Promising another great Year

Well, Happy New Year everyone.  I hope everyone had a fabulous time ringing in the New Year.  We went to The Godfather's party and had a blast.  It is amazing how things change.  In my younger days I wanted to be in a middle of a club ringing in the New Year but now a house party with great family and friends is good enough for me.  It is the simple things.

So know since the holidays are over everything should be getting back to normal. Well, JT is back to work but Addison still has this week off.  So not totally normal yet.  Today is cleaning day.  If you know me you know I hate doing laundry.  I would rather scrub bathrooms and shampoo the carpet than do laundry.  But I know it has to get done, so today is laundry day and boy do we have a lot of dirty laundry.  Not only do we have regular laundry to do but we have a lot of hand wash only laundry.  So I spent about an hour this morning hand washing laundry.  I just realized that since Addison isn't a little kid anymore a lot of sweaters are hand wash only. So now I have double the laundry for the hand wash only pile.  Ugh!

Today it is freezing outside.  It's really really cold here in Atlanta.   I so don't want to leave the house today I had to brave the cold yesterday to go grocery shopping.  We had run out of everything.  So since it's so cold I am thinking about making soup all week.  Today I am making yam soup, tomorrow I am thinking butternut squash soup, and maybe corn chowder for Saturday.   Hmm....but what with it?  We can't just have soup.  Maybe just soup, salad, and sandwiches for lunch all.  I make a mean Gruyere Grilled cheese sandwich.  Ooh and I can use my new All-Clad pan.  Tonight I am making Rosemary Chicken and Acorn Squash Risotto.  I need to play with all my kitchen stuff.

I forgot to mention all the new kitchen stuff I received for Graduation and Christmas.   I got a Cuisinart hand mixer, a cast iron skillet, a 2 Qt. sauté pan, a Sodastream, Wuthof Classic 9-Piece Knife Block Set, and an All-Clad 12 inch Non-Stick Fry Pan.  I am a happy Chef.  Addison's favorite is the Sodastream.  He has used it everyday since Christmas and he doesn't mind making us drinks.  He also doesn't mind using the espresso machine either so we just have to ask for a drink or espresso and he jumps up to make it.  I wonder how long this is going to last.   I am hoping for the whole year.   Oh and our favorite flavor with the Sodastream so far is diet Ginger Ale.

I guess I should mention what I made for New Year's Day.  We made a Blowtorch Prime Rib Roast and had Collards and Black Eyed Peas for the sides.  The Prime Rib Roast was amazing.  Addison said it was better than Christmas dinner and that's amazing because it's hard to beat a Turducken.  It was really really good and we will definitely make it again.  Here are some pictures of cooking:

Of course we had to let Addison help with the Blowtorch.  

Look at that crust.

Yummy!!

JT's happy.

Perfect New Year's Day dinner.  Oh I forgot to mention the cornbread was made in my new cast iron skillet. :)

Addison has almost finished his plate.

We got the recipe out of my new cookbook "Ad Hoc" but I found the recipe here or you could just head over to my recipe page.

Before I go I also need to talk about paper.  I finally got all of Christmas cards sent out.  The majority got sent out before Christmas which was amazing since I made 55 cards.  10 were sent out this week.  Sorry to you guys who got your cards this week.  I got really busy and I didn't have everyone's address.  I love the way they turned out but JT made me promise not to make try-fold cards again.  It was a lot of work.
Here are some pictures of the card:

The inside left was embossed in clear and glitter with the saying "Dashing throughout the snow in a one horse open sleigh".

The inside left has our holiday letter about what exciting things had happen that year.

The middle has a picture of Addison and then a with a photo finisher that was embossed in silver that says "Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year.

The front.

The second flap.

So you can see the way it folded.  

I also made Ayanna and JT's work Christmas cards.  These turned it nice also.

JT and Addison are happy that the sweat shop has closed until February.  Now I need to start brainstorming about Valentine's cards so I won't get behind.  I also have used up all the birthday cards.  I try to make about 10 birthday cards in advance so I can just mail them out but I noticed yesterday I did not have any.  So sorry Misty and Kim you will get your birthday card a little late this year.

Well, off to go play with my new knives and my new skillet.  It's the little things that make life such a joy.