Winter Weekends full of cooking!!

Been a great weekend for cooking!

Friday
A friend came over for wine and cheese on friday - and i remembered that I really need to start logging these events. I wish I had starting taking pix of wine and cheese night 8 years ago - I would have some great photos and archives to look back on!

One of the wines we had was excellent and a gift from Mom -http://winelibrary.com/wines/32998-2005+Tir+Na+Nog+Grenache+750ML
Another was a bottle our friend brought over, Lyeth Cabernet Sauvignon...can't remember the vintage on that one.

The cheeses we had included a Talleggio, aParranno, a Boule de Perigord with black truffles.
We had some olives, steamed atrichokes (I need to work on my technique with these), and fresh roasted red peppers, along with some hot soppresatt and regular peppered salami. Pepper shooters and peppardews, too. We also had the usual array of dips, this time featuring my favorite mint and pistachio pesto and some almond olive paste.

Saturday
I also made several casseroles for a baby shower I co-hosted saturday. I made a chicken and spinach manicotti and eggplant parm. Did not make my own sauce due to time restrictions, but got rave reviews on both nonetheless!

We also made some chili for a chili cookoff at a friend's house. It came out "OK". Better luck next time, I think. We really need to work on our chili skills...

Sunday
Breakfast was a fritatta made with anaheim, poblano and red pepper surplus from the chili making yesterday. It was excellent with some added colby cheese and fresh cliantro.

Currently, I am making a lamb and eggplant stew based on a recipe I found online. So far, it smells good, but I'm not convinced it's going to come out as well as expected....well, I guess we can always fall back on leftover cheese! And if it turns out well, I will post the recipe.

I have been doing a TON of dishes today : )

Quote of the Day 01/25/2010

"To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worthwhile. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter." - Aleister Crowley

What do you think Mr. Crowley would have thought about social networking and web 2.0?

Nice AIIM Article on E records management implementation

Got this Carl Weise article via @juliecolgan RT @BethMayhew
Implementing Electronic Records Management: A lot more than software http://ow.ly/109Ez

It may be very handy for communicating our process to colleagues; sometimes users have a tough time understanding why we "can't just throw up a folder structure" and let them have at it. It's a liiiitttllle more involved than that.

almost every day, I have at least one song 'stuck' in my head. I think I'm going to start blogging it here, so that I have a record. Definitely don't want to put it on FB and bog everyone down with it!

today: Rearview Mirror - Pearl Jam

I sit here in my living room having the kind of Sunday I really love: watching good tv and sports, watching the snow fall outside, and kicking back with a Dogfishead 90 minute ale.

On one hand, it makes me miss living in the northeast (getting 'homebound' by snow is rare here in the Southeast), but it allows me to remember what I work for every day. Sad to say, but it's not world peace or anything so noble (though I wish I felt like I could make a difference there) but just the ability to earn an honest living doing something I like, and have Sundays off like this to just vegitate and relax with the S.O. The snow puts everything in a different perspective, because even if you wanted to go out and hike somewhere, as an urbanite, it kind of makes no sense to brave the bad roads to get to your hike; so the things you can do for the day are limited, clearing your options and decision making down to just a few things. It gives me a strange peace.