i’m alive…but still no internet

Hi there!!  I feel like I haven’t posted in weeks!  We have been insanely busy and still are without internet.  We had a problem with the provider we were going to be using, Qwest.  Finally, Chris ended up canceling it before we really even got it.  It was a bit ridiculous.  So now we’ll be waiting another few days or so before someone can come out and get us hooked up.  For now, I’ll have to rely on Starbucks.  I literally have not checked my email in 3 days.  It feels a bit odd.  So I apologize if anyone was waiting for a response! 

Rewind:

New Years Eve prepartions:

I have been craving pumpkin pie since before Thanksgiving.  I decided to finally make my own. 

Graham cracker crust with walnuts + pecans.  I didn’t follow a recipe, but also included melted butter + honey.  Honey is KEY in making graham cracker crust.

I also made a wild rice turkey soup with the leftover turkey from Christmas dinner.  We made turkey stock from the carcass, which turned out to be the most flavorful stock I’ve ever had.  We included tons of seasonings, garlic cloves, onions, apples, carrots, etc.

Target wine cube. YUM!  After cooking the veggies with 2 strips of bacon [for flavor] I streamed in about 1/2c of this white wine to scrape up the drippings.  It really enhanced the flavor of the soup.

Crust, before baking. 

Pie filling.  I subbed sucanat for sugar and it worked perfectly.

All stirred up.

Baked crust.

Utilizing my cook book stand finally!

This thing rocks.  It collapses for easy storage and when you’re using a book that doesn’t have rings you can set it behind the plastic so you don’t splatter food on it.  It also keeps you on the right page.  I hate when I’m using a cook book because I always lose the page I’m working on.  It was a wedding gift from Crate + Barrel.

Super sleepy doggies.

Mixing in the 1/2 + 1/2.

Processing the garlic for Curry Honey Hummus.

Needed more curry.

Soup’s done!  It was seriously so so so good.  I used a recipe but also did a bunch of things that weren’t in the directions.  I hope I can remember what all I did.  I should keep a journal in the kitchen so I can write down things like this!  It was insanely flavorful and the perfect creaminess.  I used Lundberg’s wild rice, which was delicious.

Hearty!

So I got the idea to make curry honey hummus because they had it on special at Vine Street [restaurant in Denver] the other night.  They change up their hummus daily and this is what they had that night.  It had the perfect amount of sweet + spicy [spicy flavorful, not spicy hot].  I used a simple hummus recipe from the book Clean Food, that Chris got me for xmas.  I am in LOVE with this cookbook and will talk more about it soon!

Then, from there, I just kept adding curry + honey, and s+p until it tasted right.

The bowl was wiped clean, 2 nights in a row.  Everyone really liked it.

I’ll post the recipe soon!

That pepper looks like a strip of bacon, no?

I have a lot more photos from NYE and NY day that will be posted soon!  I just wanted to make a quick post and let you guys know I’m still here and will be back in full force asap!!

Happppppy New Year!! I can’t believe it’s 2010!? Weird!

~Ashley