apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I'm actually planning to make the Kitchn apple custard tart for a dinner party we're attending on Saturday night. I'm excited to bake and thrilled that I'm just making dessert!

Lentil soup!

Caribbean Christmas dinner!

Some relatives (who lived for a long time in the Caribbean) had to go out of town for Christmas so they were supposed to host this dinner a week before Christmas.

Long story short, party was canceled and we are having it this weekend. Conch chowder, oxtail stew, rice and peas, rum cake, sticky toffee pudding, key lime pie. I'll be smoking the quail and chicken for jerk.

Sometime between now and then I have to fit in the time to butcher a deer that has been aging for the past 24 hours.

Holy cow, or should I say, holy deer, Art! Best of luck! :)

Lentil soup sounds wonderful...I'm sure there will be some cooking around here this weekend, but not sure what just yet.

I'm currently roasting a big pork shoulder, according to the Mark Bittman recipe from this week's Times. It smells wonderful, but I think I still have a few more hours to go before dinner!

I'm going to be testing my new "sweet potato cinnamon rolls" recipe. Sounds a bit strange, but will be delicious.

bringing a meal to some friends who are under the weather:
mini chicken pot pies with bacon and marjoram.
i hope that will cheer them up - yum.

Dayum, Chanelle, can we be friends?

Looking forward to cooking in MY OWN KITCHEN at HOME.
I've been living and working in L.A. on a contract job and I'm home this weekend. Ah, familiarity!

I'll simmer a chicken and white bean soup all day Sunday while I catch up on some projects. This will undoubtedly call for bacon, too, which makes me happy.

I'll be having a pre-birthday cocktail party next week, and am trying to pare down my list of cocktail snacks to what's reasonable: thus far, I'm thinking gougeres, miniature grilled cheese, lamb meatballs, bread with tapenade, prosciutto & melons or figs, some cured meats, and mini financiers.

What on the list should I keep, and what should I forget about? Also, more ideas on the sweet side would be welcome, as right now my brain is leaning savory.

Okay, that does it. I'm coming over to everyone's house/apartment and eating their tasty food.

I'm thinking about doing some slow cooked shallots with balsamic, yet another giant quinoa salad with whatever veggies are running around my fridge (lunch for the week), some sort of Moroccan carrot salad with cumin and lemon, and maybe a pear tart if the buck a bag boscs are looking up to it (if not, I'll poach them and then turn them into tart).

nadarine: would mini-grilled cheeses get cold and solid if used as snacks?

i've been way under the weather this week, so on recommendation from a friend, i'm making a gingery-limey chicken soup with a relish of thai pepper that i'll put in at the end. i'm curious to see if i pull the proportions off on this one, and i'd better, bc i'm serving it up for the Wire Season 5 premiere!!

On the stove right now, a simmering pot of this: Mahogany Beef Stew with Red Wine and Hoisin.

Oh, Joy, those sweet potato cinnamon rolls sound wonderful! Let us know how they turn out!

I'm trying to clean out some pantry and freezer items that have been hanging around for a while. I think I'll make up a ragu tonight with some lamb sausage and odds n' ends, and then settle in to watch the football playoffs. Go Pats!

Experiments in Pie Baking! I recently found out I'm allergic to soy, so I've been trying to perfect an all-butter crust, without using Crisco (which is 100% soybean) or lard (which doesn't appeal to me).

So far, so good, and the house smells heavenly!

Liser, I made some Vosgue Aztec hot chocolate to watch the episode!

Can anyone recommend a good, quick, relatively simple quiche or frittata recipe to feed 6 for brunch?

this might sound like fantasy, but i wonder...

does anyone know of a website where you plug in the random ingredients you have in the house, and it delivers a recipe using them?

and i mean random ingredients.

kdkaboom, AllRecipes has something like this:

http://allrecipes.com/Search/Ingredients.aspx

I believe there are some other minor sites with smaller databases that also do it.

Also, if you have truly random ingredients and want to get The Kitchn's feedback, email me at faith (at) apartmenttherapy (dot) com and I will post a Cupboard Challenge to stretch everyone's brains...

Cupboard challenge?!

That's my idea of a brain teaser.