Pilgrimage.

I should have posted this ages ago! But I forgot, sorry! It's been that busy. April was a bit of a mess, and then when I turned the calendar to May the whole month was full before I even got there.
 

peach blossoms



I worked the MassHope homeschool conference for work--which meant work flew me north--and then Nick and his brother drove up and we all spent Sunday with my folks.

We introduced my brother in law to the Uconn Dairy Bar. I almost forgot about the Dairy Bar. Almost every time I'm in my old Connectiwegia home I beg my family to take me to the Dairy Bar. I've only found one place to get decent local ice cream down south (all the cows around here are beef cattle, I love steak and all, but beef cattle just don't make ice cream).

We almost didn't have the time--being there for only one day and having quite a bit of furniture to stuff into my in-laws 15 passenger van (generously on loan for this trip). 

The men folk wrestled with the furniture while Mom and I putzed around the garden (Mom let me dig some of her mint, lemon balm, winter onion, and garlic leaks!)

 Grape Hyacynth:

Finally, the furniture was tied up so it couldn't escape, and it was ice cream time.

The line was out the door when we arrived.



can you find them?

  It only took 15 minutes for them to blaze through the line, though. Very impressive. Great service, and great ice cream. It doesn't get much better than that.

 We had to rush off as soon as we got our scoops of creamy goodness so that we could meet some friends we were having over to dinner. But the ice cream escapade was soooo incredibly worth it.

So were the friends.

And the rushing around.

And the furniture.

And the family.

Yeah, it was pretty much just a good trip all around.

Chicken Curry

I've made this recipe 2 or 3 times now, and it's been wonderful every time! It's from Taste of Home, the cookbook my mother gave me before my wedding. It is definitely my favorite cookbook. I have no idea how "Indian" this particular curry recipe is, since it doesn't really taste like/act like the Indian currys I remember having.  But it tastes really, really good, so I'm keeping it, regardless of authenticity.

Ingrediants:

 Chopped carrots, broccoli, scallions, diced garlic. 1 cup Chicken broth, 1 T corn starch, and 1 T soy sauce-plus 2 tsps of curry powder and 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes make the sauce. And of course, cubed chicken.
I cooked the chicken first, then swapped it out for the carrots and garlic.  Adding the broccoli and scallions last. Oddly, the sauce came next, and then the chicken.

 It boils and thickens up quick like a bunny:

 And hopefully you remembered to start rice sometime before starting sauteing things, so you could serve the curry chicken over tasty Jasmine rice. (It's taken years, but I've finally started to remember the rice more often than not)
Nick's verdict? "Can we have curry every night?"

the sweet sound of success.
-The Lady

Visiting Friends and Cappuchino Cups

Some of you may remember my bridesmaid, Christina.  She and her husband moved to the frozen north for law school reasons over the summer, but they came down to visit on his spring break!  It's the first time we've seen them since the wedding! We celebrated by going on a hike and then having people over for shish kabobs and frozen cappuchino cups (and a movie with lots and lots of yummy home popped popcorn).

N&N helping make the apple strudel we saved for Sunday breakfast

A note here about the cappuccino cups. I found the recipe on the Pioneer Woman's blog (found here) but needed to modify it because I had a friend coming who was has a gluten allergy. Oreos are definitely not gluten free. I happened to have a gluten free brownie mix, so Christina and I made the baked the gluten free brownies in a cupcake tin, then followed the rest of the recipe for the frozen cups.

You might think it was just scooping in ice cream, but there is a crucial step of adding nutmeg and cinnamon. I mostly did it out of curiosity, because the Pioneer Woman said to.

Wow. It was good.  We also made mint and chocolate/vanilla versions.  I added the spices to the chocolate/ vanilla flavor too--I highly recommend this experiment.

We topped them with chopped semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Mostly for effect.  It was a good effect. We got lots of compliments on the dessert even though we had a slight cupcake liner malfunction (gluten free brownies are much, much more dense than cupcakes.  Consequently baking them in paper and then stuffing them in the freezer is kinda like marriage-what God has joined together let no man put asunder. I think people ate a lot of paper, but they didn't complain.)

All the menfolk arrived early for dinner, whirled through various preparations (cutting meat, making salad, rinsing mushrooms) before going to play the Lord of the Rings Miniatures game while Christina and I chopped the remaining items, shished the kabobs, and grilled them on the handy-dandy George Foreman.  There were, though, so many men bustling around my kitchen that I had to take pictures of them.  Usually the Y chromosome is not so well represented--no condemnation, my friends and I find group cooking fun--and they all did a wonderful job.
It was a splendid afternoon (and evening). I think my bridesmaid should visit often. -The Lady

the First Cheesecake

Thursday evening last week Nick suggested we invite a few couples over for a potluck dinner over the weekend.  Us girls consulted and put our own variation on it, that we would bring ingredients and make dinner together.  We had a wonderful time, and I think that it was the best chicken parm I have ever had--with bread we garlic'd ourselves (running out of time and energy for making the bread ourselves too), salad, pasta, homemade spaghetti sauce and then homemade cheesecake for dessert...it doesn't get much better than that.  I think our pasta was actually better than the stuff we had in Italy.  And it never hurts to have good company and help while you cook.  I've decided that "bring your own ingredients" is the most fun way to do a potluck. At least with this group. Next up: wonton making day. Mom.....can I have that recipe?

pouring the layers of cheesy goodness

Among my newlywed skills is making spaghetti sauce from scratch-tho, my sister-in-law made this batch

freshly out of the oven

Nick taught the guys a game called Munchkin. It's kinda like someone was playing Calvin Ball then wrote down the rules

The finished work