Latkes, Matzo Ball Soup, and Jelly Donuts

Happy Hanukkah! Tonight marks the beginning of the eight days of Hanukkah... which I marked by having Christy and Tracy over for a tasty dinner of latkes and matzo ball soup. I've only made latkes once, and that was with a recipe a friend gave me. Tonight, I used Missy's recipe for latkes (I love hers- they're the best). In addition to the giant mess that I made (I swear, I'm the messiest cook ever), I made some pretty kickin latkes. They were quite delicious. I topped that off with some hot and tasty matzo ball soup.

Dinner was topped off by the delicious jelly donuts that Christy provided. I don't think I've ever eaten a jelly donut before- I was quite impressed. Good old Dunkin Donuts rarely lets you down.

We got some really great menorah's at our engagement party, so we lit those, in addition to one I already had. Christy took some more pictures- I'll post those when I get them from her. Hooray for Hanukkah!

Why I Love Bed, Bath, and Beyond

I've always loved Bed, Bath, and Beyond. It's a huge store filled with so much useful stuff, half of which is crap you would never need.... but you REALLY want it once you see it. Partner that with their amazing return policy and the fact that they always have 20% coupons available, it's really a win/win situation.

Jon and I registered there for about 90% of our wedding gifts. A lot of it is useful stuff we really want/need... some of it to replace things we already have, some of it new. We were really excited about a few of the random items (those ones you really don't need but REALLY want), namely the Garlic Zoomer and the Ice Cream Molds. And to my great surprise and delight, we got a box-of-fun from BB&B from Christy this week... including the Garlic Zoomer and Ice Cream Molds, among other exciting gotta-have-them things!

So after class today, I decided to break into the ice cream molds and make some tasty ice cream sandwiches.

Step one... the ingredients. Vanilla ice cream, cool whip, and cookie dough.

Step two... bake the cookie dough in a thin sheet


Step three... mix the whipped cream and ice cream. I chose to add some chopped cherries for a little extra flavor.


Step four... use the molds to cut out shapes in the cookie once it's cooked.


Step five... put a cookie in the bottom of the mold, then scoop some ice cream in it, add the second cookie on the top, and close the mold.


Step six... put them in the freezer... step seven will be eating the tastiness- stay tuned for the final result!

Big weekend

It was a big weekend for me... well, not really for me personally, but for people I care about...

Alan and Stephanie got engaged! woohoo! I'm excited to bring in a new family member... yay for new sisters! No details yet, but they're hoping for a May 2010 wedding in Wisconsin.

Christy won another Emmy! Recall her nomination in October? The ceremony was this weekend, and she won Emmy number two, and got to accept it in the fabulous purple dress Sarah and I helped pick out. What a rockstar.

The Gators are playing to the National Championship game! And, it's in Miami this year. Not that I can afford the ticket, but I'm sure the post game celebration will be pretty great. Who else would be stoked if the stadium got a "2008" added to it?

$1.86

$1.86- that's how much I paid for gas last week. I wanted to host a party at the gas pump. When I moved to Miami in August, gas was over $4.30 a gallon. I managed to fill my tank with only $26.18. And it was running on empty (like the light was on and I had been driving with it on for awhile). I had to take a picture of the pump because I was so excited.

Yay for being able to afford to drive!

I fell...

... for both advertising and popular culture, all in one whack.

While riding the subway last week, I saw an ad for a free book download from audible.com. Awesome deal. I love audio books, but they're so pricey if you have to buy them. I logged on last night, and found that the freebie was for one audible.com credit, and most books are one credit. As I was surfing through the most popular books, I saw Twilight. I've never had the desire to read it, but I feel like it's all I've heard about for the past few weeks. So I decided to download it. However, Twilight cost two credits, unlike most of the other options. So what did I do? I got a one credit book for free, and paid for Twilight. Still not a bad deal- two audio books for $23.00.... but the fact stands that I fell for advertising in that I paid for a book, which is exactly what the audible.com people wanted, at the same time falling for pop culture telling me what to read.

I will report back when I've finished it, and let you know what I think.

Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving week in NYC was, as expected, great. The weather was beautiful, it was really fun to share it with the whole family plus friends, and New York is always fun to visit.

Jon and I arrived to LGA on Wednesday night, pretty late, and called it a night. He was staying with his friend Joe, I stayed at Sarah's. Thanksgiving morning started off early with watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was really pretty cool. I think it may be my one and only trip to see the parade, but I'm glad we watched it. A large midday feast was followed up with a walk through Central Park- the picture of all of us above. I hadn't seen Felicia in over a year, so it was really great to see them. The rest of the week was spent doing touristy stuff- which I always enjoy, but it has come to the point that when I visit NYC, I've done all the really big things, so I like to focus on hanging out and walking around. We got to do a lot of that around Sarah's neighborhood, hitting up some restaurants and sights that she's been telling me about lately. Big fan of Lansky's and Zabar's. Good tasty food :) We got to give Stephanie her first taste of Jewish food, and New York for that matter.

One silly, but amazingly cool thing, that we visited was the Charmin Times Square toilets. I'm not really sure why I was so amused/impressed/amazed with the whole thing, but it was so cool. It had to have cost them a fortune, and was so gimicky. But awesome. I'm kind of a big fan of anywhere in NYC that offers public toilets that are fully stocked with TP (and different Charmin variaties, of course!) and cleaned after every usage. Go Charmin... and the catchy jingle that they play in the building is still going through my head....

We thankfully had amazing weather until my last day- Sunday. We should have renamed it Rainday in an effort to truly capture how amazingly horrible it was. There was a light rain all day, but not really light enough to need an umbrella. And it was too windy to use an umbrella... they kept turning inside out like in the cartoons. Plus, it was freezing and got dark at like 4pm.

Overall, it was such a fun trip, and I'm so happy we all got to get together to celebrate together. I guess the next big, full family adventure is our wedding... I can't wait until February!