New Years on the Cape

Happy New Year's Eve from Delicious Bytes!

The DB girl is enjoying the holiday on Cape Cod with M... {perhaps more on him later} and we are having tons of fun eating, relaxing, going for walks... Tonight's plans are pretty low-key, but will involve cupcakes, leftovers, prosecco, and perhaps more domino's. :)

While breakfast was baking, I took a couple shots from the deck this morning in my Uggs and pj's.

Doesn't the above shot look like the sky? It's actually the ice on the top of the water!

For breakfast this morning, M made me his mother's recipe for Rice Pudding. YUM!!!

Breakfast Rice Pudding

2 C cooked white rice

1.5 C whole milk

2 eggs

1/2 C sugar

1 tsp vanilla

sprinkles of nutmeg or cinnamon or both!

Beat eggs, add sugar and vanilla, and mix in the rice. Stir in the milk, and pour into a baking dish. Top with spices, and bake 45 minutes at 350, or until set. YUM!!

All done!

After breakfast, we played another mean round of Domino's. First one to 250 wins... and so far I am NOT doing well. But, it's fun and I'm practicing my math.

After breakfast, we headed over to a nearby beach. We found lots of poor, unfortunate creatures along our walk. Walking on the sand is a good workout!

We had lunch Wicked Fire Kissed Pizza. I loved the Mulligatawny Soup! The flavor combinations of apples, curry, and lentils really warmed us up after our long, chilly walk on the beach. For my main entree I had the Scallop BLT personal pizza. It was pretty good, and we have half of it for leftovers tonight.

We stopped in our Cupcake Charlie's on our way home. Can't wait to dive into these guys!

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope you have a delicious evening!

Snow Snow Snow!

Ever since Christmas, we've pretty much been snowed in.

We lost power for 15 hours, but my Dad has this awesome generator, so even though we didn't have a working phone, and we had to keep the electronic usage to a minimum to preserve energy, we were never without heat. Our poor neighbors! I think most of them went to stay with friends last night to keep warm!

We even had trouble driving because the roads in our area weren't plowed until after the storm. However... we have THIS. :)

So we were okay.

Even though we've been snowed in and plans to shop, ice skate, see a play, and visit friends have been sidelined (plus I managed to sprain my back! ouch!!) we're still having a good time. Our Christmas dinner is the perfect example. My sister played with this silly spoon...

...and my Dad grabbed my Mom's food with his special silly fork. Hahaha.

The dinner my family made was yummy!

Mom made a huge prime rib roast (free-range and hormone-free), and we had an assortment of veggies for Dad: okra in tomatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes, and the best thing ever! Crescent Rolls!

Pretty Christmas Dining Room!

After a day of heavy eating (prime rib and strata in the same day!), all I wanted the day after Christmas during the blizzard was a big pot of oatmeal. Luckily, my Mom had this in the pantry: Steel Cut Oats!

With a fork and some elbow grease, I turned one of these...

into this for the best sweetener ever.

Added some walnuts from the Christmas nut bowl, plus some raisins, and we all chowed down watching Ocean's Twelve on tv.

Later on, Dad and I headed over to the stables to feed "The Boys"; our horses 'Kota, Nietzsche, and Dante. They are so pretty! They were glad to have visitors and they watched Dad plow the driveway out.

Hay is so delicious!!

Tomorrow I'm probably heading back to Mangetout for lunch with my girlfriend from high school. She recently moved back home from Paris, yay! I had a fabulous lunch here last summer, remember? Anyhow, afterwards, we might hit up our fancy schmancy local mall. They have really amazing stores, like Claire's and Hot Topic. Oh my... why am I such a snob?? :)

Home for the Holidays

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I hope everyone's had a great day! Here's a few snapshots from our Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas breakfast this morning.

I think the house looks really pretty this year!

Check out Dad's new stocking I bought him at The Alamo while I was singing in San Antonio earlier this month:

Have you ever seen such a big shell? It was taken from the South Pacific by a Captain in the Navy during WWII and my parents found it at an antique shop.

Even though my Dad has been vegan for about a month, my Mom still prepared our usual ham for Christmas Eve dinner.

For Dad we also prepared roasted sweet potatoes, rice, black eyed peas, biscuits, and kale salad. We also had random escargot in the freezer, so that was a fun addition to our meal! They were super buttery.

My family read the recent Strata post, so they suggested I make it for Christmas morning! This one turned out particularly cheesy because we used a cheesy ciabatta loaf! The strata just has ciabatta cheese bread, eggs, parmesan cheese, and kale. Yum!

Our neighbors dropped by with their annual Christmas cookie delivery. Thank you!!

Off to eat Christmas dinner! My sister says the prime rib is awesome. I can't really remember the last time I ate red meat, but I'm proud of my Mom for buying a fancy free-range, hormone-free piece of meat for our holiday meal. It DOES look good.

Merry Christmas, everyone! :)

Hugs, Chips, and Egg Nogs

It's SNOWING in Boston! Yay! I don't have a garage for my car, so a ginormous snow storm would not be welcome, but these light, fluffy flurries are pretty without causing a huge pain for driving, so yay!

My concert season for 2010 wrapped up on Sunday and I am officially ON BREAK from singing for a while! Yay! Just a few more lessons to teach this week, and then vacation will start, too! I love the few days before Christmas- everyone's happy, friendly, excited to see old friends and family, or just to get a few days off from work!

My buddy living in Switzerland came to Boston for a quick visit this past week, too, and we finally had some catch-up time.

Beers at Tory Row in Harvard Square:

We also had a fancy schmancy snack together at her house before our respective dinner plans: Lays Ranch Kettle Chips with Perrier and Egg Nog. :)

Our fancy egg nog had rum, whipped cream and freshly grated nutmeg. Since I had to perform the next day, I restrained from the rum, but mine was still delicious!

The week continues to be full of fun and festivities! Last night I had dinner in Davis Square at Flatbread Pizza Company in Sacco's Bowl Haven! So fun! Organic, unsual flatbreads served in a bowling alley! They are made with a 100% organically grown whole wheat! :) We wanted to bowl, but there was nearly a 3 hour's wait for a free lane. We sat at the bar and had a great view of the bowlers. Fun! :) We started the meal off with some serious beers. I forget the name of mine, Opa Opa something... it had lots of Christmas flavors. Spicy and Sweet!

We shared a large flatbread, and split it up half Jay's Heart (whole milk mozzarella, parmesan, fire roasted tomatoes, and herbs) and half the Carne Special of the Day. It sounded too unsual to pass up: Roasted Pork Loin with Gravy, Candied Carrots, and Mozzarella Parmesan Cheese. On a PIZZA!!!!

Loved it!!

Everyone enjoy the next couple days leading up to CHRISTMAS! YAY!

Singing for my Strata

I made the most DELCIOUS breakfast this past Monday morning EVER! Well, maybe not EVER, but it was pretty much up there. I'm finally home from a rehearsal and the leftovers from my Strata rocked my face off. Yum yum yum.

Ever since seeing The Family Stone (you know... Sarah Jessica Parker with Luke Wilson and Rachel McAdams and Diane Keaton!) I've been kind of obsessed with trying Strata. SJP prepares it for her boyfriend's family as a holiday peace offering after a disastrous weekend, and in a hilarious scene the soggy wet raw strata ends up all over her clothes, the floor, everywhere! It's fabulous. In fact, you can see it at the end of this trailer:

As far as I can tell, Strata is basically a savory breakfast bread pudding. It's simple but well, the simplest recipes taste the best, don't they? Just take cubes of crusty bread, add them to a casserole with any cheese, veggies, or meats you like, and cover with an eggy milky mixture. Soak for a few hours, or better yet, overnight, and then bake 40 minutes at 350 degrees to perfection! The break soaks up most of the egg custard and stays soft in the center and gets nice and crispy and golden on top. Uh-oh. Gimme more leftovers, please!!

I've had Strata once before this, at one of my favorite joints in Boston: Trident Booksellers Cafe on Newbury St. It was pretty good, but since I didn't get to experience the whole process of making it, I wasn't as taken with it. Yes, it was yummy. But I had to make it to really love it.

For my Strata, I of course added my boyfriend: KALE. For some saltiness I added some shreds of prosciutto (after carefully removing lots of the fatty parts. I'm weird like that...) I threw in some fancy parmesan cheese, too. Oh, and my bread was just a lovely loaf of ciabatta from the supermarket. I sliced it into 1 inch cubes, and baked them for 10 minutes at 375. This was my roommate's idea from her family's Breakfast Casserole... probably very similar to Strata. It turned out heavenly!

Bread + Kale + Prosciutto:

With Custard Mixture (12 eggs+1/2 C milk + nutmeg + salt + pepper):

Getting happy overnight in the fridge:

All puffed up in the morning!

After baking! Smells amazing!

Our lovely table:

Alongside the Strata I served a couple pastries from Panera (Cherry Cheese and Apple Tartlet), grapes, and Strawberry Apple Tea from Tealuxe.

PLATE!!

Had to be the BEST Monday morning in ages!!