1 soon-to-expire box of unsweetened baking chocolate

PLUS

the last 4 eggs in the carton?

Another reason to put off those New Years resolutions.

The Boyfriend and I decided to spend Valentine’s Day in instead of going out to dinner. We’re a low-key couple, what can I say. I’d much prefer catching up with my love over a glass of wine while I cook dinner instead of throwing on a dress and heels and spending money at a restaurant. I much prefer restaurants on random nights, not busy holidays.

We took care of a cat and its house over the weekend and we decided to cook dinner there, since it would be free from roommates and pets (no offense to either). It was kind of hard to leave these two guys:

For our Valentine’s Day dinner I decided to cook us something I have never made before:

I found a recipe in the Bon Appetit cookbook that turned out to be delicious. And fast!

1. Over medium heat, cook the zest from one lemon in 1 cup dry white wine. Add scallops and cook until opaque, 1-2 minutes on each side.

2. Remove scallops and set aside in a bowl. Turn up the heat on the wine and cook down the liquid, about 6 minutes.

3. Return heat to medium and add 1 tablespoon of mustard and 1 tablespoon of butter. Add 3 more tablespoons of butter, one at a time, whisking until the sauce comes together.

4. Add the scallops and their juices back into the pan and cook them until hot, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. While the scallops cook, boil a large handful of angel hair pasta.

5. Toss the pasta with a tablespoon of butter once cooked. Put a serving on each plate and top with the scallops and sauce.

While I cooked we sipped wine, nibbled edamame, and listened to some tunes, including our song.

By the way, cookbooks are a great way to keep laptops safe from spills on the counter.

Dinner was simple and small, but it packed a delicious punch.

It was a good day.

I had so much fun doing this! For the sugar cookie recipe, I added a little almond extract to a standard recipe, and these turned out to be delicious!

We got all of our wrapping done, too.  Phew!

Jack admired the presents and tried to figure out which one belonged to him.

The Boyfriend and I are spending Christmas with our families, so we had a mini Christmas on Tuesday night.  And we took a family holiday photo, of course!

It took a few tries since Jack doesn’t believe in sitting still.

I did take some time out of my weekend of bake a little coffee banana bread for my favorite bagel-and-coffee joint, Uncommon Grounds. Intrigued? Head on over to Uncommon Grounds’ blog and read my guest post!

The Roommies and I took Jack out for a romp in the snow.  I say “romp”…. we may have romped, but Jack sprinted around the backyard like a bat outta hell!

Jack attack!

He was a blur.

The snow really put us in the Christmas spirit so we heated some Mexican hot chocolate and busted out the decorations to festify the apartment.

This is not, as it were, a case of Maker’s Mark.  Although I suppose that would make for a merry Christmas of another sort.

We strung lights about the apartment and in the windows.  And on the pets.

The Boyfriend, meanwhile, was actually working.  It didn’t take long to get our tiny living ready for the holidays!

Even the fish got in on the act.

We found a bag of my Mardi Gras beads from last year.

Jack dressed up as a Louisiana belle.

Hm… perhaps I wanted a little girl dog? No way, I love my patient little puppy.  (Fun fact: today is the 6 month anniversary of his adoption!)

Somewhere during the day I finished up my bagels.  I added salt to half and flax seeds to the other half.

This batch went much faster than the last batch, so apparently I’ve got the recipe down! I really think the trick is adding toppings.  Who doesn’t love toppings?

I have to get started on narrowing down my cookie recipes for Christmas.  If it were up to me I would make 27 different kids and Santa and I would split them all.  But then I would look like this guy:

[Image courtesy of Chicago Tribune]

Only in my case it would be upset stomach, not lust for world domination, that explains the super grumpy face.

If you need me, you can find me drooling poring over these:

Anyway, positive attitude! Got in a little cardio at the gym between work and dinner.  After I threw together a quick stir-fry for the three of us.  I started with some chicken marinated in Szechuan Spicy Stir-Fry Sauce from House of Tsang.  Holy deliciousness! I like a little spice in my stir-fry.

Next some broccoli and red peppers got cozy in the wok.

I added the chicken to cook, along with water chestnuts, mushrooms, and baby corn (of course!).

Nice blurry picture, eh? Apparently Technology is having a case of the Mondays.

In another pot I cooked some spaghetti, a mix of white and wheat.

Stir-fry is wonderous dinner food because it’s easy and customizable.  And you can use any grains you like to accompany it: egg noodles, standard pasta (which we seem to have an obscene amount of around this house), rice, quinoa.

My bowl.  If you look closely you can see a puppy nose in the edge of the frame.

Everyone at the house seems to be in EDF mode.  The Roommate has to make dessert for her class tomorrow and in order to do so she scoured the cupboards for sweet ingredients.  She came up with this awesome cookie pie made with toffee pieces.

I need to get back into the kitchen now and bake some bagels that are chilling in the fridge.

Sadly, around 5PM, while I was at work, my energy checked out.  And I have sort of been a blob ever since.  (As I was writing that, I thought to myself, “Sheesh, it’s probably almost midnight — I gotta go to bed!” Think again, Grandma.  It’s 9:48).

Lucky for The Recently-Returned Roommate and myself, The Boyfriend made dinner tonight: garlic and oregano baby back ribs and arroz rojo (red rice).  All I had to do was show up, fork in hand.  And that is what I did.

I am about to fall asleep right here on the keyboard, but before I do, I will broach the subject of cookies.  I admit that I have been in the holiday spirit as of late.  I know it’s premature.  I’m having flashbacks to my youth, when my sister decided the morning after Halloween marked the beginning of the Christmas music season.  During the month of November you could constantly find my mother at the foot of the stairs yelling over stains of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.” “Turn that off! It’s not even Thanksgiving!” The recent Real Simple issue did nothing to quell my holiday spirit, by the way.  And since no one likes to feel festive all alone, I invite you to sign up for Real Simple’s Cookie-A-Day e-newsletter.  It appears my little sister is now a consultant at Real Simple: from November 1 until New Years you get a holiday cookie recipe delivered daily to your inbox.  Need I say more?

Good night, blogland.

I chose to bake the bread.  Because without it, all you’ve got is rotten bananas.

I use this recipe over and over.  It’s from a good friend of mine, the lovely lady behind Balance My Cake.  It’s always tasty, but also pretty healthy.

These are not the bananas I actually used. These are model bananas. Model bananas, like model people, are prettier than the real thing.

Delicious Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

• 1 1/4 c. wheat flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 c. chocolate chips
• 1 egg
• 1/4 c. or less brown sugar*
• 1/4 c. or less maple syrup*
• 2 ripe bananas

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a loaf pan.  Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet ingredients in another.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry, but don’t over-mix — a little lumpiness is good! Bake for 25 minutes, then let cool on a rack for 5 minutes and transfer to a plate. Share only if you’re feeling generous. 

*The original recipe calls for Splenda brown sugar and sugar-free maple syrup, which would cut the calories even more. I usually use regular syrup and brown sugar because that’s what we buy, but I do use less than 1/4 cup of both (plus, the mushier the bananas, the sweeter they are already).  However, I am one of those cooks who NEVER has all the ingredients, so I am constantly making up substitutes in my recipes.  Instead of brown sugar (which I’ve been out of since the last time I made this bread…), I used 1/4 cup regular sugar and a little less than 1/2 tablespoon molasses to make up for it.

I like to put peanut butter (on everything!!) on my banana bread.  Cream cheese or butter is yummy, too, but it’s so moist and delicious that you don’t need anything at all.

While the banana bread was baking, I escaped out of the hot kitchen and onto the back porch to write.  The Boyfriend’s family is in town along with their beagle, Hudson; I kept Jack and his “uncle” busy with peanut butter so I could blog in peace

Ever since coming back from my trip I’m really enjoying spending time outside of our tiny apartment.  We had dinner on the porch last night, in fact.  It’s definitely been a transition from the whirlwind experience of cross country travel to the quieter atmosphere at home.  I say “quiet,” but in truth it’s been a little zany with unpacking and reunions and having guests at the apartment.  Which explains the baking therapy.