Pot Pie: Round Three!

Tonight I made the second variation on the classic chicken pot pie. This one was a marjoram mushroom chicken pot pie.



This time, I thought I would include a peek into the insides of the pie. Oh, hi!



It was delish!

Election Party

Tonight I gathered with lots of friends and family to wait for the election results at Robin and Jerry's election party.



Cute little flag lights!



Voting for the nation's president is thrilling and exciting. Getting to eat the Cincinnati Chili that they always make for this event is thrilling and exciting TOO!



Delicious chili, spaghetti, cheese, onions, oyster crackers and hot sauce. Look at how MUCH!!!



I would vote for this delicious bowl in a heartbeat!



Hilarie and Mark brought this enormous wheel of stilton. It was incredible!!! I hung out by this table for a long time.



Look at all those great snacks!



Look at these beautiful cookies! It was hard to decide whether to choose an Ohio cookie (pro: bigger!) or a donkey cookie (pro: cuter!). Cuteness won out for me, and I enjoyed a delicious donkey.



Yay for cookies, and yay for Obama!

Cooking Club: SAUSAGE FEST!

Summer has been wanting to experiment with making her own sausages, so we did a Sausage Fest theme for the November cooking club! I decided to try a recipe from the Silver Palate Good Times cookbook, for Rosy Seafood Sausage. This sausage is primarily made of salmon, but also includes bay scallops.

This is what two pounds of poached salmon looks like after a whirl through the food processor. Mmm!



Summer's pups were really excited when we all arrived at the house.



So excited, in fact, that Milo knocked Valerie's wine onto Brisby's FACE!!! Wino!



For our first course, Yumi brought tostada fixings! She made some spicy chorizo sausage from local pork! We layered that with some black beans, queso fresco, pico de gallo, lettuce and sour cream on top of crispy tortillas!



They were sooooooooooooooooooooo good!!!! ¡Olé!



Valerie made tempeh sausage links and patties.



And she MADE buns!!!!!! Look at that beautiful basket full of buns!!!



Summer  made apple and wine chicken sausage! Look at how professional those sausages look!



Mmm!



Getting them nice and brown.



On Valerie's homemade buns!



We enjoyed both the chicken and tempeh sausages on the homemade buns, with some mustard sauce that Valerie made, and slaw that Summer made.






Munchin' on sausages!



Sooooooo, here are those seafood sausages that I made. The recipe instructed me to wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, securing with kitchen string if necessary.



Then you boil the WHOLE THING in a pot of boiling water. I had no idea that you could boil plastic wrap! But you totally can!



I also attempted to make a tomato buerre blanc sauce.



When it was time to pull the sausages out of the pot, this is what they looked like!!! Gross!! I have no idea what went wrong. Perhaps my plastic wrap wasn't tight enough, or wasn't watertight???



Eek, and then when I tried to pull off the plastic, they fell apart even MORE!!!!!! Disaster! This was one of the more challenging recipes I've attempted for cooking club, and also one of the biggest failures! Though I suppose the only way to achieve really exciting exotic recipes is to step outside of your comfort zone occasionally. Sometimes it pays off, and sometimes it doesn't! I will say though, that this mound of seafood mess actually did taste good. It just wasn't pretty.



I smashed some into a sort of sausage shape and put it on my plate with some butter sauce. Butter sauce makes everything better! At least Emily's chopped salad with shrimp was beautiful (and delicious!).



After dinner, Emily showered Brisby with loving.



Awww.



Nancy made cannolis!



She also made homemade fig newtons and bourbon balls, just in case the cannolis weren't delicious. In fact, all THREE treats WERE delicious!! Lucky us! What a sweet end to the night.

Halloween

Evidently, this is my 1,000th blog post. Neat!

To celebrate Halloween this year, we went to Megan and Bob's house on Block Party night. It's always fun to watch people walk uptown from their front porch. Summer dressed as some sort of amalgamation of a Downton Abbey era Roxy Hart type of dead vampire floozy. With glitter! That bloody snack she is having is cherry pie filling meant to top cheesecake cupcakes that Megan made. It looks pretty gory taken out of context!



Rick came dressed as a Scotsman, and the question of whether he was wearing anything beneath his kilt was a hot topic. I tried my best to find out while he was in the bathroom.



He shone a flashlight in my eye!!! He could tell I was peeking!



That didn't stop Megan from trying, though.



She couldn't collect any evidence either, unfortunately.



I guess the world may never know. Unless Billie knows. Maybe she will share?



She looks like she might know! Rick looks proud of his secret.



Uh oh, Summer has commandeered the Swedish Chef's mustache!






Next she got ahold of Bob's Budweiser hat!









Bob, Ben, Summer and I decided to walk uptown and check out the action.



Block party!



Butts!



Summer and Bob "taking pictures" of each other.









Random people.



Random dude + Bob.



Swedish Chef senior portrait?



Roughhousing!









Whee! Some sort of elf or fairy prancing along!



This costume was sweet! They let me give it a high five!



I love Halloween!



Secret Service.



We met Kayla and Derrick at The  Union!



We couldn't get enough of this little squirrel. Oh, hi!



The cutest!



Kayla's picture frame was a hit!






Maceo!






Summer and Kayla!



We headed inside, where Moss was bartending. He made us some fancy drinks!



Summer and Maceo.



We ran into this couple on the way to the bathroom. LOOK HOW CUTE!!! Ben and I might have to do something like this soon.



We ran into PRINCE!!!!!!!!!



And Kid Rock!



As we were walking home, the police horses were clearing the streets.