Pizza Party

I have become a huge fan of happy hour over the past few years. You go out right after work, the drinks are usually cheap, maybe you eat a cheap snack, and you're home in time for dinner. It works out to be ideal both time-wise and economy-wise.

The thing is, though, when you go out for happy hour a lot, it still adds up. And Dr. Scott, Rob, Caitlin, and I were going out to happy hour A LOT. (Plus, we were getting oh-so-slightly sick of going the same places all the time.) So we came up with a solution: move happy hour to our houses and rotate every week. We started out at Scott's, and this past week moved to my house.

 Caitlin and I drinking Laphraoig at Scott's

As hostess, I felt compelled to provide food for my guests. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and casual, but filling. I also wanted to make something that Noe would want to eat when he joined us after his basketball game. I went with homemade pizzas - fairly cheap, pretty easy, and I could offer a variety of toppings.

I cheated a bit - I bought two Boboli crusts and a bag of dough from the refrigerator section of the supermarket. The day before our gathering, I took inventory and built my pizzas around things I already had. I decided to do three pizzas: a pesto/artichoke; a fig/bacon; and a classic Margherita.

For the artichoke pizza, I mashed a few cloves of roasted garlic (purchased from the olive bar at Stop & Shop - didn't have time to roast my own) and spread them on the crust. I then spread a couple tablespoons of pesto (found in my freezer; God only knows how old it was) over top of the garlic. I topped that with some chopped artichoke hearts (I had a can in the cupboard from making spinach-artichoke dip) and some grated cheeses: mozz, provolone, and parmesan.

 Garlic, pesto, artichoke, and three cheese pizza

For pizza number 2, I did purchase a jar of fig preserves. I spread them over the crust like I would sauce, then topped it with chopped bacon and thinly sliced red onion. I topped it off with crumbled bleu cheese (leftover from a bistro steak I made over the weekend).

 Fig preserves, bacon, red onion, and bleu cheese

The third pizza was the classic Italian combo of tomato, basil, and mozzarella. I spread the crust with crushed tomatoes (chunkier than plain tomato sauce). I sprinkled it with some dried oregano and basil from my spice cupboard, topped it with some slices of fresh mozz,and baked it. After I took it out of the oven, I tore up some fresh basil leaves and sprinkled them over the top.

 Classic.

All three pizzas turned out pretty tasty. Scott voted the artichoke the winner. I was a big fan of the bacon/fig/bleu combo. Rob liked the Margherita, but that was mostly because of the chewier crust. We decided to let Noe pick the winner - he went with the fig (probably because he has a bit of a sweet tooth).

(This was a very cheap meal for me to provide, because I happen to be the type of person that has things like imported tomatoes, cans of artichokes, and frozen containers of pesto on hand. But anyone can make a pizza with a pre-made crust, and you don't have to pick expensive or "fancy" toppings. And most of the things I used were not very expensive to begin with. You could buy everything to make any one of these pizzas for less than ten dollars.)

Scott brought a couple bottles of Scotch, one of which we had made a dent in last week. I am really starting to love the smokey, complex taste of Scotch. Scotch is very expensive when ordered in a bar, so
buying it by the bottle has definitely saved us some money (I'll be writing a Scotch post in the near future).

 Scotch and Rob - NOT a match made in heaven,

but what a great photo!

So far, home happy hour has been a huge success (although it does make me want one of those sixties Mad Men-style bar carts with wheels). We've eaten better, consumed higher quality booze, and even saved a little bit of money. Rob's up next - we'll see if he can take up the mantle and continue the tradition.

Off day

I had today off.

You're probably thinking, "Of course you had today off. It is Saturday, after all." However, between volunteering at the aquarium and working at the winery, I haven't had a Saturday off (when not on vacation for a holiday) in months.  Don't get me wrong - I love the aquarium and my second job. But when then winery offered me the chance to switch to working Sundays (more hours and Noe plays tennis on Sunday, so more time to spend with him) I jumped at the chance. Today was my first Saturday sans winery or aquarium.

Noe and I wanted to do SOMETHING now that we had a whole day to spend together; we just didn't know what. Luckily, our good friend Dr. Scott called us up. Dr. Scott often has his kids on the weekends, which rules out things like going to bars or R-rated movies. However, Scott and the kids love books, museums, parks, and the outdoors - in other words, a perfect match for me and Noe. Since we lucked out with unseasonably warm weather (about 55 degrees), we decided to spend some serious time outside.

We first hit the Book Barn, a fantastic used book store in Niantic. Scott, his daughter Fiachra, and I browsed the various buildings for books while Noe and Colm (Scott's son) hunted down cats, pet the great dane and mastiff puppies, and fed the goats (the Book Barn seemingly doubles as a petting zoo). After making our purchases, we headed down I-95 to Mystic (to the tune of Kenny Rogers - Scott's kids love "The Gambler" and "Coward of the County") where we ate lunch at Friendly's and then headed over to Mystic Seaport.

 

Fiachra, Scott, Colm, and Noe in the sun at Mystic Seaport

Noe and I have been meaning to get to the Seaport for awhile, but had just never made it there. Going with Scott and the kids was awesome. They had a family membership plus a guest, so Noe and I split the cost of a ticket. We headed first to the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship built in the 1840's. The Morgan is currently out the water for some restoration, but you can still go up a staircase and into the ship. We explored the cabins and the blubber room - Fiachra proved more knowledgeable than the museum staff.

 The Charles W. Morgan

 

Scott and I "steering" the Morgan 

 

Noe trying out one of the ship's bunks

After checking out the nooks and crannies of the Morgan, we headed over to the restoration exhibit in the shipyard. Theoretically, this was so Colm and Fiachra could do the "hands-on activities" but, truth be told, the adults all got a little too involved boring holes in a piece of plywood with an auger (Scott had to be told to stop boring before he bored through the table). We then headed over to some of the exhibits. Fiachra managed to make quite a splash at the cooperage (the barrel maker) before we made our way to the shipsmith.

 

Colm and I drilling holes  

 Fia in a barrel in the cooperage

Noe and I in front of the L.A. Dunton

All in all, we had a great day. The weather was beautiful and we all had a little cabin fever - the minute we got out of the car, all of us - adults and kids - were off and running. We basked in the sun, ran around on the grass, and strolled by the water. Along the way we picked up a few books and learned some fun facts about whaling ships. It may not have been a big party or a huge night out, but we considered it a Saturday well-spent just the same.

Colm with his "souvenir" from the cooperage

The Fruits of My Labor

Occasionally I pick up a Sunday shift out at Jonathan Edwards Winery (my second job).  This past Sunday was a bit brutal, being the morning after the annual Winemaker's Dinner (think libraried wines paired with five courses...plus cocktail hour and post-dinner drinks) which kept us at work until well after midnight. However, there's a bright side to everything. The winery isn't open on Monday and Tuesday, so on Sundays we will take home the open wine. There isn't usually very much (we're pretty careful about how much we open) but being the night after an event and a horrendously slow day, we found ourselves with quite a selection. Obviously, there was no way I was going to work through this much wine (even though some of these bottles were pretty empty) while it was all still good, so I took it over to Dr. Scott's apartment for a little impromptu wine tasting...which evolved into a Scotch tasting, but that's another story.

 

What I brought home

 

Preparing the glasses

 

Chatty and Caitlin

 

Lagavulin with a Sauv Blanc chaser

Glazed over

I recently discovered that the co-op downtown, Fiddleheads, carries a large amount of meat from my favorite local meat provider, Four Mile River Farm (even since being seated next to Nunzio and Irene Corsino at a River Tavern farm dinner, I have made a point to seek out their products). I had been ordering Four Mile River Farm products from CT Farm Fresh Express, but to find such a selection available a couple miles from my house (where I could look at it before I bought it and not pay an additional delivery charge) was a true find.

Four Mile River Farm specializes in beef and pork. Last week, we had meatloaf and hamburgers made from their amazing ground beef (it tastes different than supermarket beef - I swear, it does). We had a beef roast I did in the crockpot with veggies and red wine two weeks ago. However, on my last trip to Fiddleheads, I scored some pretty major pork chops - over an inch thick, bone-in, of the most beautiful shade of pink - and those pork chops became tonight's dinner. I looked at a couple recipes, took inventory of my ingredients on hand, and mashed together this spice-rubbed, honey glazed concoction.

First, I made a rub of ground cumin, Hungarian sweet paprika (thank you, Penzey's!), thyme, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. I threw these all in the mini-chopper and pulsed to combine.

 

I am pretty sure I picked up this mini-chopper 

in a Ladies weekend give-away

I rubbed the rub (duh) all over the chops.

 

I tried to resist the urge to totally overdo it with the rub

Following a cooking and glazing technique outlined in Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, I heated a pan over high heat and cooked the chops for about ten minutes, flipping every minute or two (these were very thick chops, so they took the whole ten minutes - use your discretion).

 

Yes, I need a bigger pan. I know this is too crowded.

After heating some honey in the microwave so that I could pour it easily, I slathered each chop with a healthy dose, turned them over, poured a tablespoon or so more honey on, and then flipped again to thoroughly coat. I continued to cook them, flipping frequently, until the honey thickened and the glaze was almost red in color.

 

The honey bubbled up quickly

These were delicious. It was a subtle enough treatment to not overpower the fresh, tasty pork, but still plenty flavorful. The spices in the rub balanced the sweetness of the honey. We ate this with corn muffins and green beans. Noe LOVED it.

 

(Slightly blurry) finished product

What's your favorite pork chop treatment?

Happy Valentine's Day

Noe and I have a tradition of NOT going out on Valentine's Day. Neither of us are against the holiday, and we don't make a huge deal out of it or buy presents, but I like goofy cards and Noe likes candy, so it's really sort of a good fit for us. However, almost four years of working in "the most romantic restaurant in Ann Arbor" convinced me that Valentine's Day is one of the LEAST romantic days to go out, and certainly not a great time to try to really get a feel for a restaurant you haven't yet tried. So Noe and I try to collaborate on a really good dinner at home.

Sometimes we run into disagreements because I like to make "fancy" food (Noe considers any meat with a sauce to be "fancy") and things I haven't tried to make before, and Noe likes the tried and true. We also disagree on what constitutes a great dessert. This year, we decided to do things a little differently than usual - instead of Noe selecting the majority of the menu and me cooking it, I made the appetizer, one side dish, and dessert, and Noe made the main dish and one side.

(We did Valentine's Day dinner last night because we have the big New London Main Street bash tonight.)

For an appetizer, I chose seared scallops sauced with white wine, lemon juice, garlic, shallot, and parsley. I served these with a little split of Champagne.

 

Searing the scallops 

 

Scallop appetizer with Champagne...

and look at those awesome glasses...

Noe used our new grill pan to cook up some excellent rib eye steaks from Four Mile River Farm. For his side dish he (of course) chose rice. I went simple and steamed some asparagus.

 

Noe at work on his part of the meal

  

These steaks were huge

 I had to cut mine in half!

Dessert was difficult. I looked at a lot of different options. I finally decided to go decidedly un-fancy with red velvet cupcakes topped with a gigantic swirl of cream cheese frosting. This was my first time baking red velvet cake or cupcakes, and I think the results were spectacular.

 

Cooling and ready to be frosted

 

 Oh, yeah.

All in all, a great collaborative meal. Letting Noe take over the main course every once in awhile might not be a bad idea - and now that we have the grill pan, he can keep his skills sharp for summer.

What did you eat for Valentine's Day dinner?

Gettin' Crafty

A couple of weeks ago I saw a post on one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, where they were giving away some extremely cool wine glasses from Whitewash Sundries.

 

Whitewash Sundries glasses 

(photo: http://www.etsy.com/shop/WhitewashSundries) 

Now, these glasses were engraved, not etched, but being cheap (and not really loving the style of glasses) I thought maybe I would get some glass etching cream and try a similar concept. So...one trip to A.C. Moore and a couple cheap wine glasses frome the Dollar Tree later, my practice round was complete.

While the etching supplies were easy enough to locate in the craft stores, I didn't like the stencils that were available. I thought the designs were cheesy (kind of '80s) and the letters were too small. I didn't see any numbers at all. Luckily, I saw a blank stencil mat, so I decided to get that, cut out some stencils, and practice on some cheap glassware.

I stuck some scrapbooking stickers on the mat and cut them out with an Exacto knife. I only had letters, so I picked a sans serif "W" for Wiseman (I'll just let it be known here that I love the "W" so much I am probably not going to be able to change my last name when Noe and I eventually get married - "W" is so much more dramatic than "E"). Here is what I came up with:

Cutting out the stencil and taping it to a practice glass

Covering the stencil with etching cream

 

 Rinsing after 5 minutes

 

Funky monogrammed wine glasses (with some pretty decent wine) - 

better glass projects to come

Re-vamping

Last Friday, my friend Tracy and I attended Re-Vamp: An Independent Runway Experience at the Crocker House, put on by Aticc Boutique and the Takeout Gallery here in New London.

Not only were the clothes fantastic (the ones I liked best reminded me of a combination of Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters with some vintage-inspired accents), but the Crocker House itself looked amazing. I have seen this event space done up for several radically different events (Hygienic Halloween party, Rock Fix, Food Stroll, etc) but on Friday night, it looked how I imagine a high-fashion runway event would look. The energy in the room was something in and of itself - this crowd was into it. Add some drinks and some excellent music to the mix, and you had a real party.

I am hoping to get some better photos from a photographer acquaintance - until then, enjoy these few crappy photos I shot with my hopelessly out-of-date camera before the battery died.