Tis the season (to be busy)

I know, I know. It's been too long since I last posted anything. Some of you have been wondering if I am still doing this blogging thing. I am but this month has been busy. Too busy, but good busy.

Much of the busyness was due to getting ready for our Christmas dessert / housewarming party.

We wanted to have a bunch of friends and colleagues over for a dessert party. So we sent out a whack of invitations and started baking. And baking. And baking. Almost three weeks of on-again-off-again baking.

And then we started cleaning. It's funny how you can leave your house untidy unless you have people over. We really should try and keep it tidy for ourselves (but we never do).

Sunday was the big night. We told people to come sometime after 7:00. The food was laid out, the cider was hot and the wine was cold. 7:00 rolled over and then 7:10 and then 7:15 and no one showed up. Tara and I looked at each other and thought "What if no one comes? What are we going to do with all this food?" Just then then door bell rang and slowly people started coming in. And then more people and more people. We had people come that we didn't think would show (and others didn't show that said they would - you know who you are...)

Food was eaten, drinks were drank and a laughter filled the house. All told we had about 25 show up. We had way more food than we needed, but better more than less. Everyone we've talked to said they had a good time and that they hope we do it again.

I'll post the recipes of the favorites from the evening. If you are reading this and you want a recipe for something, leave a comment (it's super easy). If you are reading this and you weren't there, let us know so you get invited next time (sorry we couldn't invite you all).

Hmmmm, desserts... Of course we took the saran off before the guests arrived.

What's a party without drinks?

Cranberry-pistachio- white chocolate cake - heavy and good.

Chocolate raspberry cake - a hit!

What party is complete without cheese and fruit?

Odds and ends

Nothing blog worthy recently - just a few snippets of thoughts.

I finished The Picture of Dorian Grey this week. It's a bit of a slow read and is both interesting and depressing. At the end I thought to myself it could be really well adapted as a movie. Sure enough, a quick jaunt over to IMDb shows that 14 movies made from the book. I may just track one of them down.

Talking about movies, Tara and I watched Akeelah and the Bee last night. It was a good movie - something that I would take kids to.

I tried the bread recipe a few posts down with half whole wheat. It didn't turn out - it was really dense and mostly unpleasant. I may have left it to rise a bit too long (20 hours). I am going to go back to the recipe and get that down pat before I start making variations.

We had cannelloni for dinner tonight - stuffed with mushrooms, ricotta and mozzarella and smothered in a nice marina sauce. Stuffed pasta is sooo good. And it really doesn't take all that much time to make (75 minutes, door to plate). We really should make it more often.