The menu included:
Roast herb marinated turkey breast
Dill & Garlic mashed redskin potatoes
Sweet potato casserole
Butternut squash & apples
Stuffing
Steamed snow peas
Fresh cranberry sauce
Warm rolls

The feast (the cranberry sauce is missing, since we forgot about it in the fridge for the first night)...



Laura helping out:


Checking the turkey breast:

Hi guys!

It's almost the holidays, and I'm sure many of us will be doing our shopping online. It seems like there are always so many offers for free shipping and discounts this time of year that its hard to keep them straight. Another blogger, Budget Fashionista, recently posted a list of online sites to find coupon codes for various retailers when you need them. I'm copying it here in case you want to check them out!

RetailMeNot.com. With an easy search function, a shopping forum and, oh yeah, loads of coupons to great stores we love, RetailMeNot.com is one of our go-to bookmarked sites.

Rather Be Shopping.com. This site gives you several options to find what you’re looking for, including alphabetical listing of stores, the most current deals, and a section for free shipping (which, especially this time of year, is our favorite).

Yahoo!Deals Coupons. Totally easy to navigate (and totally uncluttered by all those annoying ads), click under “clothing” for current fashion-related deals. You can also check out storewide sales, weekly ads, and save coupons to use later.

CouponMountain.com. We like this site because they feature some of our favorite stores, and gives you lots of different options to find what you’re looking for. You can also submit deals you’ve found to share the wealth . . .

Anycoupons.com. It’s a little overwhelming at first glance, but clicking around we find lots of great deals. Our favorite part is that when we select the store we want, Anycoupons.com frequently lists multiple deals for that store, so we can pick the one (or more) that suits our needs.

Fatwallet.com. Browse for coupons by store for multiple current deals, or by most recent, expiring, free shipping, and right now, holiday deals. There’s also a “compare prices” feature so you can know if you’re getting the best bargain, and a forum where folks post a whole host of other deals as well.

DealCatcher.com. Features both online and printable coupons (which we love) and rebate notices. Subscribe to the RSS Feed to keep abreast of the latest coupons available without overloading your inbox with another newsletter.

CouponWinner.com. We like this site because it’s well-organized and the coupon codes are prominantly displayed in red (so we don’t have to pull out the magnifying glass to locate them). Also, specific categories like “Handbags & Accessories” and “Plus Size Apparel” makes narrowing down our search so much easier. Finally, the CouponScout tool is fab—compare up to five retailers to see who’s got the best deal, in a click or two. Nice.

TheGreenApple.org. This is a specialty site focusing on eco-friendly products, including clothing and apparel—and if that’s a priority to you, you’re well aware of a) the higher pricetags, and b) how hard it is to find coupons or discounts that apply. This site is easy on the eyes and features both on- and off-line coupons.

CouponAlbum.com. Our favorite part of this site is that we can click sub-categories under our main choice (meaning when we’re in women’s apparel, we can narrow down to coupons, then to free shipping. Quick and easy with tons of great stores we shop at anyway.

I just whipped up a batch of pirate marinade, and remembered that I had promised to get this recipe to you guys, although I never did. So I'll post it on here so that you can try it if you like - its one of our favorites!

From the June 2007 Eating Well Magazine - and recommended for extra-firm tofu, salmon, chicken, beef, and our favorite - pork chops (boneless, center cut).

Pirate Marinade
Heat 1/4 cup canola oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add 1 medium chopped onion and 2 tablespoons chopped garlic and cook, stirring, until translucent (~2 minutes). Transfer to a medium bowl. Stir in 1/2 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce, 1/4 cup red-wine vinegar, 1/4 cup orange juice, 3 tablespoons packed brown sugar, 2 teaspoons ground allspice, 3/4 teaspoon ground pepper, 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon and 5 dashes hot sauce. (Note: these are the values given in the recipe, but I never skimp on the spices, always adding extra allspice and cloves, and usually 15-20 dashes of hot sauce).

Let cool to room temperature. Pour cooled marinade into a shallow dish or 1-gallon ziplock bag and add your protein of choice (1-2 pounds). I usually then let it marinate overnight in the fridge, but probably an hour or two would be enough if you're in a hurry.

No pictures yet, since it's in the fridge now ;-)

As for sides for this meal, something tropical usually goes well. We often make Caribbean beans (S&W brand from a can) over rice or latin quinoa; fried plantains would also be a nice addition.

It was chilly over the weekend--perfect time to make soup! I used a bunch of leeks that I had bought earlier that week, chopped them up and sauteed them with some onion and garlic, then simmered in chicken broth with diced potatoes until the potatoes were soft. It would be best to use a blender to make it nice and smooth at this point, but blender-less as I am, I fished out the potato and leek and used a fork to mash it up manually :) I then added 2 cups of milk, and it was ready to go!

The recipes I saw online cautioned me to use only the white part of the leek, and only white potatoes, because the soup just had to be pristine and perfectly white! I rejected the perfectly white soup (I don't hate) and used some of the green part of the leek, as well as the various colors of potatoes that I had on hand, a fingerling mix of white, red, and purple potatoes. It gave the soup a light greenish color, which wasn't as appetizing as white, but not bad either! Next time I would use more milk or cream to try and thicken it up a little.

It apparently makes a good vicchyssoise, but I ate mine warm, and it was delicious!



Even better with a fresh batch of clover rolls.

Check it out--the NY times recently published an article about Ballard and Fremont, where I spend most of my time out here (when I'm not in the University District!). You might recognize pictures of the Ballard Sunday Market from my previous posts.....

Am I cool, or what?

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/travel/escapes/31american.html?ref=travel

I just had to post a few pictures of Reese in her Halloween costume. She dressed up as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and she was just too cute. I think she enjoyed her first trick-or-treat experience, although we did have some kids come to the house dressed as scary monsters which resulted in Reese clinging tightly to my leg and saying "all done, all done!" :)

Before we even started trick-or-treating she found our stash of lorna doones and wanted "cookie please"....how can you resist that face?

Trick-or-treating with Unc...

Enjoying the spoils of a successful Halloween...

Jason, Shannon and I headed down into the city for the parade madness this morning. It was crazy how many people were at the train station when we got there at 8:15am...it was just a sea of red! We were lucky enough to squeeze our way right onto a train and managed to get one of the last seats. They crowded as many people on as they could, so a lot of people were standing the whole way down (plus the overcrowding meant that the ticket guy never got to us, so we had a free ride down and back!).

So Taguchi, Jimmy Rollins (with the camera in front of his face), and Joe Blanton

Shane Victorino and J.C. Romero

Jason also saw Cole Hamels and Pat Burrel, but I missed them and didn't get photos. All in all we were glad we went down, even with the craziness. It was fun to see the players and to be so close to the parade. YAY PHILLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I finally cut open that acorn squash from the market to try a recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Simple Dinners. (Mom and Dad, remember going to Moosewood when we visited Ithaca?)

As recommended, I scooped out the seeds, sliced it up and baked the slices at 400 for 15 min in a buttered pan. Once they started browning, I flipped them over, added *more* melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, and baked for an additional 5 min.


This is far from the best picture in the world (even Photoshop couldn't help me here). But you can see that at places on the squash where there was lots of butter, the brown sugar melted and got all yummy....but where there wasn't enough, it just sat there and got crusty. Crusty brown sugar? Not nearly as nice as melty and all yummy.

Moral of the story: Use more butter. Am I my grandmother's grandchild, or what?

It's October 28th, and we got our first snowfall of the season! Ok...so it wasn't a "measurable" amount, but it did get us an early dismissal from school! They had 5+ inches of snow on the mountain. Looking at the picture, it's hard to tell what season we're actually in. About half of the leaves are still on the trees, and yet we had our first Nor'Easter!

Good thing we got the driveway done!! :-)