Happy Anniversary!

One year ago today I married my best friend, the best guy in the whole world. I can't believe it, I feel like I blinked and here I am in September again. Last year at this time we were boogying down to Earth Wind and Fire classics with our closest family and friends…I know I’m biased but we had the best wedding ever!

Phil and I had planned on going away for the weekend but with the weather forecast we heard all week we decided to have a “staycation”. Basically, we decided to stay home and make our house our own little B&B…stay in bed late, do tourist-y things; it was great, although the weather was beautiful, next time we won't listen to those weather people.

Our Beautiful and Homemade Brunch with Mimosas

(in the champagne flutes we toasted to at our wedding)

We spend the day being "tourists". We actually went to the Patriot’s Hall of Fame…sounds lame but was actually very cool and interesting to see the artifacts and learn the history of New England’s beloved football team. After that we had a great lunch at the Toby Keith Bar at Patriots place where we were told “sorry for the inconvenience…the band is doing a sound check for a concert tonight.” Well that band ended up being Montgomery Gentry, and we pretty much got a free concert at lunch, pretty cool. (Phil said he planned it J)

On our wedding day we didn’t keep our cake top. Being a foodie, I thought it was a pretty gross tradition to freeze your cake and eat it 1 year later. Our cake was beautiful and yummy. It was both chocolate and vanilla cake, each layer different, and in the middle of the layers were whipped cream and fresh strawberries, frosted with chocolate and vanilla butter creams. I decided to (sort of) recreate that taste for us to enjoy together tonight…

 My sad looking...yet very yummy...recreation

 Our Actual Wedding Cake

More Details of our day..

 Part of the candy bar...so awesome

 Beautiful Table Linens and Flower..by my daddy (Paul Tomeo Designs)

 A year goes by so fast! Cherish ever moment, don’t take anything for granted...and always kiss good night. J

Sausage Experience...

My Papa (my dad’s dad), passed away a few years ago and we all miss him every day. Like my dad, he was a character. He would always joke with us, had his "sayings" and was just a great person through and through. When he was in his prime, he owned a store and a butcher shop, my dad grew up there, working, slicing the meat and making homemade sausage. Both him and my Grandma are great cooks, they were a team in the kitchen, Grandma would be the one standing over the stove stirring the sauce or making sure the roast is cooked to a perfect medium rare and Papa’s job was slicing the meat, preparing the meat, the meat, the meat, the meat. He even had an apron that was clean, yet pretty meat stained (I know kinda gross..but I miss that apron).

A few weeks back while visiting with my Grandma we got to talking about my blog, cooking together, and preparing homemade sausage. Now in the past I have made my own sausage with my handy Kitchen Aid Electric Mixer and Sausage attachment but it’s a lot of work…to my extreme surprise Grandma then offered me Papa’s old sausage making machine and the stories start there…

Completely elated and honored that she let me take home this amazing tool, I immediately called my mom to be my sous chef for the next weekend. I then got online and ordered sausage casings (which surprisingly are available right on amazon.com) and made sure my freezer and pantry were stocked with all the ingredients needed for success.

 Pieces and Prepping of the meat...

Red Wine Reducing and Lots of Spices...

The Sausage Machine...

 First...we grind the meat.

 Second...we flavored the meat. We made Wine and Cheese Sausage, with reduced red wine, chunks of Parmesan cheese and a hint of rosemary and we made Classic Italian Sausage, slight spicy with fennel seeds, red pepper flakes and fresh garlic.

 Third...we stuffed the casing, soooo easy.

 Vacuum sealed for future enjoyment...

What a great day, we shared lots of laughs and stories about the past..we'd like to think there was an angel cooking with us that day.

Love you Papa…see ya when I see ya J

CSA Shares of the past few weeks...

Macintosh Apples and Peaches

Red Onions and Carrots

Beautiful Beets and Broccoli

String Beans and Tomatoes

Peppers and Winter Squash

Thyme and Kale

Salad Mix

Week Night Pizza Party for 2

One food product that I always have in my fridge is pizza dough. It is so versatile, you can use it to make homemade pizza (of course), calzones, garlic flat bread or bread sticks, many desserts such as fruit pizza or fried dough, and the list goes on and on.

I bought a ball of pizza dough over the weekend at Winter Hill Bakery in Somerville (yum) and tonight we decided to get creative for dinner. Phil and I put our hungry brains together to create 4 delicious style pies. Yes, we made 4 different types of pizza, it sounds like we ate a lot huh! Because we can never agree on toppings I cut the dough into 4 sections, so basically we had 4 individual sized pizzas...thats why each pizza is kind of a funny shape :)

**Served with a small antipasto and a side salad...dinner was fun and fantasic tasting!

Ricotta and Black Olive Pizza and White Pizza with Broccoli and Mushrooms

 Garlic Flat Bread with Prosciutto, Basil and Fresh Mozzarella and Classic Cheese Pizza

Antipasto Plate with Homemade Cheese, Pickled Veggies and Fresh Roasted Peppers

This weeks farm share..and what I've done so far with it....

Farm Share...

Rainbow of Peppers and Heirloom Tomatoes

 Celery and Okra

 Sweet and Spicy Thai Peppers

 Winter Squash and White Onions

 Kale and Edamame

 Yummy Peaches

and what I've done with it...

oven dried (sort of like sundried) tomatoes

Fire roasted rainbow peppers

Also pickled some more okra and shared with my Sister and experimented with making some Easy Almond Brittle...yum!