inspiration

i've been a cooking fiend lately. last night my roomie and i made "chicken smothered with onions". i put that in quotes because that is the official food network cookbook name for the dish. stay tuned on the DC Ladies for my post about it!

tonight i am going to make a broccoli and gruyere soup, adapted from a recipe i found on the food network website made by Emeril. i'm going with the gruyere because i have leftover from a cheese sauce recipe i have yet to share with you (the horror! it will be up this week, i promise!)

when i am lacking inspiration in my cooking for one reason or another i have found the mother of all food sites. you might have even heard of it. you might even have a puddle of drool on your keyboard after looking at it. ladies and gentlemen, i give you Food Gawker.

i have found some great food bloggers thanks to this site. enjoy! and dont forget to clean up your drool :)

exciting news!

hi all!

i am so excited to share with you some exciting blog related news. there is a new blog on the block! the DC Ladies is a blog that was started by a mother and her daughter to high light all of the exciting things going on in the district. lucky for me, i bugged them enough on twitter that they asked me to write food related posts every other week! how freaking awesome?!?!

now i know i am new to the food blogging, but let me tell you something. if there is anything else i love just as much as shopping (and i know you all know how much i love to shop) it is food. i love making it, i love reading about it, i love watching it being made, and i love eating it! nothing calms me down more than watching the food network while i make dinner, well maybe adding a bottle of wine to the mix too ;-)

so dear readers, follow me on over to the DC Ladies every other monday (starting next week) for some more fun recipes and restaurant reviews of whats happening in dc.

side note: for those of you locals, Zaytinya is showcasing a Turkish menu through the end of next week that you should definitely check out. i'm going to try and hit it up for lunch this week.

have a great monday!!

$10 to RueLaLa

it's getting to be that time of year. you know, the holidays. which means you are going to need to start buying people (or yourself) some sweet stuff.

RueLaLa is giving $10 to every new member until Dec 24th.

RueLaLa is by invitation only to some really great sample sales. I bought an indoor grill from them for way less than what i would have paid if i bought it anywhere else.

use my invitation link to sign up!

happy shopping! :)

best meal i ever made

last night my roomie and i made dinner from our Food Network kitchen cookbook. this cookbook (that i couldnt find a picture of and i will get back to you on) has some amazing recipes. we've been pretty good about preparing dinners together at least once a week.

last night we made Chicken Saltimboca. and let me just tell you, if i could eat my monitor right now i would. i think this was one of the best dishes we have made together.

easy recipe: Chicken, prosciutto, sage, mushrooms, garlic, wine, creme fraiche (hard to find but i'm pretty sure you can use sour cream instead), and parsley.

1. preheat oven to 375
2. lay a few sage leaves on top of the chicken breasts
3. wrap with a slice of proscuitto
4. dredge the breast in flour (the recipe called for Wondra, or instant flour, we just used sieved regular flour)
5. saute the chicken so that it is brown on both sides, transfer to a baking dish and bake until done. (this will depend on the thickness of your chicken and how long you sauteed it for, we did about 20 mins of extra baking)
6. make the sauce: saute mushrooms (half a package of presliced mushrooms) and garlic (2 cloves)
7. add a half a cup of dry red wine (or marsala), let it reduce
8. take it off the heat, stir in a third of a cup of creme fraiche and some chopped parsley
9. spoon the sauce onto plates, top with chicken and FEAST!

this weekend was also the Metropolitan food cooking bonanza show.

thanks to livingsocial roomie and i and some friends went and saw Giada in the morning and wandered around to our heart's content. we tried every dip and sauce they had out.

we saw giada do a demo on a huge stage. it was fun, but not as exciting as i anticipated.

the real fun came when we hit up a different stage. there were chefs from local restaurants in northern va and dc that came to do demos in a more intimate setting.

i learned some cool stuff about making turkey and another hottie chef taught us about salmon and slow cooking it. it was amazing.

the most exciting part was seeing and meeting Mike Isabella, head chef of Zaytinya. he was also a contestant on this season of Top Chef. he just got the boot but that means he's back in dc making awesome greek, turkish, and lebanese food.

are we still talking about halloween?

i know i'm behind on the halloween recap. i already showed you my work halloween costume but this was my official halloween costume.

you are looking at Elle Woods and Blair Waldorf (me).

that is all.

trophies make winning awesome

the "spice" girls won Funniest Costume at the work party

here is our sweet sweet pumpkin trophy

be jealous :)

winner, winner chicken dinner!

...and the winner is.....................

the number 3!

that means Rachel @ Rachel, Rachel I've been thinking won herself a sweet tshirt!

Congrats missy!

(send me your info)

:-)

Thanks for playing all, i really appreciate it.

also, the jokes = awesome.

GIVEAWAY!

WOO HOOO! free stuff! everybody gather round and see the cool shit i'm giving away!!!

Mental Floss is basically a sweet site for nerds like me. i actually dont read it very much, but their tshirts are HILARIOUS.

basically i'm going to be giving away a Tshirt of your choice. take a look around the store and pick your fav. click HERE

all you have to do to enter is

1. Leave a comment INCLUDING: the shirt and size (also specify mens or womens)
2. Blog about it, or tweet that you entered my super sweet giveaway. sharing is caring people.
3. in the comment you should also include your best one line joke. (i like to laugh and you people are awesome at making me laugh, so bring on the funny!)

only one entry per person

YOU HAVE UNTIL FRIDAY NIGHT TO ENTER!

I WILL DRAW A NAME ON SATURDAY AND ANNOUNCE THE WINNER!

now take some time to look at some of my favorite tshirts.

i have the hyperbole one below. it's awesome :)

200 posts! WHAT?!

ok seriously. this blogging thing is way cooler than i ever could have imagined. not only does it give me an outlet to talk about my shopping addiction but i have met some pretty cool peeps online and in person.

i honestly didnt think i would stick with it but you all keep me going. yesterday i realized that i have written 200 posts. that is pretty damn kick ass if you ask me. so there will be lots to celebrate by the end of the week, all culminating in a GIVEAWAY! yay! i'm actually really excited about it and i hope you all dont think i'm the lamest person on the planet when you find out what it is i am giving to you.

and dont worry, the three guys that read this blog, there will be an option for you too. i'm no sexist!

until then i'm going to keep complaining about how sore my body is because i decided to start shredding on level 2 yesterday. yeah i dont regret that decision at all.

:-)

new look. new name

dont be alarmed! it's still me!

PROMISE!

and stay tuned later this week. to celebrate i'm going to have a giveaway so keep checking back for updates :)