finishing out thanksgiving dinner and watching The Children's Hour

So, yesterday I made two more of thanksgiving dinner's dishes, curried squash and mushroom soup and sticky toffee pudding. I still have the yams to make(although I did bake one for my mid movie snack tonight). The soup was from Moosewood cookbook, which is one the best and most useful cookbooks I've ever used. I also made the pumpkin pie recipe from this book. The sticky toffee pudding recipe is from an itty bitty English cookbook of puddings which Clare brought me from England. This was one of the most fantastic things I've ever made! So good. Oh goodness gracious. Everyone must make it immediately.

Sticky Toffee Pudding
Pudding
6 oz stoned dates, roughly chopped
1/2 pint boiling water
2 oz butter
6 oz caster sugar(I used regular sugar)
8 oz flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 medium egg
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Toffee Sauce
2 oz butter
3 oz brown sugar
2 tablespoons double or single cream

Set over to 350 degrees F. Pour boiling water over dates and bicarbonate of soda and leave to stand. Cream butter and sugar together in bowl until pale in colour. Gradually stir in the egg, flour and baking powder. Stir in the dates with the liquid and lastly add the vanilla. Put mixture into a greased 2 1/2 pint ovenproof dish and bake for approximately 40 min. until risen and firm to the touch. Make the sauce by boiling the ingredients together for 2 min. and pour over the warm pudding.
Make this recipe Today.

I spent this evening by myself since Matthew was at his beer brewer's meeting. So I watched the movie The Children's Hour with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine. This was such an excellent movie. I've always loved Audrey Hepburn movies but I've avoided this one because it sounds so depressing and it is rather a bit, but it is too well done not to watch.

Anyway, it's been a jolly little week.

"ham day"

I hate it when people call thanksgiving "turkey day." Anyways, I didn't have turkey this year(or the last, for that matter) I had ham instead. It's so much better and the leftovers are actually useful. I don't have to find ways to use up ham, it just comes in very handy during the months following thanksgiving. So, we had a sweet little thanksgiving, just me, Matthew and Matt. I had a lovely and elegant meal planned but got tired of cooking half way through the day and the more complex items were dropped. I'll make them another time.

We had a nummy meal of baked ham, garlic mashed potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts, gorgonzola and roasted beet salad and pumpkin pie. Really, we had more than enough food and now I can make the other items for when we'll really enjoy them with out them having to compete with the main dishes.

Thanksgiving was fun and full of yummy food, but perhaps next year we'll just go out for sushi.

I wanted to put her in my pocket....

and take her home with me.

She was so cute, the little girl, about my age, who came into the shop yesterday to buy an apron. Now, I love the aprons we carry. They are fantastically expensive($70-140) but fantastically well made(think double sided so two aprons in one, thick creamy cotton, fitted). So, when she came in to buy an apron I basically dropped any interest in other customers and focused on helping her pick out an apron. After all, one of my favorite things to do at work is try on the aprons. It was a fun day!

She was so cute people, so, so cute!

And then other days...

life seems so easy. My life is peaches. Last night we walked out of a mexican food restaurant and some guy sitting on the brick work outside of the next store over asked if we had any leftovers. Well I had my leftover half of a carnitas burrito and so I said, "just half a burrito" and he said, "anything would be great." So I gave it to him. It was really odd. I felt bad giving it to him. He was really young and seemed all there and I felt shame for him because he was willing to eat a stranger's left over food. So bizarre, people!* I did not feel in anyway a good person because I gave him my burrito. I just did it because he asked and was willing to eat it and I didn't really want it but I hate to waste food. This was not a "good deeds trip" on my part, just a really strange experience. Me, being me, worried for the next half hour that perhaps he didn't really want the burrito and threw it away, and that would have been wasteful. That really had me worried =)

I guess some people aren't anti-germ freaks like me =)


* by "people" i mean matthew and rachel since you two are my only readers =) don't you love how I refer to you with such grand generalizations?

Why are some days such a struggle...

...while others are not?

Today I:
♥squashed grain moths and baby worms that were anxiously waiting to to grow into moths. We found them eating away at the "reindeer food"(really just a sack of wheat berries in a pretty red bag with bells on it)
♥got into a rather heated argument with some bitchy old british lady when I attempted to defend myself from her verbal abuse. She was horrid people, I tell you absolutely horrid. I would have gladly slapped her but she probably would have squashed me as she was shorter and wider than I.
♥had to track down the stuck up little blond high schooler who parked her golf cart behind my car, apparently for the evening with no intention of moving it.
♥unpacked some of the most idiotic christmas merchandise I've ever seen and in the process covered myself with cardboard dust and particles.
♥listened to the first Christmas album of the year and determined which songs I'll be skipping on that one.

I'm so not looking forward to the Holidays.

A busy day off

I fully intended to post earlier in the day but I was way too busy with chores and errands. In fact, I intended to post a number of times over the past week but it just hasn't happened. So, Halloween was lovely, I dressed in my usual pink fairy costume and handed out candy to hundreds of children who came by the store. It was adorable. Lots of cute cute costumes. I must admit though, my favorites are the homemade ones. I really don't like seeing 50 kids, all in identical costumes.

I also had one of the most delightful birthdays. Matthew went way overboard with the presents which was fun for me =) We went out for Chinese food which was always my choice for birthday dinner when I was a youngster so I thought I'd keep the tradition. The next day I went out with a co worker and a former co worker for drinks at the Pink Elephant. So cute, bubbles and little elephants everywhere. I got the pink princess drink which was silly sweet but fun. It was at this point when I realized that my Oregon ID really was no longer valid. I showed the bouncer both my official but one day expired ODL and then my very shoddy looking CDL papers which are all easily forgable photo copies. The guy says "good thing you have that stuff cause I wouldn't let you in with your expired license." What?! what kind of craziness is that? I'll tell you what it is, a terrible reminder that I'm no longer an Oregon citizen. So sad!

Other than that sad bit of realization it's been a lovely birthday weekend. The weather has finally been feeling fall like(as much as it will down here); in celebration I made the most delicious little fall dessert of Bartlett pear crisp with Pumpkin ice cream. It tasted exactly like a bowl of fall. Nummy!

Matthew really went above and beyond with my b-day gifts. I'd seen these Hello Kitty car floor mats a week before and didn't have money for them so he knew I'd like those. But he wasn't sure if I'd like a Sony reader. Of course, as an English major, naturally I'd like a tiny little machine that can store hundreds of books for my reading pleasure. It is fantastically impressive. So tiny, but it holds so much information and works perfectly. I love it.