Everyday Yumminess: Turkey Pozole

Last year as I made my turkey stock, I knew I wanted to do something with it other than traditional Thanksgiving-y flavors. I stumbled upon a recipe for Turkey Pozole at Food & Wine and knew it was the perfect thing to do with my homemade stock and leftover turkey. It is now officially part of my tradition.

Post-Thanksgiving Sandwiches

If it weren't for Turkey Pozole and the brilliance of Turkey, Cranberry, Arugula, and Brie Sandwiches, I don't know that I'd bother making Thanksgiving dinner. For me, this is what it's all about:

Everyday Yumminess: Mini Bourbon-Pumpkin Cheesecakes

Dessert-baking is tricky for the solo diner. You can only scale things back so far, and then you'd better hope it freezes well so you don't have to eat the dessert twice a day for a week. This was my conundrum at Thanksgiving. I had my eye on this Bourbon-Pumpkin Cheesecake recipe at Epicurious, but what am I going to do with a whole cheesecake? Luckily, I found these awesome mini-cheesecake pans and my problem was solved. Look how adorable:

Sunday Cookbook Adventures: Michael Psilakis's Chicken Souvlaki

Food cravings can be a funny thing. I'm pretty sure I'd never had souvlaki before last night (since gyros are typically on the menu at places that make good souvlaki, and I always go the gyro route...), but as I was planning meals last week I had a deep, inexplicable craving for chicken souvlaki. I knew immediately which cookbook to turn to, and the finished product was just as advertised in Michael Psilakis's recipe: "Messy and great."

Random Ramblings

I took Stanley to the airport at 4am on Wednesday and have been recovering ever since... It was a really fantastic visit, during which we managed to break our all-time record of Consecutive Days Spent Together Without Driving One Another Crazy, but an introvert like me needs a good chunk of alone-time to recover after 3 weeks of being around people (even awesome people) all the time. Due to budget considerations, it was a pretty chill visit... Lots of sitting on the patio with a glass of scotch discussing politics and the world... a bit of me kicking Stanley's ass at Bananagrams (an awesome game Lisa and Will introduced me to)... a trip out to Cape Ann for some chowder and gorgeous views... and, of course some yummy home cooking. It had been too long since I'd had quality time with my brother, though, so I'll take a good discussion with Stanley while sipping scotch on the porch over hectic activities any day... Here are a few pictures from Cape Ann. It was an absolutely gorgeous fall day, and the water was ridiculously blue.

Everyday Yumminess: Fresh Flour Tortillas

I've always felt like somewhat of a failure due to the fact that I could only make fresh corn tortillas, not fresh flour tortillas. Granted, I had never tried to make flour tortillas, but the prospect seemed intimidating for some reason. When I made my awesome carnitas, though, I came to realize that I needed to add flour-tortilla-making to my skill set. Thus, I turned to my friend J (and through her to her awesome mom, whose kick-ass horchata recipe I had already fallen in love with) for help finding the best recipe to start with.

Everyday Yumminess: Perfect Margaritas

As part of a Mexican feast last weekend, Stanley and I took it upon ourselves to make the perfect margarita, and we succeeded quite impressively (if I do say so myself)...

Cookbook Adventures: World's Greatest Hamburgers

Stanley is staying with me for a few weeks, and I thought it was a great opportunity to make a recipe that's been calling to me for a while: Thomas Keller's perfect hamburgers from the Ad Hoc at Home Cookbook.

An Interesting (and Delicious) Scotch-Pairing Dinner

I headed over to Gordon's with Joe on Thursday to check out their Compass Box Whiskey-Pairing Dinner.

Another Great Show...

On Thursday night, Stanley and I hit the Royale Nightclub in Boston for an awesome show from The Walkmen. AA Bondy were the main opening act and were pretty kick-ass, but The Walkmen were fan-freaking-tastic.