A Halloween Party And Pumpkin Carving

My Halloween Party has finally arrived!

The reason I couldn't post until today is that I had an actual party last night that I wanted to use the photos from. It was sort of a pre-Halloween pumpkin carving party. The photos aren't great because I was so busy I kind of forgot to start taking them until half-way through, but I had a really great time and I think everyone else did too. We had dinner, watched Hocus Pocus, and carved some awesome pumpkins!

I did some decorating for the party.

This is what I made for dinner (I didn't get any before pictures) the first photo is of a steak and Guinness pie from my Jamie at Home cook book, and the second is pumpkin and ricotta stuffed giant shell pasta from the October issue of Country Living.

More decor.

Pumpkin carving!

Hot spiced cider on the stove.

The finished product.

And this one is mine!

Thanks for stopping by I hope you had some fun carving pumpkins! To visit more parties head over to A Fanciful Twist.

ps. You may have noticed that my pumpkin here looks the same as the pumpkin in the title photo of my blog. That is because I carve the same face every year on my first pumpkin. Mister B makes fun of me, but it is a pumpkin from the movie Sleepy Hollow and I love it!

Bread And Basil

I decided to make bread! I have made bread using a bread machine before, but never by hand. It was quite exciting.

Waiting for it to rise....

eating it fresh from the oven....

I had some yummy tomatoes so I made a dish from my Jamie at Home cook book to go with my bread.

I don't really make lots of dinners at home, but it is so satisfying.

The tomatoes came from Trader Joe's. What is it about Trader Joe's? I cannot go in there without ending up with a ton of stuff. I don't know if it is the packaging or what, but I am willing to spend more money on something at Trader Joe's than I would at the regular grocery store. I guess I am just a sucker for their vibe. Anyway sometimes things are actually a better deal. Like these awesome tomatoes.

They were the same price as a container of cherry tomatoes at my grocery store, but that container was bigger and the tomatoes were prettier and yummier!

I guess that is just my little love letter to Trader Joe's. I wish I could shop there more, but I spend too much money.

Here is the first dinner I had after I got the tomatoes. I also got an actual basil plant there, so I wouldn't have to keep buying little amounts of basil.

Delicious.

Weekend Eats And Jams (And I Don't Mean No Jelly)

Friday: Had some of the other SIRLS (that stands for School of Information Resources and Library Science) ladies over to make dinner and cocktails. Thanks to my new book, Jamie helped us make asparagus and potato tart.

 

The berries were for cobbler. The tart turned out super yummy, and I don't even like asparagus!
You know you had a good time when the kitchen is a disaster afterwards.

I really love Jamie Oliver's show "Jamie at Home" and this cookbook is basically the exact same thing in book form, yay! I am super excited about it. The cocktail in the photos was also from the book. It was so funny, on the same day that I bought this book I ran across a new blog called Indianablue who talked about how she was cooking her way through another one of Jamie's cookbooks. Now I am certainly not as proactive as that, to cook every recipe in the book, but it definitely inspired me to make an effort to actually cook some of the recipes! Often times I will buy a cookbook, make one thing, put it on a shelf, and forget about it, but I can't do that to Jamie. So I am planning on making many more things. Thanks Indianablue! Definitely check out her blog if you have the chance, it is lovely. Anyway, on to....

Saturday: Sadly, I have no pictures of Saturday since I spent most of it doing homework. I did go on a nice outing with Mister B to Fantasy Comics (our favorite comic book store in Tucson which is quite a feat since there are like five), Upper Crust Pizza (best lunch special ever: a HUGE slice and a soda for $3.50), and Bookmans (needed some magazines, but didn't want to pay new prices). All in all it was a nice day even with the mountains of homework.

Sunday: The weather was PERFECT* for an outdoor house concert with the gang from Desert Sharks PHC. Brent Burns was playing who I hadn't heard much before, but pretty much anyone the PHC gets to play I know I will enjoy. He was really fun and I bought a CD! I have always liked Jimmy Buffett, but it is nice to be introduced to some other trop-rock musicians as well. This is the second house concert I have been to and they are rad! You basically are just hanging out in someone's backyard, sitting in whatever chair you chose to bring, sipping whatever beverage you chose to bring, listening to some fun music, and then during intermission you get to eat one (or all) of the many potluck dishes and have a nice chat with the artist. All this for a small donation (they can't work for free!) I highly recommend it, in fact I am going to another one this Friday.

*I have noticed that people here in Tucson always talk about what a lovely day it is like it is some sort of surprise. I mean why are they so shocked, pretty much every day here is lovely (we have been having a little storm the last couple days so I guess it isn't technically every day)! I still comment on the weather, but that is because I am still new and it is still a revelation to me. You would think people who have lived here for a long time would be used to it by now.

So anyway, that was my weekend. Hope your was great too!

ps. How do you do those signature thingies that so many people have at the end of their blogs? I really want one because whenever I end a post I always feel that it is so abrupt and would love to have a consistent sign off. Please help!

pps. I cooked another Jamie recipe today which turned out tasting pretty good, but looked horrible hence no photo.