Monday, January 07, 2008

500th post!

Wow! I just noticed that this is my 500th post! Very cool.

Anyhow, I apologize for my absence from blogdom -- as many of you can relate, the holidays were BUSY! Between travelling for two family Christmases, visiting with lots of friends who were in town, and still having to work, I felt like I did nothing but run in circles for two weeks straight! It was wonderful to see everyone, but boy am I glad I have almost nothing to do this week! We all need a little rest -- Dan's been under the weather, and we had to take Ollie to the vet on Friday (urinary tract infection.) Kitty's been very good about letting me give him his antibiotics, and he's definitely on the mend.

We've still been eating and cooking some! Photos:

I had a cold the week between Christmas and New Year's, and Dan surprised me one night by buying me some pho soup from the Vietnamese restaurant up the block:
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I love the freshness and clean taste of pho soup. I should try making my own, eh?

Homemade pizza:
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We stayed in on New Year's Eve and constructed this loaded veggie pizza deluxe. Yum.

Pull-N-Peel Twizzler silliness:
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Dan had a little too much fun with dessert on New Year's Eve!

Muffins:
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Wholegrain Banana-Coconut-Almond! Yum!

Oliver thought these looked good, too:
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Does anybody else's cat sneak bites of freshly baked goods? He never eats them, though -- always spits them back out. Grumble, grumble.

New cookbooks!
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Mollie Katzen was a gift from my parents, Anna Thomas was a gift from Dan's parents, and I bought the middle one (from The Cheese Factory Restaurant) on our way back from Wisconsin -- there is this incredible vegetarian and vegan restaurant in the middle of nowhere in Central Wisconsin! Our meals were excellent, and I can't wait to try out their recipes in my kitchen!

New books!
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Dan gave me "Millions of Cats" (a children's picture book) as part of my Christmas present -- I wasn't terribly familiar with this story, but it is funny and a little dark and very witty and charming. It was also written by a Minnesotan! My parents gave me "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which I can't wait to start reading. My friend Marie gave me "The Alchemist," which I'm not familiar with, but will add to the stack of stuff to read!

That's all, for now. Hopefully we'll get to the grocery store tomorrow, and I'll have a chance to cook something wonderful later this week! Until then . . . .

10 comments:

Judy said...

Oooh, those muffins look so good. That's kind of strange that your cat nibbles your food and spits it out, but maybe he's just testing things out for you.

And I have to agree with you on pho: it is the best soup ever. I can't get enough.

Steffi said...

can't wait to read "The Omnivore's Dilemma", too!

I like pho a lot, as well, but have never gotten round to make it myself yet.

Anonymous said...

You will have to let me know what you think of The New Vegetarian Epicure...I have had my eye on it for a while. I hope you like the Omnivores Dilemma--it is so good!

I am glad to hear that Oliver is being a good kitty and is taking his medicine, although I am sorry he has the infection!

Courtney

Hippie Girl said...

my parent's cat once dived into a cooling lasagne on the counter! needless to say, she never did that again! ha ha

Michelle said...

Awwww... poor Oliver! :( I hope he's feeling better. There should be mandatory time off after the holidays to recover. I ended up having four vacations days I "had" to use by the end of the year... it helped a lot to recover from the holiday craziness.

Carrie™ said...

I love books! Have fun with those. We were pooped by the time New Year's Eve rolled around, so we stayed in too. And made pizza!
Those muffins look amazing!!

Veggie said...

My cats love to sneak bites of freshly baked muffins too, even push them onto the floor and just leave them there.

Vicki's Vegan Vice said...

500?! that's HUGE! I taught a Millions of Cats unit when I student taught 1st grade -- cute book! and I would LOVE a muffin -- that flavor combo must have been fabulous!

Anonymous said...

500 that is so great, congrats!!!


interesting books.

bazu said...

happy 500th post! Wow... I'm nowhere near that- quite a blogging milestone. I hope you and Dan and Oliver are all recovered by now.