First Post of 2010!

Happy New Year!

Can you believe that it's 2010?! I can't!

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season. Below are some pictures of our Christmas.

Christmas Eve dinner we were in Ogunquit with my in-laws. We were all invited to a family and friends event at Katie's Cafe. It was such a wonderful evening with such delicious food!

Some pictures of my in-laws B&B all done up for the holidays!

Bailey's own personal ornament on the tree:

After "midnight" mass we opened our gifts with the in-laws. This included our kids gift to the parents. It was such a great gift. Matt created a game where mom and dad had to fill in the blanks which would sound out their gift. Each kid had a question to help with the game. It was so much fun! We were even able to Skype Matt's sister and brother-in-law from Chicago to help with the clues! Below is a picture of my Wickert family all working hard on the puzzle.

The Chicago family Skyping:

Finally, my in-laws receiving their gift. A brand new LCD TV! Sorry that it's blurry there was a lot of excitement and movement!

My mother-in-law made us all a plate of cookies and hot chocolate for our gift opening!

Bailey hoarding his two new toys:

We had a great long Christmas celebration in Maine and New Hampshire. We finally came back to our home in Beantown Wednesday night. We celebrated New Years Eve very quietly and relaxed, sitting around in our PJs all day watching movies and playing the Wii. We finally got dressed in time to go pick up Thai food for our dinner. Then good friends of ours stopped by right before midnight to celebrate the new year!

The first two photos are shots of Boston from our roofdeck at midnight:

The Beacon Hill friends celebrating 2010 with rose champagne at midnight on our COLD roofdeck!

The new year is bringing a new start to my health and to this blog! I'm almost 100% better! I think that by the time I go back to work on Monday I should be healthy! Thank God for this week off! It's given me a chance to sleep and relax which has helped me fight off my cold! Wow... that's a lot of exclamation points!

With the new year comes resolutions. Matt and I are going to sit down tomorrow to discuss our goals for the year and years to come. One resolution that I decided on a while ago is that this is going to be the year that I clean out all of the recipes that I've accrued over the years. I'm going to try a new recipe a day (in theory) from my collection. Those that Matt and I like will get put into a newly organized collection of recipes. Those that fail to meet our tasting standards will get put in the recycling bin.

In addition to my recipe resolution I have also decided to make a resolution for this blog. My blog goals:

1. I plan on blogging at least 5 days a week

2. I will include all of the recipes from my recipe challenge along with a critique of the meal

3. I am going to try to become a better writer. My writing skills are not as great as I would like. I've already signed up for a food writing course at the BCAE and, luckily, I have a great husband who is also going to help me out.

4. Improve my photography skills. I am currently lacking an eye for photos. I hope to improve this over the year!

To start the new year right I have included photos from dinner tonight. There isn't much in the house right now for groceries so I made a "shepherd pie" tonight with what we did have. I think it was pretty good considering I winged it without a recipe!

Matt and I also enjoyed an amazing bottle of wine that you can only get at the Stag's Leap vineyard in Napa. Thanks to Matt's sister and brother-in-law we received this amazing bottle as a Christmas gift. It was very smooth and delicious. It is a Rhone style blend with Syrah, Grenache, Mouvedre and Carignane. Matt and I usually aren't a fan of European wines because of it's dirty, organic flavors but because these grapes came from California I think it was a perfect balance! We got to enjoy European variety grapes with the only the flavors that we enjoy in a California wine! Thanks Carrie and Dave!

My Shepherds Pie Recipe:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Make mashed potatoes with 5 boiled potatoes blended with 3 tablespoons fat free greek yogurt, a 1/4 cup of skim milk, a tablespoon of unsalted butter and salt & pepper to taste.

Brown a pound of ground turkey. Add in a chopped onion and 3 gloves of chopped garlic. Cook for 4 minutes. Then add in about 3/4 cup of tomato sauce.

Put the browned meat into a casserole dish then top with mashed potatoes. Sprinkle mashed potatoes with about 1/2 cup of cheese (I used a combination of mild cheddar, mozzarella and parmesan). Sprinkle the top of the casserole with a little bit of paprika (just for color). Bake for 30 minutes.

Will serve 4.

Enjoy!

Okay I'm off to kick my husband's butt (I hope) at Tiger Wood's Wii Golf. Have a great night!