Not a check, but..

We really tried not to go too far over the top this Thanksgiving - we didn't even make sweet potatoes to limit the number of sides!  But I didn't want to pass on having an excuse to make appetizers... so we made a stuffed mushroom bar!  A what you ask?  Well look!

We baked some mushroom caps and then set out a little DIY spread!

The suggested combos were (but we were free to be creative):

Cream cheese + jelly (meyer lemon marmalade or strawberry)

Hard boiled eggs, tomato, spinach

Apple, bacon, cheddar

Carrot, ginger, wasabi, green onion, turkey

I've heard a lot about "bars" lately: baked potato, mac'n'cheese, hot chocolate (all of which sound amazing), but this was a fun little healthy way to start our Thanksgiving party.

Which combo sounds the best?  Or weirdest??

Super fancy cake

Not quite as fancy as the crazy chocolate monster I made last year, this one is Cheesecake Factory inspired and if it takes more than one day to make - I consider that super fancy!

Here's the inspiration:

Red Velvet Cheesecake Layer Cake 

(Kind of redundant and not all that creative of a name..)

Source

Not *exactly* a fall-ish or Thanksgiving type dessert, but oh well.  I made some super yummy pecan bars to take care of that aspect.  And since Nick had to work several days in a row, I knew he'd take the leftovers to work so that ALLLLL those calories won't end up in my belly!

Here we go.  (Note: Her rose piping is gorgeous - in the instructions she says "If you're going to do that, double the frosting.  I couldn't *couldn't* double the frosting - so.many.calories. - so I thought, "Hey lady that wrote this recipe, you MUST be wrong." And got out my piping bag and ... nope.  No big flowers for me.)

Night before:  Made the crustless cheesecake and two red velvet cakes.  Except we didn't have red food coloring.  We DID have neon pink, but.  Well, the "red velvet" description isn't quite as accurate.

I'm just not a very good froster - so I'm pretty proud of my little uneven swirls.

Not quite as puffy as hers (or red, yeah, I know) - but pretty fun looking just the same!

I took a picture of the first slice we cut (which has the most crumbs) - but then got so excited about eating it that I forgot to take another!  The red (pink? brownish?) velvet layers weren't that sweet and the cheesecake layer had a little lemon flavoring in it.  The overall result was that the cakes weren't overly sweet, believe it or not - and who doesn't like cream cheese frosting? Let's be serious.

Number 14 is now COMPLETE: two cheesecake factory inspired cakes.

Does this combo sound good or weird to you??

Very successful baking

I haven't made too much progress on the cooking part of my list... until!  Thanksgiving  (especially when it's a 12 day weekend because your office is getting remodeled) seemed like a perfect time to try some things.

First up: Focaccia bread!

By definition, it's a flat oven-baked Italian bread topped with salt, olive oil, and herbs/cheese/whatever you want.  And Nick's favorite bread.  So I turned to the Food Network, found a recipe and went at it.  

Thanks to my handy dandy Kitchen Aid mixer, making the dough was a piece of cake.  It was the first use of the "dough hook" attachment.

Topped with carmelized onions, Parmesan cheese, and some of my huge abundance of basil (seriously, have I told you HOW much basil & sage we have?  Need any??) - and... voila!

The soft, flavorful, tasty, nom-goodness!  

Really delicious.  And lasted about 1 day in our two person household.  Oops!

So #3 focaccia bread- CHECK!
What toppings should we try next time??

Who votes on this stuff?

Trying to work through the top 25 movies on imdb, we got One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest from Netflix.  We watched about 45 minutes of it and just. couldn't. get. through. more. BUT in the name of the list, we left it on the coffee table for weeks (ok, I just looked it up, we got it AUGUST 29th and finished it today NOVEMBER 2nd - that's absurd).  However, this lazy day, we finally finished it.

And.

Why, voters?  Why of all the movies in the world do you pick THIS one as a top twenty?? It's AT LEAST 45 minutes too long and then gets all crazy dark at the end. 

Not recommended. (But absolutely sub-CHECK!)

Ever seen it?  Got anything to change my mind?

Sploring our neighbor

We don't make it over to Napa nearly enough -- but we headed out a few weeks ago for a fun Friday night.

Dinner:  Fish Story -- down town Napa, right on the river

We were brave and got a baby tower of mostly raw stuff.  I'm just still not really an oyster fan.

Nick order the special of the day: crab. As in, here's a whole crab with lots of dark colored sauce.  Good luck not getting it all over your self and your white shirt and finishing in a reasonable amount of time, especially since your wife got a small little piece of fish for dinner.  I think he burned all the calories he consumed after tackling that bad boy.

Love this.

After dinner drinks, we headed to 1313 Main for champagne flights - we don't know much about bubbles, so this was basically educational!

Any tips on how to take apart a whole crab??