Friday and Saturday in the Kitchen

Hi Everyone:

On Friday night my friend Katherine and I made a fantastic pasta fagioli. Katherine has Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything and that is where we found the recipe. It was fantastic – and I will definitely be making the recipe again soon. I think it is one of the most perfect foods for fall and winter.

I was in charge of dicing up a lot of garlic (because I do it so well):

I love lots of garlic!

In this pot most of the ingredients have been added, sans the vegetable broth and pasta…

Soon after we added the broth and pasta. My bowl looked like this when we sat down to eat:

We also enjoyed a couple of pieces of Iggy’s bread with our soup. I definitely had seconds on the soup, and I will be making it again soon because it was amazing.

On Saturday I decided to have my friends Tim and Nicole over for dinner. They are always feeding me, so I decided it was about time I had them over for dinner I enjoyed hanging out with Henri during the evening. I cannot believe he is six weeks old already. Wow!

Saturday I decided to make another version of cassoulet. I found the recipe I used on the Food Network. I really love watching The Next Food Network Star and a couple of seasons ago I really liked Lisa Garza. I remember the episode when she made her cassoulet and all of the judges on the show loved it.

Here is the recipe:

White Bean Cassoulet

Unfortunately while I was making this dish, I could not find my camera (what!?) and it took me a while to put all of this together. I even made the spinach pesto! My cassoulet turned out a little bit strange because I accidently put 1/2 a cup of the spinach pesto in my le creuset where I was cooking the rest of the ingredients together… I was supposed to be using it as a garnish. I still had plenty of the spinach pesto left, so I did use it as a garnish as well…. and I do not think it ruined the taste of the cassoulet (at least that is what my dinner guests told me). Oops.
Here is what my cassoulet looked like when we sat down to dinner:
I apologize for the low grade photograph… it was taken via my iPhone! Tim and Nicole brought over a baguette from Seven Stars (my favorite!) and they also brought dessert. A fantastic apricot clafoutis. This dessert is a masterpiece!

Here is the recipe:

Jacques Pepin’s Apricot Clafoutis

OK, that about wraps up my last couple of days in the kitchen! I’m off to get some exercise…. it is a perfect day outside, so I am off for a run. See you soon!

Tuesday

Hi All -

Well, in case you were wondering – I am still out here in cyber space. It’s been nearly two weeks (I think??) since my last post. Oops. In the last two weeks I have made sure to get life back on track. I’ve been making time to exercise every day and I’ve been eating well, too (which was not that hard to do since I have been doing it for a long time!) The last two weeks were all about finding some sort of time in my schedule to make time to run or go to the gym at least four days a week. With the long commute, trying to make time to sleep, getting things done around the house and having some sort of ‘life’ out side of all of this, the blog was one of the things to fall to the way side.

So, today I’m back! I took photos of lunch and dinner and I can tell you all about my weird breakfast But before that I thought I would let you all know about a dinner I made a few days ago. For my mom’s birthday I made another one of Jacque’s recipes… the little shrimp casseroles. I love this recipe!! It was a little labor intensive, just because I had to shell and de-vain the shrimp, but after that it was soooo easy. It turned out really well, and I cannot wait to make it again. Click here for the recipe.

My mom, sister and I all really enjoyed the shrimp casserole, along with a glass of pinot grigio.

The day after cooking the shrimp meal, I met my friend Danielle for a great yoga class at Eyes on the World Yoga studio in Providence. We took a mellow yoga class, which is one of their versions of vinyasa. It is a 90 minute class and it is really relaxing. We are going again this Saturday morning and I am really looking forward to it.

Over the past two weeks I have been running about three days a week, and doing my usual 2 1/2 mile walk at lunch about three days a week, too. We have been pretty lucky in that we have been having a great month of September – it has been beautiful weather and I have taken advantage of it as much as possible by running outside in the park. In order to do this, I have to wake up at 5:45 in the morning (and be on the road by 6:15) to get to work early so that I can be back home by 5:30 to get 45 minutes of daylight to run in.

Back to my day today. I took the train to work, which is a nice treat on Tuesdays (and sometimes Wednesdays) because I get to sleep in until 6:30 I got to work at 8:30 this morning, and dove right in to my work day. I was not hungry for breakfast, but at 9 o’clock I ate half of the peanut butter and jam sandwich I had packed for lunch just to get something in my tummy for “breakfast”. I had packed a Greek yogurt with flax, PB2 and granola for breakfast, but I just was not feeling it – but I saved it for tomorrow’s breakfast.

For lunch I walked to ABP and made a salad with mixed greens (spinach and romaine) with green beans, mushrooms, cucs, tomatoes, carrots and croutons. Along with the salad I had a pomegranate seltzer and the other half of my peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread.

Tonight, unfortunately, there was no time for the gym or running. But I am glad that I walked 2 1/2 miles (a mile at lunch and a bit over a mile and a half getting to and from the train) I got off the train tonight at 6:40 and had to run errands until about 8 o’clock tonight. After running around for over an hour, I was a bit hungry for dinner. Thankfully I had something already prepared… whole wheat pasta, TJ’s tomato and garlic sauce (reduced sodium of course!) a small bread stick (100 calories) and two of mom’s homemade meat balls. This dinner really hit the spot.

OK, so that is a wrap. I am off to prep for tomorrow’s early morning. See you all soon!

There is nothing like homemade salsa

Happy Sunday everyone! I cannot believe that I have another whole day off tomorrow – how exciting! I definitely had a more active day today, thank goodness.

My omelette kept me full for many hours today – but before heading out for errands and to play tennis, I decided to have a bowl of fruit for a light lunch. I should have added a bit of yogurt for protein, but the fruit itself was fantastic.

é

This afternoon I played tennis for a half an hour with Tim and after we made homemade salsa.

I brought two of the ingredients and Tim had the rest on hand. While Nicole and Henri slept, we whipped up this amazing and fresh dish to snack on.

No surprise, this was a Jacques Pépin recipe This recipe was taken out of Fast Food My Way (volume 1). The ingredients:

2 cups diced tomatoes (1/2 inch pieces) including skin and seeds

1/4 cup minced jalapeño or serrano pepper (more or less, depending on your tolerance for heat!)

1/3 cup coarsely chopped onion, put in a sieve and rinsed under cold running water

1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro

1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

3 tablespoons ketchup

2 tablespoons water

I had a great time chopping. I find chopping vegetables seriously therapeutic

Seriously good stuff.

After playing tennis and enjoying salsa, I went home. Instead of allowing myself to sit down, I told my mom that we were going for a walk. It was such a beautiful day and turned into a gorgeous evening. It was cool enough that I needed a long sleeved shirt! I was surprised. Mom and I walked for about thirty to forty minutes. It was awesome. After the walk I stopped by Whole Foods for milk, pine nuts (pesto on the menu for this week!) and a few other things.

Dinner was late tonight, around 8:30. I toasted a piece of whole grain bread with a sprinkle of grated swiss cheese and topped the bread with some of the fresh salsa. I had a side of blueberries and a glass of milk.

That is about all I have for tonight. Tomorrow is going to be a day at the beach – I am so excited! See ya’ll tomorrow.

I never knew Cassoulet could be so easy!

Hi everyone -

Since I’ve been home, I have been trying to cook a larger meal on Sunday’s so that mom and I can have something ready for dinner for the first couple of days of the work week. It’s been working out really well so far.

Yesterday afternoon I decided to tackle Jacques Pépin’s 30 minute cassoulet. I did not really know how well a cassoulet could come out if it only took thirty minutes… a thought Mr. Pépin must have had himself at one point. He writes in the intro to the recipe:

The famous cassoulet of southwest France features white beans, roast pork, sausage, and duck or goose. Assembled in a cast-iron or earthenware casserole, it is usually covered with bread crumbs and takes hours – sometimes days – to prepare.

Well, I must say – this recipe is amazing and it goes to show you that a wonderful cassoulet can be made in a lot less time! It was also super easy to make!

Before the recipe – here is what my bowl looked like yesterday:

This was a pretty small serving even though it is probably hard to tell in the photograph. I was not feeling great over the weekend, so I did not have much of an appetite. (I had fruit and a scoop of sherbet for dinner on Saturday.)

Here is the recipe for the Cassoulet:

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• about 1 pound of rolled shoulder ham (we didn’t put this in)
• about 3/4 pound of hot Italian sausages, cut into three inch pieces (about six)
• 4 bratwurst sausages (about 1 pound)
• 1 cup diced (1/2 inch pieces) whole button mushrooms (about three ounces)
• 3/4 cup diced onion (1/2 inch pieces)
• 2 tablespoon crushed garlic (about four large cloves)
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 (15 1/2 ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed under warm running water
• 3/4 cup diced tomato (one inch pieces, about one large tomato)
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh parsley

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet and add the ham and Italian sausage.

Cover and cook over high heat for seven to eight minutes, turning occasionally. Add the bratwurst, mushrooms, onion, garlic, thyme, and bay leaf. Mix well and cook for five to six minutes. Add the beans, tomato, water and pepper, bring back to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and boil gently for five minutes.

At serving time, discard the bay leaf, cut the ham into slices and the sausage pieces in half and arrange the meat on a platter with the beans. Sprinkle the parsley on top. Serve with Tabasco and mustard.

FYI – the cassoulet was even better the next day! Give it a try sometime soon – it is a perfect dish for the fall / winter seasons but not bad for the summer

Jacques Pépin’s Sausage & Potato Packet

Hi Everyone: Happy Sunday afternoon. Yesterday I moved a lot of my stuff out of my old house into my new temporary residence – it was hot and not a lot of fun. But when my friend Tim met me in Rhode Island he came bearing a gift – a copy of Jacques Pépin’s cookbook Fast Food My Way checked out from the Library. It is mine for three weeks! I was very happy to see that the sausage recipe came from this edition of the cookbook so that I can share it with my eager readers.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon good olive oil

4 medium onions (about 1 pound total) cut crosswise into halves

12 small Yukon Gold potatoes (about 1 pound total) peeled or not peeled

About 16 garlic cloves, unpeeled

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 Italian sausages (about 1 pound total) 3 hot and 3 sweet

1 pound kielbasa sausage, cut into 4 pieces

2 springs fresh rosemary

1 tablespoon of chopped fresh parsley

Jacques writes in the introduction to this recipe: Baking the stew in an aluminum foil packet makes it especially easy and eliminates the cleanup. This is a great winter “picnic” dish.

The recipe yields 4 servings (but if you eat like I do, it’s more like 6 or 7 easily!)

Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Arrange a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil about 18 inches wide by 36 inches long on a cookie sheet so that half of the foil covers the pan and the remainder extends beyond it at either end. Pour the olive oil over the foil covering the pan, then rub the onion halves in the oil to coat them. Distribute the potatoes and garlic around the onions and sprinkle with the salt. Finally, scatter the sausages throughout the vegetables and place the rosemary on top. After making certain that the ingredients are in one layer in the foil on the pan, fold the foil overhang over the mixture and fold in the sides to secure the stew in a tight casing.

Bake the foil package for one hour. Using pot holders, transfer the package from the pan to a platter. Open the foil carefully, sprinkle the stew with the parsley and serve directly from the package.

This makes a great meal even in the hot days of summer – as you probably recall, Tim, Nicole and I all enjoyed this fantastic dish last week

YUM:

In case you are wondering… I had a fantastic homemade Belgium waffle this morning with blueberries, a little warmed syrup and a sliver of Earth Balance on top. It was fantastic!

During the move yesterday I had a sandwich on flat bread of tomato, lettuce, low sodium turkey, half a slice of Alpine lace Swiss cheese and a touch of dijon mustard. It really hit the spot during the move. I also consumed several Sigg bottles of water and a Sam Summer after I was done!

I hope you’re all having a good weekend. I’m going to try out Jacques thirty minute cassoulet at some point this week. I cannot wait to let you know how it turns out. Stay tuned!

A week of food

Hi All -

I lugged my computer around with me everywhere this week in hopes I would find a few moments to write in the blog. It ends up I only had a few minutes and wrote about Sunday’s amazing dinner which was definitely a priority in getting out in to cyber world!

So, here is a recap of some of the rest of the food from this week. In case you don’t remember – this week was H-O-T in Boston, most of New England and I think a great deal of the country. It finally felt like summer – but wow. What a wake up call. With hot weather my appetite tends to go out the window. I struggle in steamy conditions and I do not mind going to work on the days when the humidity is super high and the temps are in the 90s…. on days like that it is even too hot for me to venture out to the beach.

Tuesday it was hot and steamy even at 8 o’clock in the morning. This called for an iced coffee from Au Bon Pain… which was amazingly refreshing and delivered just enough caffeine for me to start my day at work! I had not packed any food (because I think the temps had taken my hunger away quickly this week!) but I was so thrilled to find a Larabar in my work bag. This cinnamon roll bar was a wonderful breakfast and kept me full for hours. (I love Larabars specifically because they keep me full for so long!!)

I had not tried the Cinnamon Roll Larabar before and I must say it is one of my favorites! It had the perfect taste of cinnamon and the same wonderful consistency and flavor that you grow to expect from Larabar. I will definitely be getting this bar again.

Because I did not have my lunch packed, I had to walk to Au Bon Pain to get something to eat. It was sooo hot walking over there, but well worth it because their salad bar was pretty good on Tuesday.

I love it when ABP has their green beans – they are such a great addition to my usual salad. This one had chicken, half a hard boiled egg, broccoli, toasted red peppers, cucs, chick peas, carrots, tomatoes, and spinach. I loved this salad! I added a teaspoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of balsamic for dressing. I also had a piece of whole wheat bread on the side.   

I did not need an afternoon snack with this awesome salad which was nice. I decided to take the bus to South crutons Station instead of walking in the horrible heat / humidity – I wanted to get my walk in for the day, but I decided that skipping it was probably better for the body and would definitely make my train ride home more enjoyable!

When I got home my mom and I decided to go out to eat at a local Noodle place that has opened up in Providence relatively recently. I am sad to say that I forgot my camera – but here is a picture of the noodles from Wednesday’s lunch:

Noodles 102 is on 102 Ives Street in Providence. I loved this place and I cannot wait to go back. I had udon noodles with shrimp. I loved my dish! The noodles were fantastic with the scallions, corn, carrots, and amazing shrimp. I had at least six shrimp in my noodle bowl Next time I am going to try the curry coconut broth which is one of my mom’s favorites – this time my noodles came in the traditional chicken broth.

We also had an order of Asian Cucumbers (some people think these are spicy – but I thought they were perfect!) and vegetable dumplings – which are quite substantial and wonderful, I had two!)

Wednesday for breakfast was a bowl of overnight oats

and lunch was left over noodles, pictured above After lunch Katherine and I took a fifteen or twenty minute walk at work… it was too hot to walk longer than that

Dinner was pizza at my friend Colleen’s and a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich for dessert! It was cool enough to take a 35 minute walk in between pizza and ice cream which felt great. We watched a hilarious movie with Henry Fonda and Lucielle Ball – Yours Mine & Ours. I had never seen this movie before but it was fantastic and it made me laugh a lot which I definitely appreciated! If you’re in the movie for a funny movie from 1968 check it out!

OK, that about wraps up the middle two days of the week. I will be back with more soon. My friend Tim brought over a Library copy of Jacques Pepin: Fast Food My Way so I will be giving you all the recipe from Sunday night’s dinner shortly. But for now, check out the recipe for the Apriocot Clafoutis here. I cannot wait to make this one soon!!

Hope you’re all having a good weekend – see you soon!

Sunday: A Night With Jacques Pepin – or Tim and Nicole…

On Sunday night my friends Tim and Nicole invited me over for a lovely dinner and the Pixar film Ratatouille. I arrived at 4:30 with a bottle of red wine to go with dinner. We started the film promptly so that we would have time to finish it and have a nice dinner on the deck afterwards.

As some of you might know, I am not a huge fan of animated movies… but somehow I let Tim and Nicole convince me to see this movie. I am glad they did because I actually really did enjoy it, which was shocking to me. The film was cute and it revolved around one of my favorite subjects – cooking. I love cooking and cuisine, (obviously!) but rats, not so much – thank goodness they were animated. But Pixar makes their rats very realistic, so there were a few minutes where I thought there was a rat cooking in a famous French restaurant…!

Tim, Nicole and I enjoyed dinner after the film concluded. On the menu tonight was another Jacque Pepin recipe – this one however, I was a little nervous for… roasted sausage, onion, potato and garlic. Now I love garlic, potatoes and onions. But up until Sunday I had never tried a real Italian sausage. I am pretty sure that I’ve tried turkey sausage and chicken sausage… and I asked Tim if our sausages for tonight were either of these kinds. The answer was “no!”

Doesn’t this look good!? The garnish is fresh, flat leaf parsley from the “garden” of herbs that Tim grows on the deck! I definitely enjoyed an onion, potato, and two cloves of beautifully roasted garlic (smashed over a piece or two of french bread – my favorite!) and I bravely tried half of a sweet Italian sausage. To my surprise I thought it was fantastic! After I was done with my half I went back for another quarter It was really a great dinner.

The salad was definitely on the top of my list on Sunday night. It was a bed of green leaf lettuce mixed with romaine garnished with sliced radishes (who knew I was such a big fan of radishes???) with a homemade dressing of freshly ground pepper, red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, extra virgin olive oil, and a dash of sea salt. It was a highlight, and I definitely had seconds of the salad.

Dessert was amazing:

An Apricot Clafoutis. As Jacques Pepin says (so correctly!) a clafoutis is somewhere between a sweet omelet and a custard. It is the first clafoutis I have ever consumed (or at least knowingly!) and I loved it. It had a light consistency but it was also rich with flavor at the same time… a great summer dessert! Here is the link to the recipe: Apricot Clafoutis. I cannot wait to make one sometime soon! If you make one, let me know how it is!

That about wraps up my awesome Sunday night dinner with Tim & Nicole. It was a lot of fun and the perfect way to end a weekend.

Sunday: Amazing Ratatouille

Hi All -

Wow, Sunday night’s dinner was a success… but let me recap the rest of the day first.

Katherine and I had a fun time watching Julia Child on pbs.org (link here to episodes on the web!)  The episodes were inspiring and I can’t wait to try a few of her recipes.

It is hard to watch Julia Child cook when you are hungry! I really wanted to make an amazing omelet for lunch – but since I had eggs last night and pancakes this morning, I decided to make a beautiful salad for lunch.  The salad consisted of spinach, tomato, red pepper, cucumber, tuna, a few croutons, and a drizzle balsamic dressing (less than a tablespoon).  It looked very pretty and it was filling due to the fiber and protein.

Here is my beautiful salad:

Along with the salad I had three small pieces of the Seven Star french baguette from yesterday with half of a wedge of ‘light’ laughing cow cheese.

After lunch I went over to see my friends Tim and Nicole.  Tim and I played about a half hour of tennis – it was definitely the best tennis I had played in years!  I guess I had a lot of aggression to get out on the courts – it was a lot of fun!

Later in the day I started the ratatouille. There was a lot of chopping involved!  I love chopping and prepping vegetables.  Here is the link to Jacques Pépin’s recipe for Ratatouille.  I made a few alterations (I am never one to follow recipe’s completely, as you might realize by now). My alterations were using 1 1/2 Japanese eggplant and 1 1/2 small zucchinis and one sort of larger than normal cubanelle pepper… I used two entire cloves of garlic and exactly two cups of onions (like the recipe calls for) the onions definitely had me tearing up today! I also added an eight ounce can of 100% natural tomato sauce because I think I had more vegetables than the recipe called for – and I definitely want some left overs for the next couple of days!

Here is the Ratatouille while on the stove:

The ratatouille cooks for 30 minutes and then you are supposed to bring it down to room temperature.  But because I live in the real world and needed to eat before 9 o’clock on a Sunday night, I served the mixture while it was still hot…. I almost feel guilty – but the recipe simply tells you to heat up the ratatouille again once the pasta is ready… so I just made both of them so they would be ready at the same time.  Here is what the final plated dinner looked like along with the garlic bread my mom put together:

Whole wheat rotini pasta, ratatouille and freshly grated parmesan cheese.   I rarely put parmesan cheese on my pasta, I am not a huge fan and I think it is really strong and can be overpowering.  But a little bit (a teaspoon or less maybe?!) was a nice touch.

I definitely had seconds tonight!

The meal was very beautiful and reminded me a bit of what it was like eating in France when I was there.  Ratatouille is a vegetable stew in Provence and is served on its own most of the time.  I definitely could eat this as a stew – but I also loved it over pasta.

I hope that you have had a great weekend. I’m off to make my Sunday night preparations for my uber early Monday morning. Wish me luck!

TGIF!

Hey Everyone -

Here’s a big TGIF to all Sugar & Spice readers   I had a good day today. I was able to convince myself to take the train this morning instead of driving to work.  Even though I love the train, in the morning I really think it is easier just to get in my car and drive to work – especially in the summer time. On Friday mornings there is no traffic and I could have gotten to work in “no time” (ie like forty minutes or something!).  So what is the problem, you might ask? It’s the commute home on Fridays that is soo horrible.  It could take up to two hours to get home with all of the traffic heading south to Cape Cod and the Islands… hence taking the train on Fridays is a brilliant idea.

The only problem with the train to work is that it takes a long time.  I got to work in an hour and a half this morning. (gah!) But I took the train with my friend Tim and we had a really fun time talking about food, cooking and new recipes. It made the train ride go by really quickly (the actual commuter rail ride is only 50 minutes or so… and then I take the subway, a bus and then walk to get to work)  We talked about some of our favorite chefs – Tim’s favorite chef of all time is Jacques Pépin and today I learned more about Thomas Keller.  I’m hoping to one day have my own copy of the Bouchon cookbook [these are two separate links - Bouchon will take you to the restaurant and cookbook to amazon to check out the cookbook!] and I cannot wait to try some of these French recipes…. one day I would love to eat at The French Laundry in Napa – but I doubt that will ever happen!

So the train was a great start to my Friday and it definitely inspired me to get into a culinary mood for the weekend.  Which is a good thing because I am so excited to see Julie & Julia. I have been waiting for this movie to come out for more than a year – and I’m going to see it with my friend Katherine and my mom tomorrow night. I cannot wait!!

I had a late breakfast this morning – not until about 9:30 this morning. I toasted two pieces of whole wheat bread and enjoyed them with almond butter and blackberry preserves.  This has got to be one of my favorite combination for breakfast (or anytime, actually!)

(breakfast x2 today – this is a “file” photo, used in an earlier post!)

As you might recall, yesterday I was hungry most of the day.  I was also craving a dose of my favorite TJ’s almond butter. I was so happy to have it with breakfast this morning. It really hit the spot!

I did have a chance to walk at lunch today, and it was beautiful outside today! I love Boston in the summer on the rare days when there is zero humidity. Fantastic!

For lunch today I enjoyed a turkey sandwich with romaine lettuce, red onion, tomato and cucumber on a spinach wrap:

Along with a small bag of Baked Lays potato chips

This afternoon we celebrated a colleague’s birthday which is actually tomorrow.  I had a fantastic piece of chocolate cake from Trader Joe’s – just perfect for a Friday afternoon at work!

This was a perfectly small piece of cake. I really enjoyed it!

I hope you all had a great day, too! I’ll be back to let you know about dinner – it was great!

Sunday – a fantastic lunch

On Sunday I was able to celebrate my friend Nicole’s birthday with her, her husband Tim and her mom.  Tim is  an amazing cook and a huge fan of Jacques Pépin – so I knew that we would all be in for quite a birthday treat when I was invited over for lunch.

We started off the afternoon with tortilla chips and an amazing homemade salsa – which I loved!  Tim also made a great hors d’oeuvre with a french baguette, butter, and a radish!  After slicing the baguette into slices that were about an inch thick, he put a touch of butter on top and layered thin slices of radish and then sprinkled kosher salt and fresh ground pepper on top. It was a very lovely treat!

Our main lunch was quite an event:

Asparagus with shallots, potatoes with roasted garlic, and the most fantastic little shrimp casserole.  While I have not checked with Tim on this – I do believe the recipe can be found by clicking here. (On Sunday we did not have mushrooms in our casserole, but everything else seems to be the same!) It is a Jacques Pépin recipe, of course – and it was fantastic.

Here is a close up of my casserole:

I love fresh bread crumbs – and these were fantastic!  When I first arrived at Tim & Nicole’s I was not really hungry – but I certainly did enjoy my lunch – I was left wishing I had more of an appetite!

For dessert Tim made a brownie hazelnut cake (OMG!) with hazelnuts that he had bought in the North End on Friday.  On top of the cake was freshly whipped cream with a bit of orange zest and rum. I do not know what to tell you – except that this was amazing. I could only eat a small piece – but I loved every bite of it!

This was such a fun afternoon – I had a great time hanging out with my friends and celebrating Nicole’s birthday