Adam was IN LOVE with the animals.  He spent twenty minutes looking at the goats and llamas and would have stayed for hours, but we were getting chilly and needed some warm apple cider.

It was a cool fall day and seeing all the pumpkins made me excited for all that’s to come over the next couple of months: Adam’s first Halloween and Thanksgiving, Christmas, Adam’s first birthday and seeing all of our family for the holidays!

Adam and I hosted our weekly playgroup at our house this week.  I decided to take some of our picked apples and make an apple crumble for our guests.

The crumble was delicious! And the playgroup went great. 

Relaxing after a busy morning.
 

It means being able to say dada and mama.
It means being able to pull myself up onto the couch.
It means I love all animals and want to stop to watch them all, but especially dogs.
It means being able to eat all sorts of things, even wontons and chicken soup.
It means sleeping through the night.
It means going to music class and loving it.
It means crawling all over and even climbing up a flight of stairs.
It means loving books and reading, especially Goodnight Gorilla and Brown Bear.
It means pointing at what I want until my servants (aka my parents) retrieve it for me.
It means being able to take off my own pants when I’m supposed to be napping.
It means being able to play on the playground with the older kids finally.
It means seeing new things every day that I have to play with, from watermelons to electrical wires.
It means having enough hair that my mom finally gets to use a brush on my head.
It means loving my new friend, Raki the Raccoon.

Now onto the great.  The food in New Orleans ia amazing! Friday night, we went to Herbsaint.  Luckily, Randy was able to make it to dinner and it was a good thing since it was delicious.  Randy had gumbo and shrimp, salad and steak for me.  We had big plans to grab some drinks and stay up to say hi to everyone else who flew in from New York later that night, but we both fell asleep early.

The next morning we all headed to Cafe Du Monde, where they serve beignets or beignets.  Fine by me. These little sugary fried dough balls are heaven and they were quickly gobbled up.

  

As Randy’s birthday week  month continues, I cooked a special dinner on Thursday night, the day before we left for Nola to celebrate with Grandma Yuyu.  I made all of Randy’s favorites- rack of lamb,  rosemary garlic potatoes and arugula salad with pine nut and parmesan.  For dessert I even tried to make Randy’s favorite- basbousa!  The rack of lamb recipe was a herb crusted and honey mustard glaze from Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc cookbook and was surprisingly easy for a Thomas Keller recipe.  The rack of lamb was DELICIOUS and I have to say was as tasty as anything we would have eaten out. 

Thanks Adam for teaching us that we can stay in and still have a gourmet meal 🙂

• 2 frenched, 8-bone racks of lamb (2 to 2 1/4 pounds each)
• Kosher salt
• Freshly ground pepper
• Canola oil
• Garlic confit (instructions below)
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 3 tablespoons honey
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3 to 5 anchovy fillets, rinsed, dried and minced
• 1 1/2 cups ground panko bread crumbs
• 3 tablespoons finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 1 tablespoon minced rosemary
• Gray salt or coarse sea salt

1. Score the fat covering the lamb in a cross-hatch pattern, taking care not to cut into the meat. Season the racks on all sides with salt and pepper.

2. Set a roasting rack in a roasting pan. Heat a thin layer of canola oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat until it shimmers. Put one rack fat-side down in the pan and sear until golden brown, 1 1/2 to 2 minutes; carefully move the lamb as it sears to brown as much of the fat as possible. Transfer the lamb to the roasting rack, meat side up. Drain the fat, and reheat the pan, adding fresh oil. Repeat with the remaining rack.

3. To make garlic confit- (I used this recipe which is slightly different than Thomas Keller’s since I don’t own a diffuser and I still don’t know what it is)
Put a cup of garlic cloves in a heavy, covered braising pan or Dutch oven. Add one bay leaf, 8 fresh thyme sprigs, a scant tablespoon kosher salt, and 15-20 peppercorns. Barely cover with the oil (blended 50% extra virgin olive oil and 50% canola).  Cover the pan and braise in a 300 degree oven until the cloves are pale golden and very tender, about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cool it to room temperature,

4. Combine the mustard and honey in a small bowl; set aside. Combine the butter, 4 cloves garlic confit and anchovies in a small food processor and puree until smooth.

5. Transfer the puree to a medium bowl, and stir in the bread crumbs, parsley and rosemary to combine. Do not overmix.

6. Brush the mustard mixture over the fat and meat, but not the underside of the racks. Spread the bread crumbs evenly over the racks, pressing gently and patting them so the crumbs adhere.

7. Position the oven rack in the bottom third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 425° F.

8. Put the lamb in the oven, meat-side toward the back, and roast for 25 to 35 minutes, until the temperature in the center of the meat registers 128° F to 130° F. Let the racks rest on the rack in a warm place for 20 minutes for medium-rare.  I usually don’t have the patience to let meat rest, but since we were waiting for Grandma Yuyu’s lamb to cook more we did let the lamb rest and I think this made this dish even better.

 A lot of people I’ve talked to are afraid of spinach pies.  It’s the phyllo dough that scares them.  This fear of phyllo dough that I kept hearing about kept me from trying to make spinach pies (or spanikopita) as the Greeks say for a long time.

Well, when I finally broke down and made spinach pies for the first time I was surprised that it actually wasn’t that hard!  It’s like bechemel, once you make it a couple times it’s not that hard and worse case you scrap it and order pizza as we like to say in this house.

I’ve made a couple spinach pies and Barefoot Contessa’s are by far the best. 

3 cups chopped yellow onions (2 onions)
2 tablespoons good olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
3 (10-ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
6 extra-large eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons grated nutmeg
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons plain dry bread crumbs
1/2 pound good feta, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 cup pignoli (pine nuts)
1/4 pound salted butter, melted
6 sheets phyllo dough, defrosted
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Step one – make the filling.

In a medium sauté pan on medium heat, sauté the onions with the olive oil until translucent and slightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes. Add the salt and pepper and allow to cool slightly.

Squeeze out and discard as much of the liquid from the spinach as possible. Put the spinach into a bowl and then gently mix in the onions, eggs, nutmeg, Parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, feta, and pignoli.

 Step four- Eat and enjoy!

Adam loved these, well he loved the crispy bits.

We had a block party on Saturday and we brought some of these spinach pies and they were a big hit.  It was really nice to spend some time with our neighbors.  They had a grill, a potluck table and even a painting station for the kids. 

It made me a little sad that we weren’t going to be on this block as Adam grows up.  There are tons of kids and Adam would have grown up riding bikes with all of the babies that are so close to Adams age and he would eventually have gone to school with them, well I don’t really understand DC elementary schools and the waiting lists and the lottery system but he would have ended up in school with some of them.  Maybe I’m particularly sensitive to this because Randy and I grew up around the corner from each other,  rode bikes together and went to the same elementary schools (and intermediate and high school).  But, I also know that Adam will have experiences and opportunities that I could only have dreamed about, that he will learn about different cultures and that he will grow up meeting and keeping friends from all different places.   Also as Uncle Meej says, he’ll have an amazing college essay to write!

 

For Randy’s 32nd birthday we’re heading to New Orleans next weekend!  Randy told me that New Orleans was enough of a party buuuuuut I decided that a surprise lunch was in order.

To throw Randy off the scent and make sure he dressed dapper for the party I convinced him that we should dress nice and take some pictures in the park before we took Gretchen to lunch.  An added bonus is that we got some great pictures.  Grandma Gertch came for the weekend who Adam loooves! It was so nice to have her come visit and great to get to sleep in late!

 

This is what Jamie Oliver calls this salad.  I’ve never had another tomato and chorizo to compare this to but this salad was delicious.  I know it was really delicious because Randy completely approved of having only a salad for dinner. Well, with some goat cheese on the side 🙂

This salad is perfect for the summer while the tomatoes are still tasty.  I love Jamie Oliver, he uses simple ingredients and his recipes are always super tasty.

1 raw chorizo sausage roughly sliced (I used Spanish Chorizo from Eastern Market which had a bit of spice- and we used three since this was all we were eating for dinner)
olive oil
3 large ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
A handful of cherry tomatoes, roughly chopped
3 spring onions finely chopped
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
sherry vinegar
small bunch of finely chopped parsley
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1. Add a good glug of olive oil and the chopped chorizo to a hot fry pan and stir regularly.
2. Whilst the chorizo is cooking, prepare and chop all tomatoes and spring onions and place into a large salad bowl. Season well sea salt and pepper.
3. Drizzle with a little olive oil and a splash of sherry vinegar. Sprinkle over the chopped parsley, mix everything together then put aside.
4. Once the chorizo is nice and crispy, add the chopped garlic to the pan and swirl around until you smell it cooking. Add a splash of vinegar to stop it cooking then spoon the chorizo over the tomatoes. Drizzle some of the lovely tasty oil from the pan over the whole salad. Toss the salad well and serve.

I’ve been hearing about Great Falls Park since I moved to DC and last Sunday we finally decided to go.  It was a beautiful day and we had no plans, perfect time to go.  

Great Falls Park is a beautiful park on the Potomac River.  There are tons of trails and great viewing areas to see waterfalls.  We picked up some Taylor sandwiches and drove out to have a picnic and see the falls.

After a yummy lunch we walked over to the falls.  It was a beautiful view….but I have to admit I was picturing more of a Niagara Falls as opposed to a beaver made dam.

After some pics in front of the falls we walked one of the trails. Obviously one of the easier ones since Adam was in his stroller.

We promised we would go back and put Adam in a carrier and hike some of the longer trails.

Going back in time to Saturday we had a great day with friends.  First up was Sal’s birthday party at Hill Country BBQ where A LOT of brisket was eaten. Despite having a newborn, Pamela (yes, the same Pamela who introduced me to the best chili ever) made little jars of homemade barbecue sauce.  I can’t wait to try that this week!

After lunch we met our friend Joel at the H Street Festival.  I was picturing a French Farmers Market ….while it was more of a louder, more crowded, dirtier frat party.  We decided to head out and head over to Pearl Oyster, which as more our cup of Rosie Lee.  This Oyster Bar has been on our list of places to try ever since I was pregnant.  It was worth the wait!

Adam wasn’t impressed by the Oysters 🙂 but we were! (picture by Joel)

Dinner was fantastic! This is on our list of places to go back to before we leave.

Right after I had Adam, our friends Pamela and Sal came over to cuddle Adam and to bring some delicious food over for the hungry new parents!  Pamela made her dad’s chili.  I’ve never been a person who craves chili, but apparently that’s because I never had this chili.  It was DELICIOUS!!

This past weekend was the first time we’ve been home in DC with nothing planned since MAY!