both spend a ton of time in here (i’m in my office right now) since he’s a student and I work from home more often than not, and it’s really kind of ridiculous that it was in such a costant state of disarry, home to just about everything that we didn’t know what else to do with. I think we all have those spaces in our homes, but if you’re lucky, it’s not a room that you spend such a vast portion of your life in!

It’s still a work in progress, but it’s a heck of a lot better than it once was. It’s nice to have a more comfortable space to work in, but I don’t think anyone’s happier with the recent changes than the cats. Nemo especially has always been lap cat and I’ve often reffered to him as my home co-worker. Part of the project included buying new desks that now allow both he and Spaz more room to roll around and park themselves in front of my monitor to better help me in all my daily tasks.

Really, I don’t know why I don’t get more work done around here – especially with all this help I’ve been getting lately!

Oven Fried Pickles

2012-02-14T22:29:07Z

It’s that time of year again. No, not Valentine’s Day, though I suppose it’s that too. It’s February – the month-long Festival of Kate. Today, in The World According To Kate, we do not just celebrate Valentine’s Day, we celebrate Katesmas Eve- the 30th edition! Yes, tomorrow is my 30th birthday, and I actually could not be more thrilled! If my twenties were great, my thirties are going to AWESOME!

The Katesmas celebration has been going great so far. As usual, I’ve taken an entire week off work to celebrate, in which I buy myself a few gifts, spend lots of time with friends and family, drink far too much, eat ridiculous amounts of chocolate and fried food, and even do a few productive things – like catching up on some reading and going to appointments that I had long been putting off.

My birthday celebration got off to an excellent start this year, when the New York Giants won the Super Bowl for the 2nd time in just 4 years! This was pretty much the best gift ever – especially since I went into this season with pretty low expectations, thinking they most likely wouldn’t even make the playoffs, but they went in and just did what they do best. They never cease to amaze me.

Photo By AngieSix

And boy, was that game intense! My dad’s a Patriots fan and we were talking smack texting on and off throughout the game, and I told him that if I just made it though without experiencing some sort of heart failure, I would call it a victory. Luckily we all made it out OK, but I think Tom may have experience a few injuries when Kevin tried to tackle him to the ground after the win. Not sure what this was… perhpaps the consummation of their epic bromance?

As always, I made far too much food, but then it was a pretty grand occasion and thus, needed to be celebrated with a grand feast. The best thing on the menu was, without a doubt, these Oven Fried Pickles from Weekly Bite. LOVED LOVED LOVED these! They reminded me a lot of the Pickles and Peppers Appetizer that we always get from Eli Cannon’s, but not nearly as greasy, and probably much better for you. Next time, I may even try throwing a few jalapenos into the mix.

Ingredients:

1 jar sliced dill pickels

2 eggs

1/3 cup flour

1 tablespoon worcestershire sauce

1 tsp hot sauce

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp cajun seasoning

1 tsp pepper

1.5 cups panko bread crumbs

Turn on oven broiler

In a medium bowl, whisk eggs and flour together. Then mix in worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, garlic powder, cajun seasoning, and pepper.

Put panko into a dish. Dip pickels first into the egg mixture and then dredge in panko.

Place the pickles on a baking sheet that’s been thoroughly coated with cooking spray.

Place pan in middle rack of oven and broil 2 to 3 minutes on each side.

I served mine with a Peppercorn Ranch Dresssing. Enjoy!

January Motivation / Do Life!

2012-02-01T00:25:06Z

So, now that January’s about over, I thought I’d check in and see how everyone’s New Year’s Resolutions are holding up. Still hanging in there? If you answered no, you’re in good company. Data shows that only 64% of resolutions made will make it through the first month, and after six months, fewer than half the people who made New Year’s resolutions will have stuck with them. These statistics actually sound a bit generous to me. I personally don’t normally make serious resolutions for the new year, but when I have, they haven’t made it more than a couple of weeks. So if you’re still sticking with your plan, I am impressed!

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!

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

2011-12-24T15:49:37Z

This post could just as easily be entitled Welcome to My Cookie Nightmare or perhaps The Great Cookie Tray of Doom, but I decided to just keep it light and simple. It’s Christmas Eve, after all, and I don’t want to sound like a total Scrooge! It’s just that after spending the last two weekends baking and eating cookies, I feel like I might actually vomit if I have to look at another one. That being said, this is a food centered blog, and I’ve taken like 8,000 pictures of cookies and other peoples’ Christmas decorations, and I would be remiss if I didn’t do some sort of holiday baking post. Also, I promised my friend Andrea that her Cookie Swap from a couple of weekends ago would make my blog. Oh, the things I’ll do for my friends… So here’s a quick photo dump of my last two weekends since I don’t really have the time to post a recipe at the moment, because, get this, I have more baking to do today! Happy Holidays, Folks!

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!

Vegan Sweet Potato Muffins

2011-11-23T22:13:26Z

As I’m sure you’ve heard, tomorrow’s Thanksgiving and, if you’re like most of us, you will be engaging in a gluttonous turkey fest, which will then be followed by seventeen pieces of pie, maybe some football and a long nap. It will be super healthy.

While you’ll no doubt consume a sufficient number of calories to last you through the holiday season, you should probably have a little breakfast in the morning. It is the most important meal of the day, after all. I would suggest you keep it light, but that’s just me.

Recently, I made these Vegan Whole Grain Sweet Potato Muffins, and I think they would make the perfect Thanksgiving breakfast item. They were adapted from Mark Bittman’s Sweet Potato Muffin Recipe that was featured in the November issue of Runner’s World. I decided to make them vegan, because I’m just crazy like that and enjoy the challenge. If I were to make them again, I might substitute some of the whole wheat flour for some white flour. I also made them a little lower fat by using apple sauce in place of the oil.

Bittman also suggests trying banana nut or pumpkin coconut variations if you’re not into sweet potatoes. I think the pumpkin coconut option sounds just divine, and would be great if you feel that the seventeen pieces of pumpkin pie you’ll be eating later just aren’t going to fulfill your pumpkin needs!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 tsps. baking powder

1 tsp. ground ginger

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 cup Earth Balance buttery spread

1/4 cup apple sauce

1 cup mashed sweet potato

3 tbsps. water mixed with 2 1/2 tbsps. flax

1/2 cup almond milk

Heat oven to 375° F. Grease 12 muffin cups or add paper liners.

In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, ginger, baking soda, and salt.

In a separate bowl, mix earth balance, apple sauce, sweet potato, flax/water mixture, and almond milk.

Fold wet mixture into the dry; and stir until just combined. Batter should be pretty thick.

Fill muffin cups three-quarters full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

Enjoy!

Photos From My Balcony After The October Snow Storm

2011-11-01T12:14:00Z

Granted, the flowers normally would have been taken down over a month ago, but they were looking so great, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s funny, throughout the Summer, all of the plants on my deck were looking pretty horrible. Then, Hurricane Irene ripped through a couple of months ago, and suddenly they all came back to life and were better than ever. I even had peppers and tomatoes! I hardly had any all Summer yet I picked a couple of great ones Saturday morning just before the storm hit us. I have a feeling they’re not coming back from this though…

Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

2011-09-05T12:56:34Z

Happy Labor Day, everyone! So the Summer’s over, kids are going back to school, and most of us have used up the majority of our vacation time at work. Bummer… Time to try to cram an entire Summer’s worth of fun into a weekend. This is it, guys! Hopefully, you’ve had a busy weekend full of socializing and eating and drinking at various picnics and the whatnot. I know I have!

For those of you who haven’t figured out what you’re bringing to your Labor Day picnic yet, here’s a little recipe for you. And yes, you need to bring something! You can’t just show up empty handed, because your mother raised you better than that. Don’t disappoint her.

I made these Coconut Oatmeal Cookies for a recent picnic and they were a huge hit – all you could ever want from a cookie. Coconut, oatmeal, white chocolate chips and LOTS of butter. Normally, I like to think that if a cookie has oatmeal in it, that makes them healthy – like part of a balanced breakfast. However, I think the more than two sticks of butter that these cookies have in them completely negates that, but who cares, it’s Labor Day! We’re officially heading into sweater weather and big eating season – these are just a great way to kick it off!

An Afternoon in Old Lyme

2011-11-10T20:32:28Z

Recently, I took a much needed week off from work, and was looking for some fun little day trips that I could do. My mom took a day off to spend with me and suggested the we check out the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme and maybe do a little lunch in the area. Before going to the museum, I really didn’t know much about it – which made it all the more intriguing – and of course, I never turn down lunch, so this sounded like a wonderful idea!

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)!

Black Bean Quinoa Burgers

2011-07-31T23:57:52Z

So how was everyone’s long 4th of July weekend? Mine was pretty great… Lots of grilling, hanging out with friends, baseball and drinking lots of beer!

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!

My Drunk Kitchen!

2011-06-28T01:15:33Z

Seriously, “nothing about cookies is fun”, and “the worst part of baking is everything about baking.” Next time I get suckered into making a whole mess of cookies with my family, I think I’m bringing a few bottles of champagne with me.

Easter 2011 Dessert Table and Other Highlights

2011-05-01T14:14:52Z

I know it’s a week late, but hey, I’ve been busy… and lazy! I was out running a few errands with my mom yesterday afternoon and she subtly reminded me that I hadn’t yet posted about Easter. Thanks Mom.

This Easter was just like any other holiday spent with my family. The amount of food was fairly ridiculous – especially considering that we’d all been told by the hostess, my Aunt Debbie, NOT to bring any extra food (especially desserts) this year, because she wanted to cut down and we always have way too much left over Blah, blah, blah… And that’s exactly what I heard, and apparently what everyone else heard – specifically the “blah, blah, blah” part. We all brought dessert – lots and lots of dessert. This is just what we do. If you tell us we can’t bring anything, we’ll probably show up with a dessert. If you also tell us we can’t bring a dessert, we’re just going to be very confused. We are Polish, after all :p

The Dessert Table

As always, it was a really fun day, with lots of food and wine shared and enjoyed with the family. I took a lot of photos, playing with the new lens I recently bought for my camera. These are just a few of my favorite shots from the day.

It ended up being a beautiful day even though storms were predicted (and did eventually hit us in the late afternoon). Here’s my dad out enjoying the sun!

Dad on the Deck

This is my Aunt Annie sitting with Alyssa in the living room before the big holiday meal. Not sure what they’re looking at here, but it looks like I caught a nice moment.

Aunt Annie and Alyssa

My cousin Kim had a baby in November and I got a lot of pictures of him on Easter. This is my favorite of Peyton with his mommy. And yes, she always looks this good. It’s actually kind of sickening

Kimmie with Peyton

Of course, I also got a bunch of pictures of my dad with the baby. My dad is a baby magnet. Babies always love him – and, really, what’s not to love?

Peyton with my dad

It just wouldn’t be my blog if I didn’t include a picture of a cat. Aunt Debbie’s cat was crazy friendly and I was really tempted to stuff him in my bag and take him home with me. Next time I’m coming with a bigger purse.

Oliver? Aunt Debbie has had a few cats over the years that all look similar. I can never remember which one’s which. I think this is Oliver.

Oh, and it looks like someone had far too much wine! And for once, it wasn’t me!

Drunken Lamb!

So overall, it was a great day with the family. I’ll be posting the recipe for my dessert table contribution later this week, so stay tuned!

A Dramatic Reading From “My Father’s Daughter” by Gwyneth Paltrow

2011-04-23T16:31:04Z

20 Best Beer Towns in America

2011-04-10T16:00:00Z

As someone who loves to travel and plans ~~most~~ all of my vacations around where I’ll be eating and drinking, I found this list of the 20 Best Beer Towns in America from Worlds Biggests pretty interesting. The list is nicely organized by region, making it easy to imagine planning a sort of beer road trip around it. Mmm… beer road trip.

It looks like I easily have the entire Northeast region covered thanks to my recent visit to Portland, ME (which can be read about here and here too), in which we seriously did nothing but eat and drink all weekend long (not that there’s anything wrong with that)! Now, on to conquer the rest of America’s beer towns!

A few pictures from our various beer adventures over the years:

PS – Kevin will most likely kill me if he sees the picture I posted of him, but when I found it, I really had to share it. I love it

Hearthstone Pub – Plantsville, CT

2011-03-09T15:30:00Z

Recently, Kevin and I met our awesome friend Jenn out for a Sunday afternoon lunch at The Hearthstone Pub in the Planstville section of Southington. I had been hearing a lot of good things about it, so when she suggested we meet up there, I couldn’t turn down the invitation!

Jenn!

The décor is simple, but attractive, with lots of dark wood and fireplaces everywhere you look (there’s a grand total of 16 in the restaurant)! It has a very cozy and comfortable feel, the kind of place where you can really relax and spend some time with a few friends and some beers. We actually managed to stay a few hours on our visit!

Speaking of beer, they have 16 different beers on tap, and Kevin and I were very pleased to find a number of microbrews on the list, including several IPA’s. It was definitely a nice little selection. They also had an extensive wine list.

Kevin, enjoying an IPA

Because this was Jenn’s last weekend before starting a diet, we decided to go all out and order the Pub Fried Combo as an appetizer. And it was all that a fried combo should be! It consisted of potato skins, wings, calamari and onion rings, and came with a variety of dipping options. It was delicious, fried goodness!

Fried Awesomeness!

For our meal, I ordered the Grilled Portabella Panini, which was served with fries and coleslaw. The Panini was really good. One might wonder how one can screw up a Portabella Panini, but as someone who orders this sort of thing all the time, trust me it happens all the time. The Hearthstone Pub got it right, though, it was perfect – flavorful, with lots of veggies, and not too soggy. The fries were good, but nothing to write home about. I tried the slaw and wasn’t impressed, but then, I’m not usually a big fan of coleslaw – this one was way too mayonnaisey for me. Overall, I was happy with my meal.

Jenn had the Baked Stuffed Shrimp, which was served with rice and a heaping pile of vegetables. Look at all those veggies! Beautiful!

Kevin order the Guinness Bacon Cheeseburger, which was served with a side of fries. While the burger was good, it wasn’t really anything special. It just tasted like a normal bacon cheeseburger – no noticeable Guinness flavor at all. The menu indicated that there would be a Guinness sauce, but it either wasn’t there or just wasn’t detectable, so that was a bit of a disappointment.

Overall, I have to say I was pretty impressed with the place, and definitely intend to go back in the near future. This is a great place for a Sunday afternoon with friends, an evening out with the girls or even a romantic dinner for two!

Hearthstone Pub

42 West Main Street

Plantsville, CT 06479

(860) 628-0877

What If Cats Had Thumbs?

2011-03-05T14:36:35Z

I LOVED this commercial for Cravendale Milk! I’ve often wondered what my cats would do if they only had opposable thumbs. The possibilities are endless! Perhaps we could even get them to help us out with some chores around the house! On the other hand, the results could be far more sinister…

Pasta With Sausage and Greens

2011-02-21T16:00:00Z

The other night, I got home late and really hadn’t given dinner too much thought. Takeout was just not an option and we certainly were not going to go out again. We needed something quick, easy and with ingredients that we had on hand. This was one of those meals that was thought up while standing in front of my refrigerator, thinking ‘what in the world am I going to make tonight?’ Sometimes this is the start of complete disasters and other times the results are really quite good. This was the latter. We lucked out.

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!

A Recipe For An Awesome Birthday

2011-02-17T17:12:27Z

It always makes me sad when I hear that someone plans to not celebrate their birthday or, even worse, just completely ignore it. As we get older, this seems to be a more and more common occurrence, and I don’t think it’s right! It’s not as if by not acknowledging the day, the aging process won’t continue. We’re getting older every single day whether we like it or not. You have this one day a year that’s your day… shouldn’t you make it special? Embrace it! I actually usually celebrate multiple times throughout the month of February. February’s my month – I’ve claimed it.

Anyway I’ve decided to make a small list of things that I like to do every year to make my birthday extra special and also re-cap what I’ve done to celebrate so far this year. These are just some suggestions… your day should be about you and what you want to do!

1. Spend time with the people you care about.

I always have two parties every year – one with the family and one with my friends. The family one is usually a joint birthday celebration with my brother since his birthday is about two weeks before mine. We usually celebrate the weekend in between- often for the Super Bowl. Some people might not like having to share a birthday party, but I actually like it better this way. I like sharing and I think it just makes it more fun. I also like that the celebration is a week before my actual birthday, because it kind of gets things started and serves as a sort of kick-off for my birthday season.

This year, for my friends party, I had all the usual suspects over (Tom & Heather, Jenn & Dan and, of course, Kevin) plus my BFF Andrea and her husband Ryan , which was awesome and extra special, because I normally only get to see them a couple times a year. This was great. I prefer to keep my parties on the smaller side just because it’s easier and less stressful (and my house really can’t fit that many people!). I probably could have had a few more people over, but in the end, these are the really important friends that I wanted there to celebrate my special day with me.

2. Take some time off from work.

Please don’t work on your birthday if you can help it. Take at least a day off. How can your day be really special if you’re going to work? There’s nothing special about going to work – you do that every day! Work is going to totally cramp your style and potentially even make your day a bad day. That’s just unacceptable. For the last few years, I’ve actually been taking a whole week off for my birthday. I highly recommend it.

3. Buy yourself a birthday gift.

I always like to buy myself a gift for my birthday every year. I work hard all year and I deserve it. Now this is partially because my birthday falls around tax refund time, so I have a little extra cash to buy myself a toy – usually a fairly expensive toy. I do understand that this may not be feasible for everyone. I do think, though, that everyone should treat themselves to a little something special – even if it’s something small. You deserve it! This year, I bought myself a new camera – my first DSLR. I got a Canon EOS Rebel T1i, and because I took a week off from work, I have plenty of time to play with it!

4. Overindulge.

If there were ever a time to overindulge this is it! There is a ridiculous amount of chocolate in my house right now, and I won’t lie, I’ve eaten it for breakfast a few times over the last couple of days. I’ve eaten out a lot over the past week and on my actual birthday, Kevin and I visited a couple of beer bars and started drinking at 2pm. It was my day and that is what I wanted to do. There has been a lot of beer, wine, chocolate and fried food consumed over the last few days. Eventually I’m going to have to go back to my old routine, but for now, I will eat and drink whatever I want. It’s my week.

So that’s it! Those are my rules for having an awesome birthday. As I stated above, these are just some suggestions. Heck, if you really want to go to work on your birthday, I guess you can go to work. I just wouldn’t recommend it. The main thing is that you should just enjoy the day!

Here are a few photos from my week!

Soy Chorizo Sausage and Cheese Dip and The Super Bowl

2011-02-09T00:03:33Z

In my last post, I mentioned that I had no idea what I was going to make for the Super Bowl party I would be attending. After putting a little bit of thought into it, I decided that since I had decided I would be cheering on the Packers, I should definitely bring something cheese based. Okay, well that was a start. Then I also remembered that I had this awesome Soy Chorizo Sausage from Trader Joe’s sitting in the refrigerator. Perfect, I had just the plan!

I did a little bit of searching online and found this great recipe for a Chorizo Sausage Cheese Dip that was exactly what I was looking for. It was pretty simple to make and it was a huge hit at the party! The only real changes that I made were subbing the soy chorizo for the regular chorizo and I also left out the chipotle chilies. I forgot them!. It was still really good without them. I definitely recommend this one!

I’d also like to point out that, originally, nobody believed me when I told them the chorizo was actually soy. I try, as a rule, to avoid the fake meats, but some of them are really pretty good and they’re definitely nice to have around when you’re trying to limit your meat consumption and you’re running low on dinner ideas.

A few other pictures from the evening:

The Spread

Dad’s Crab & Corn Chowder

My Dad!

My mom’s made the blog on numerous occasions, but I think Dad’s only been in maybe once before… it was his turn. The Super Bowl’s kind of a manly event and who’s manlier than my dad? Look, he even sits in a leather armchair!

Dan and Angie!

The Birthday Cakes

How could I forget the cakes? This wasn’t just a Super Bowl party; it was also a joint birthday celebration for me and my little bro. My cake, on the right, was my usual Cherry Chip and my brothers was a chocolate peanut butter cake – his usual.

Overall, it was a really fun night (despite my lingering head cold), with lots of great food and good times spent with the family. A wonderful way to kick off my month of birthday celebrations!

Puppies in Lingerie!

2011-02-06T13:44:35Z

I spent most of yesterday on the couch with a box of tissues and my favorite blanket (yes, at almost 29, I have a blankie that I carry around just about everywhere when I’m in the house. I’m like Linus… and it’s cold in here!) and caught up on DVR’d episodes of Conan. Hey, I know how to have a good time!

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?

Welcome Back, February!

2011-02-05T12:17:17Z

Oh, hello February, welcome back! I almost didn’t see you there – you came in so quietly. I see you’ve brought with you my normal month-long head cold. Thank you! How thoughtful, what a positively delightful birthday gift!

You know, February, nobody is a bigger fan of yours than I am. I like to celebrate with you from the 1st through the 28th. Once every four years, we even get an extra day of celebration. How cool is that? No other month has that awesome feature. I even love Valentine’s Day, and always have – even when I was perennially single! What’s not to love? It’s Katesmas Eve! It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

Oh Dear February, as much as I do adore you, perhaps we can rethink this whole head cold thing next year. I mean it’s a lovely gift and all, but it kind of cramps my style… I mean, we celebrate pretty hard, and I would prefer to not have to do it through a cough suppressant induced haze and a sea of phlegm. As wonderful as it all is, it makes it a bit difficult for me to really enjoy all the awesome food and adult beverages I plan to consume. And should one really be mixing cold meds with copious amounts of alcohol? Silly question, of course they should if it’s their birthday (month…)!

So I was just thinking, maybe next year, the head cold can be like a going away gift that you present to me on the 29th (yay, a leap year!). I mean, I don’t really need to be Kate at a Ten for March. March sucks. It’s crazy busy at work, and while it claims to be “in like a lion and out like a lamb”, it is normally far too leonine for me even at months end! Really, I think I would rather be a little groggy for it…

Anyway, welcome back February! You’ve been missed – even with your stupid head cold!

Vegetable Cassoulet

2011-02-03T12:55:03Z

After the meat eating extravaganza of the weekend, I definitely needed a break from consuming dead animal flesh and wanted to make something super vegetabley, simple, but also hearty, for dinner on Sunday night. I did a little searching and came across this Incredible Vegetable Cassoulet from Not Eating Out in New York. This fit the bill perfectly… I even got to break out my Le Creuset French Oven! This was exactly what I had in mind – something with lots of vegetables, that would stick to your ribs and felt worthy of Sunday evening dinner. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly (I rarely really follow a recipe), but I was certainly inspired by this one. I used what I had and went with my gut and I suggest you do the same. Because of this meal’s rustic simplicity, it lends itself well to improvisation. What I did is detailed below.

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!

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Kevin!

2011-01-30T18:36:57Z

So it’s really a belated happy birthday, as Kevin’s birthday was last Sunday, but we didn’t do much celebrating until this weekend (we spent last Sunday night at a wake), so I feel it’s actually perhaps more appropriate to wish him a happy birthday now than it was last week. Right? Right.

It was good to get out and socialize a bit. I work from home a lot and with all the snow we’ve been having lately (and I hear there’s more to come this week!), I definitely wasn’t going into the office, so I hardly left the house all last week. By Friday, I was just itching to get out of the house and see people. Maybe I really am an extrovert…

On Friday night,we went out with Kevin’s parents for his birthday celebration. We went to Smokin’ With Chris in Southington, which was awesome as always. I think I’ve probably mentioned here before that I really don’t eat a lot of meat as a rule. I’m not quite a vegetarian, but I probably keep my diet about 95% vegetarian. I’ve always found, however, that it’s worth making an exception for Smokin’ With Chris.

I had the pulled pork sandwich, which was awesome as usual, and well worth the exception. Although, I do have to say, that it wasn’t quite as good as it normally is. The pork wasn’t quite as pulled as it normally is, and maybe a little drier. It was still quite tasty, though. I took half home with me, which will probably be lunch one day this week.

(probably worth mentioning that this is not the sandwich I had on Friday, but a photo from a previous visit – didn’t feel like taking out the camera)

Last night, we went out with Tom and Heather for more celebrating, since we didn’t get to see them last weekend. We ended up going to Plan B Burger Bar in Glastonbury, so another exception night for me. They actually have a really good veggie burger, but their real burgers are pretty amazing, and I just couldn’t pass one up. Again, it was totally worth it.

We started with an order of the Jalapeno Poppers, which were less like a popper, and more like, as Kevin put it, “potato skins with jalapenos instead of potatoes”. They were good, but I don’t know if I’d order them again. It was kind of too much…

For my dinner, I ordered the Pretzel Burger, which is a favorite of mine. It’s on a pretzel bun, with spicy mustard, lettuce, pickles and cheddar. It’s one of the simpler burgers on the menu, which I really appreciate, because it doesn’t take away from the flavor of the beef. And while I’m not normally a big fan of beef, when it’s done right, it can be really excellent, and Plan B definitely does it right.

On the side, I had the Truffle Fries, which were quite good… definitely Truffley.

Heather had the Disco Fries with her burger, which were covered in cheese and gravy… I think the consensus was that the cheese was too artificial tasting – like cheese from a can or something. Oh well…

After Plan B, we went back to our place and had a few beers. I think, overall, Kevin had a pretty good birthday – even if it was almost a week late

Garden Pool

2011-01-22T17:34:55Z

A friend of mine shared this video on Facebook earlier today and I thought it was pretty fascinating and had to share with you. More information can be found at GardenPool.org

The World According To Kate

Simple Guacamole

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

Ingredients

Crust:

1 cup slivered almonds

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

Filling:

8 ounces fine-quality white chocolate

4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

4 whole large eggs

2 large egg yolks

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups fresh raspberries

Crust:

Grind almonds and crumbs in a food processor and add melted butter, blending until combined. Press over bottom and up the sides of a 10 inch springform pan.

Filling:

Preheat oven to 350 F

Melt white chocolate in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring until smooth, then remove from heat and set aside.

Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer at medium speed until fluffy, then beat in the sugar. Add whole eggs and then the 2 yolks, 1 at a time at low speed, scraping down the bowl after each addition.

Beat in flour and vanilla until combined, then slowly mix in the melted chocolate until filling is well combined.

Lay berries in 1 layer over crust and pour the filling into the crust. Bake in middle of oven 45-55 minutes – until filling is set, but center is still wobbly when pan is shaken.

Run a thin knife around edge of cake to loosen, then cool completely in pan on a rack.

Serve room temperature or chilled.

I don’t know why I can’t get any work done around here

Oven Fried Pickles

January Motivation / Do Life!

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

Vegan Sweet Potato Muffins

Photos From My Balcony After The October Snow Storm

Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

An Afternoon in Old Lyme

Black Bean Quinoa Burgers

My Drunk Kitchen!

Easter 2011 Dessert Table and Other Highlights

A Dramatic Reading From “My Father’s Daughter” by Gwyneth Paltrow

20 Best Beer Towns in America

Hearthstone Pub – Plantsville, CT

What If Cats Had Thumbs?

Pasta With Sausage and Greens

A Recipe For An Awesome Birthday

Soy Chorizo Sausage and Cheese Dip and The Super Bowl

Puppies in Lingerie!

Welcome Back, February!

Vegetable Cassoulet

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Kevin!

Garden Pool