22 Days until Paris {Oui Oui}

I'm in love with the water color paintings by Carol Gillott of ParisBreakfast. Her pieces are just amazing! It seems so real doesn't it?

This just amplifies my excitement to get to Paris ASAP and eat my heart out! I'm going to have to walk miles and miles each day to make up for all the food I'll be trying.. I fell in love with Paris the first time I was there two years ago and it will be the first place I'll be re-visiting again. It's not something we do because I've always figured that there's so much of this world I haven't seen yet but I think visiting a second time will allow me to appreciate Paris even better than before.

Valentine's Dinner

Hubs surprised me with dinner this year at home! I was shocked. Making dinner is a huge ordeal for him because he doesn't know how to cook!

Tomatoes + Fresh Mozzarella + Basil = Yum!

Plated..

Lasagna!

Mini Red velvet Cake from Martha's Country Bakery - It's good but much heavier than most Red Velvet's I've sampled. Hubs loves the cream cheese frosting. I found it to be a bit heavy. My favorite is still at Sugar Sweet Sunshine!


He really earned his brownie points. The house was clean and dinner was home made. I don't ask for a lot (well sometimes I do) but it's the simple things that make me feel loved.

And there's more! The next morning, Hubs made us Banana Bread. It was made with whole wheat flour + he substituted Splenda instead of using sugar. Not too bad healthwise eh? The bread was super moist and really good, perfect with my cup of home brewed coffee!

Banana Bread Recipe (adapted from a blogger who I forgot to jot down and now I feel awful, sorry!)

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 cup Splenda
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2 large bananas)
2 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional - no nuts for us)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease one 8 1/4 by 4 1/2 inch loaf pan and dust with flour.

In a bowl stir together: flour, baking soda, salt. Set aside.

In another bowl, beat together: butter and splenda until blended. Beat in the banana (just drop it into the mixer, you don't have to pre-mash), then beat in the eggs until completely mixed. Don't worry if the mixture looks lumpy and curdled. Stir in the nuts.

Add the dry ingredients and stir until just blended.

Pour into pan and bake until a toothpick (or chopstick as I always use) inserted into the center of the loaves comes out clean, about 50 minutes.

A Day at the Brooklyn Flea in Dumbo

My first Show for 2009!

This weekend promises warmer weather so I'm hopeful that it'll be a fantastic weekend! On Sunday, I will be venturing out to Dumbo with my scrapbooks and greeting cards at the new Winter Pop Up Market along with {NewNew} members joyella & jantar.

Hope to see you there!

Etsy's Special Delivery

Etsy is sponsoring a fab event this Valentine's Day. They are currently accepting handmade Valentine's Day cards and partnering up with City Meals on Wheels to distribute a meal and card for VDay! So fun!

I'm not the best writer so I borrowed a verse from the internet and handwrote it in each card.

Read more about it from Etsy's Storque!

Valentine Goodies

Simple yet still a bit playful.

Sunday.

Sunday Breakfast
A few years ago my Mike & I went to Australia and had possibly the best times in our lives (besides getting married of course.) One of my fondest memories was of a day trip we took to see some caves. It was a long excursion and although seeing the caves was pretty cool; we almost deemed it not worth it until we made a pit stop at a small little shop for some scones and tea. It was very English which was a bit odd but those were the absolute best scones I've ever tasted in my life...

American scones just don't cut it I'm afraid. Anyway, I finally attempted to make Joy of Baking's scones and it wasn't as hard as I thought (considering I'm not a baker.) Fortunately I didn't need to use the kitchenaid for this which was great because I don't really know how to use it. I did ask my husband to prepare the Mock Devonshire Clotted Cream last night so we would have it nice and cold this morning. The scones came out quite well and was perfect accompanied with the cream & preserves we bought back from out Catskills Hiking Trip.


Served with English Breakfast Tea

Sunday Lunch + Dinner

One of our buddies were gifted two boxes of Omaha Steaks over the holidays. Lacking cooking skills & a grill, he brought the steaks over and handed it over to me. I'm not great with the grill but I did my homework and I think it came out well. I'm sure that the fact that the steak itself was of high quality had a good deal to do with it.

A good steak must be accompanied by some good sides right? For two hours, I multitasked over the stove and made Elise's Pefect Mashed Potatoes, Good House Keeping's Bacon Maple Brussel Sprouts, and Ina Garten's Maple Roasted Bacon. The roasted bacon was a hit! It was super easy to make too! Also pictured below is a small side of kielbasa + sauerkraut. We had an unexpected guest so I thought I'd add it to the table just in case.

Peter Luger's Steak Sauce is the best! I never eat steak without it now.