Sweet potato & gorgonzola quiche

What do you do when a friend gives you pretty much a life supply of gorgonzola (the perks of having a friend who is a chef:))?  You start researching recipes to make with this plethora of cheesy goodness (and freeze a lot of it!)!  Yesterday I found a sweet potato, gorgonzola and caramelized onion quiche recipe from Naturally Ella.  It sounded so delicious I had to make it!  I adapted it a bit by omitting the crust and adding roasting potatoes along with the sweet potatoes.  It was really good and  I think it would taste delicious cold, too!

The Diptych Project: Breakfast

The Diptych Project: two friends (once neighbors & now an ocean apart), one theme

Top photo: Evie, bottom photo: Ann

The chaos and comfort of breakfast.  

Please visit Evie's blog to learn more about what inspired her photo.

You can see our previous diptychs here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Winter market

 

Here are some glimpses from our recent trip to a winter farmer's market.  We filled our bags with beets, sweet potatoes, fingerling potatoes, carrots, and squash.  So good!  Lot's of roasting ensued.  It was also really special to be able to go there with my mother and father in law who have been visiting from England.  We have visited a lot of markets together, especially in London so it was lovely to introduce them to one in our new city.

Sunday Spice

We loved getting some extra time with my little brother in our new city.  As you can see my boys adore their uncle!  We took him to one of our favorite new restaurants Yats which is a delicious cajun/creole restaurant.  Such comfort food!

delicious.

After watching the most recent season of The Great British Bake Off (so good!), I am more inspired than ever to try new recipes.  I want to try to make things I have never made before and things I assumed would be too tricky to try at home.  I especially want to try my hand at pastry.  My first step is buying a new mixer as ours died shortly before we left London.  And I know from first hand experience how long it takes to mix something by hand... a meringue by hand takes a loooong time!

I was excited to find the books above: Tartine is a book of recipes from the highly recommended San Francisco bakery of the same name, Joy the Baker is a book by the author of one of my favorite food blogs, and Babycakes is a collection of recipes of gluten free and vegan desserts - which I thought was worth reading as several people around me have gone gluten free recently.  I'll let you know what recipes I try!

What are your favorite baking cookbooks?

Chocolate import!

A big thanks to my inlaws who are visiting from England for bringing me some delicious Cadbury's.  It does taste better from England:)!  Don't think it will last too long...

Pumpkins all around

Happy Monday!  Our excursion to pick a pumpkin was so much fun and provided some great photo ops.  I love the one of the two boys but I do feel a bit bad for Sebby being propped up like that (there are some hilarious out takes though as he began slowly slipping down!).

Seeing all these pumpkin makes me want to try out some new recipes!  So far we've made a couple batches of pumpkin soup.  If anyone has any favorite pumpkin or squash recipes, will you let me know?

Tea at the Wolsley

 Rebecca and I went to the Wolsley for afternoon tea and it was AMAZING!  The atmosphere in there is hard to beat - it's so elegant and classy.  I would recommend breakfast there or tea or at the very least a peak in the front doors.  With all of the black and gold decor, I felt transported to Paris.  Ooo la la!

Wahaca

While my brother Stephen was visiting we decided to go to Wahaca for dinner.  Known for it's Mexican street food, it is one of those places I have wanted to go to for ages.  The serve food in small plates, tapas style, that are great for sharing.  We tried pork pibil, chicken tinga and steak tacos, chorizo and potato quesadillas, black bean tostados, and a side of sweet potatoes.  It was all so good especially the sweet potatoes!  We also had churros y chocolate for dessert... yummy!  As you can see from the last picture, Samuel enjoyed them too:).  I would definitely recommend Wahaca for a fun evening out (just get there early as a line forms quickly).

Best gift ever

For Christmas, my friend gave me the best gift you can give a pregnant lady. A gift that satisfies your desire to snack constantly! Actually this is an amazing gift for everyone. She gave me a gift certificate towards Graze which means that every week I receive a box with an assortment of yummy snacks. On their website you can rate what foods you like and there is also an option to say if the food item is something you would never want or one you would want soon!

I was very excited when the box arrived! At first I just had a little taste from each box... then I ate more... then I started rationalizing that since it was a gift for me I didn't need to save it for the next day or for Adrian to try when he got home... once I started it was so hard to stop! When Adrian got home there were none of my favorite item left (the olives) but he did get to try everything else. As you can imagine, there definitely wasn't any left the next day. They were just to good to save!

My first box contained:

cherry tomato, basil and puglian pesto focaccia

kalamata & halkidiki olives with chilli & garlic

scrumptious blueberry swirl

lost army