greek night

Earlier this week I bought a nice little rack of lamb at Wegman's. Sunday being my day off, I found some time to plan a Greek menu around it. We started with Avgolemono....Greek lemon soup. I brought a half cup of instant brown rice and 4 cups of chicken broth to a boil for 5 or so minutes. Removed from heat and quickly whipped in two eggs that I had whipped previously with a scant 1/4 cup of lemon juice. I added salt, pepper, dill and a few chopped canned artichokes to my soup.


I drizzled a little olive oil on the rack of lamb and seasoned it with garlic salt, oregano and a sprinkle of lemon juice. Accompaniments were minted peas and Greek country salad.


Although not a Greek dessert, pumpkin mousse went quite well with my gingersnaps.

ginger snaps

Years ago I bought this cookie stamp because it was way too cute to walk away from. It came in it's own little nest inside a wooden box. Today while poking through my pantry, I came across a package of Betty Crocker gingerbread cookie mix that I bought at Christmastime but didn't use. I didn't make any Christmas cookies this year. The package said you could make cut outs or roll the cookies into a ball and stamp them with a bottom of a glass. A light bulb turned on in my head and I remembered my cookie stamp.


Stamped and ready to bake


and baked


and stored in an antique green glass cookie jar

1st annual powder keg festival

Me standing by one of the big Christmas ornaments on HSBC Plaza.

This weekend was the 1st annual Buffalo Powderkeg Festival. The Buffalo Powder Keg Festival is the brain child of a new group called Roaming Buffaloes, aimed to show off the queen city and celebrate winter in a big way. I can't,however, find anything that explains the name. Still it was fun and I wanted to see the world's largest ice maze that was built for the event on plaza. It is made up of 2300 blocks of ice weighing 300 lbs each and supposedly will be in the Guiness Book of World Records.


Tubing down the closed off Seneca Street off ramp was a big draw for the kids.


inside the maze


B and I having our picture taken on the melting ice bench


an ice throne that I didn't care to sit on after my experience on the ice bench


the ice maze from above

self explanatory

the roulades

So tonight I cooked those babies up. I sauteed them in a frying pan with a dash of olive oil while cooking that pretty jewel colored chard mix in chicken broth in another pan. After the roulades were cooked through I added a mixture of chicken broth, lemon juice and cornstarch along with a few chopped kalamatas to make a nice sauce.

easy way out

Since tax season has started and I'm working six days a week seems lately I have been taking the easy way out of cooking. Wegmans has come out with a new line of frozen stir fry veggies that are very fresh and tasty. Saturday night I cooked chicken to throw in with their edamame, green bean and carrot garlic and ginger stir fry. I have also been taking advantage of their wonderful array of prepared foods and fresh sauces.
I was home today and wanted to get a little more involved in my dinner prep but still took a pretty easy way out. I had B throw these steaks on the grill while I boiled red potatoes and smashed them up with parsley and butter. My salad was a little more work. Raw carrots, beets and beet greens with a dressing made of orange juice, red wine vinegar, olive oil and Dijon mustard.



Wegmans yummy heavy moist Energy Marathon loaf made with carrots and nuts



Dessert was fresh pineapple slices broiled with a bit a cinnamon sugar and served with Hagen daz low fat frozen vanilla yogurt.




The best part of dinner was eating it on these green dishes that I love....a Wegmans purchase from a few years back.



While I was in the cooking mood I pounded these chicken breasts thin (a great way to work out frustrations) and prepared a sun dried tomato, kalamata olive, oregano and feta mixture



that I rolled up in them to make these Greek chicken roulades for tomorrow night's dinner.
.

lucky week

This was my lucky week. I won both of the giveaways at my firm this week. During tax season we play Bingo every week. I was out at a client on Thursday morning and when I got back in the office I checked my emails. Among them was the daily email with the day's Bingo numbers and lo and behold I was a winner. I got to choose among $10 gift cards for Tim Horton's, Wegmans and Panera. I choose Panera. A new Panera opened right on Main Street within walking distance of my house this fall.

Caroline's mom brought in this Valentine's Day cookie bouquet to raffle off. We had to fill out a little Valentine's Day trivia quiz to qualify. Today Caroline asked me to draw a name for this raffle. I happened to draw my own name so I opened the bouquet and shared it with the office. I asked Caroline to draw three winners for my tax season game for this week and she drew herself, Katie and Hope.



They got to choose from my famous Box-O-Surprizes. Caroline took a chocolate bar, Katie a bag of tortilla chips and Hope a butterfly magnet. This is a peek into my box of prizes.



Every month our building hosts vendors in the lobby. Today one of my favorite jewelry makers, Dana Saylor, was displaying her wares along with about a dozen other vendors. I always buy a piece from Dana every time I see her. I chose this necklace made with lampwork glass beads and Swarovski crystals. Her friend makes the lampwork beads. Dana makes a lot of jewelry from old vintage jewelry. I have more old vintage jewelry than I know what to do with so I discussed selling some to her. She invited me to come to house so some arrangements will have to be made. I feel like I know Dana pretty well just from buying her jewelry and reading her Facebook posts. I like the way these white crystals reflect colors.



Since it was almost Valentine's Day I treated myself to these heart shaped fresh water pearl earrings.



and these silver earrings. This vendor's business is called BeJeweled and I've bought earrings from her before.



This vendor, Small Indulgences, sells pretty but inexpensive jewelry. I've bought a lot from her over the years. She always donates part of her proceeds to a charity. I got this set for only $14.


This is my new iPod nano. I got tired of dealing with my small inexpensive hard-to-use mp3 player.


And finally I had a glass of MONA wine given to me for my birthday by my sweet, thoughtful friend, Barb.

laughlin's

looking out the window of the second floor bar at Laughlin's

Monday night I attended an Ani DiFranco concert in Asbury Hall at Babeville. Babeville is the name that Ani gave the old church that she purchased on the corner of Delaware and Tupper. It was falling down and Ani renovated it and turned it into a concert hall and art gallery. It's very beautiful inside but the bad purse checker people made me take my camera back to my car so I wasn't able to get any pictures of the inside. The concert was great. Ani is a Buffalo singer who formed her own record label, Rightous Babe, instead of signing on with an established record label. She has done very well for herself and now lives in New Orleans. Buffalo was glad to have her back for one night. Her opening act, Gabby Moreno, was quite good also.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Since I was going to be downtown for dinner I invited my friend, Tim, to join me. We used to work together but now he works at a different accounting firm downtown. He took time out from his busy tax schedule to join me at Laughlin's at the corner of Tupper and Franklin. This restaurant is in an old narrow three story brick building....supposedly haunted. The main bar is on the first floor. We ate on the second floor that has a smaller bar. The haunted third floor is for banquets and larger groups.


from a little farther back


I love these chainmail window treatments


Tim hiding behind the menu


some of the other patrons


the catacombs in the dark


the catacombs with a flash

These are stairs leading up to the second floor. I can imagine skulls and other bones in the recesses instead of candles.


loved the bathroom tile


and copper sink

ellicott creek in winter