Tag: homemade

The Day of Love

This year we decided to skip the crowded restaurants and just enjoy a home-cooked meal for Valentine’s Day. We were shopping at Sprouts on Friday night and discovered they were selling Lobster Tails for $4.99 each, and it inspired us to cook up a Seafood Feast!

We were pretty excited that we actually pulled this off! One of our favorite meals ever was a “Seafood Feast for Two” at an incredible restaurant in Seattle. We tried to replicate it in this meal. Basically, we got two mini-lobster tails, 4 crab legs, a dozen shrimp and a tilapia fillet to share. Add fresh asparagus and a baked potato and – voila! – that’s a serious seafood restaurant classic!

One thing that was kinda funny was that once we got the Lobster Tails home, we realized we didn’t know how to cook them. Thanks to the FoodNetwork.com, Ed grilled ’em up just like a pro.

And finally, it just wouldn’t be Valentine’s Day without a sweet ending. We got these Petits Fours from The Great Dane Baking Company, the same place we got our wedding cake. Awww!

Kim Family Christmas Eve

Tonight we hosted Christmas Eve for the Kims, and everything was just perfect! We enjoyed good food, great conversation, a lot of laughs and some pretty cool gifts!

To start things off, we had to get the ambiance right.  Here’s a few shots of our cozy Christmas setting:

I decided to make some little place cards for everybody with some peppermint sticks (because I’m nerdy like that):

And everybody really liked them!

The menu this evening was pretty simple – Ed’s mom, Kay, made a beautiful leafy greens salad with mango and raspberries (It was gorgeous!). We made the ham, my mom’s scalloped potatoes (Ed’s favorite), asparagus and wild rice. And for dessert, Ed’s aunt Grace brought a yummy cake from the Korean bakery! This cake is a big favorite of ours, it’s this very light cake with tons of fresh fruit on it … kiwis, pineapple, strawberries and oranges. Yum! Ed did most of the cooking this year, and it was delicious!

That’s a ham alright:

Preppin’ the asparagus:

Glazing the ham:

After dinner, we moved on to the gift exchange. I got a kick out of seeing Ed’s uncle, Luke, sitting on the floor, surrounded by tissue paper and presents. He looked just like a little kid!

The funniest gift of the evening went to Aunt Grace. Ed’s dad bought her a battery-operated megaphone! She’s quite the mover and shaker – she’s VERY active in many organizations and she heads up so many committees – so she needs her voice to be heard!

This year is a big year for Ed’s dad – he is turning 70 on January 1st. I thought that with the start of a new decade, he might enjoy a new “look” for his business. So I designed 3 different comps of a logo, business cards, letterhead and envelopes for him to choose from. I think it was a hit!

For some reason I didn’t catch Kay opening a gift, so here’s a shot of Ed & I with his mom:

All in all, it was wonderful evening. We thoroughly enjoy hosting Christmas Eve for The Kims! Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas Eve 2008

Holiday Baking, round one

I can’t help myself. I really like to think that I am helping keep traditions alive in this modern world by doing a little baking during the holidays. I don’t get crafty often, but I do enjoy perusing Martha Stewart (gasp!) magazines at Christmastime to get inspiration for fun ways to wrap up baked goods. I usually end up tweaking things a bit though to put my modernist aesthetic on it. I just finished round one of Baking 2008 this morning: Mini Gingerbread & Pumpkin Bread loaves. The tags were inspired by the Periodic Chart of Elements, because I thought Gingerbread and Pumpkin Bread are elements of the holidays. I just like having fun with it.



Christmas Goodies

I was so lucky to spend the day on Saturday baking with my mom. My mom is a master in the kitchen, and I was very excited to make some treats along with her. We decided on baking Pumpkin Bread loaves, chocolate chip cookies, Grandma’s old Swiss Sugar Cookie recipe, and I was very excited to try out Martha Stewart’s Chocolate Peppermint Cookies. They are delicious, and I am amazed at all we got done!

I always enjoy the packaging part, and this is how mine turned out:

I think I might have done ol’ Martha proud?

Thanks for all the help, Mom!
xoCarrie

Korean Cooking Lesson, number one.

Yesterday we went to Mom’s for a wonderful lesson in Korean cooking. The goal was to learn how to make bulgogi, which is a most scrumptiously marinated, thin, flank-type steak. It’s delicious. We were anxious to learn – Carrie’s gotta know how to make the husband’s comfort food, and Ed enjoys cooking too! In true Korean-mom fashion, she prepared an enormous lunch first before the cooking began – but we certainly weren’t complaining!

Bulgogi ended up being a lot easier to make than we thought…it’s basically onions, sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar, and more green onions! We made so much that mom insisted we take home 2 large tupperware boxes full of individually bagged portions. We’re knee-deep in bulgogi now, so ya’ll come on over and try it before we end up with record setting cholesterol from eating red meat everyday! We had a great time though and we really enjoyed the lesson.

Here is tonight’s dinner:

That’s the bulgogi in the bowl, on top of rice. To the right, we have bindedduk, which are Korean pancakes made out of egg, onions, kimchi and seafood…and the green stuff is our favorite: sauteed spinach.

Look at Ed…so happy!

Carrie feels pretty proud of herself – yum!