Holiday cards...

Thanksgiving was a hit! It was so fun to have everyone together for a weekend filled with good food, games, movies, walks, wine and lots of family time.

I also was able to check the ol' holiday card off the list. This will be our first - and I am pretty excited about it! I found this awesome website http://www.minted.com/ and there were so many designs I just loved. You will just have to wait to see the final selection in your mailbox, but these were some of the ones we considered:

We also created a Top 10 of 2010 for the back of the card. I was inspired by this funny top 10: http://www.hellolucky.com/wordpress/?p=6081 . What would be on your list?

Thanksgiving

I am really excited about Thanksgiving about this year. It is my absolute favorite holiday. The food, the family time, the chance to think about the things that you are thankful for. It is just perfect. We are hosting Thanksgiving at our house with both sets of parents, Drew and some family friends.


In fact, I am so excited about Thanksgiving I woke up at 6am to make not one, but two types of cranberry sauce. The first is sort of a cranberry “slaw” and the second is a cranberry-raspberry compote. I am not particularly good at following recipes. I tend to just throw things together until it tastes good to me. It’s a cooking style that serves me well, but can be sometimes a challenge to duplicate. However, these are so darn easy I thought I would share.

Cranberry Slaw
1 bag of fresh cranberries
1/3 cup of orange juice
1 orange – grate a bit of the peel zest
¼ to ½ cup of sugar (or more!) to taste

Throw it all in your food processor and chop. Just a few quick blends will get it to the right consistency. You want to be able to clearly see some fine white and red parts remaining. Be careful not to over chop it and turn it into a soggy pink mush! This is great for cranberry purests. This is my mother’s recipe, because she definitely falls into the cranberry purest category. Varieties have included an chopping apple slices in with the rest of the ingredients, or mixing in pomegranate seeds after the rest has been chopped. Yummo!

Cranberry-Raspberry Compote
1 bag of cranberries
1 cup of water
¾ of a cup of sugar
3 tablespoons of orange juice
1 container of raspberries

I just made this recipe up, but it was pretty tasty this morning when I was done. I am looking forward to trying it out on Thursday. Add the water and sugar together and bring to a boil. Add the cranberries – I blended about ¼ of them in the food processor, and left the rest whole – so it would be a chunkier sauce. Bring the mixture to a boil, and then reduce to a slow boil for 10 minutes or so. You want to make sure you regularly stir this mixture. It seemed like the sort of sauce that could burn easily. Once the cranberries have softened and some have burst, add the raspberries and keep on a low boil for another 5 minutes. After the raspberries have cooked a bit, take it off the burner and transfer to a storage container. I would let it cool completely before you serve it!

That’s it! I will be serving cranberry sauce three ways on the big day – both of these, plus a can of the jellied stuff. You just can’t knock the classics!

Hello again world...

So much has happened since last I blogged. All of the things in life seriously swallowed me up, swirled me around and then suddenly I am on the other side! There are plenty of things that have happened over the past 6 months or so - but the BIG ones are:

1. We are MARRIED! While I didn't love wedding planning - it was worth every bit of stress, money, tears, frustration, excitement etc. It was a perfect weekend, perfect ceremony, and a real celebration! I am thrilled to spend the whole rest of my life with Anders! To put it quite simply - he is just amazing.

2. Drew is living in DC! In our house! Right down the hall! Perhaps my new found desire to blog will get Drew back on the wagon too? We shall see. It has just been so much fun. Anders summed it up best last night "Living with Drew is making memories we will have the rest of our lives." It really is so awesome to get the chance to live together again as adults. We should throw more parties! Get back to our teenage roommate roots!

3. Anders and I went on a FANTASTIC honeymoon. Its really the kind of honeymoon that makes people say "Whoooah!" We took almost three weeks and traveled half-way around the world to Thailand. It was such a romantic and fun adventure. We were so lucky to be able to take that much time and to be able to really enjoy our first few weeks of married life together.

So those are the highlights! One month in to wedded bliss, and it feels like we still have a lot of settling down and catching up to do. It will all happen soon enough!