One of the perks from Chris’ job is that he gets occasional gifts from vendors. For the upcoming holidays, he got a huge cheesecake! It was flown in from Chicago and packed with dry ice! When he first told me that they had given him a cheesecake, I thought it was a packed slice, not an entire cake! Though, the cake was pre-sliced… as pictured below.

The cheesecake was creamy but not too rich tasting which was quite enjoyable! We are normally not big cheesecake fans, but this was yummy.

Right before Thanksgiving, I showed Chris the guest post on Pioneer Woman’s blog for Pumpkin Leche Flan and he immediately (and very excitedly) said, “Let’s make it!” I had no idea that he loved flan so much! It’s not exactly a dessert I look forward to eating, though I don’t necessarily mind it too much.

We didn’t have time to try it for T-day, but accomplished it the following Sunday. Hah, we even braved the outlets on that busy shopping weekend to buy a set of ramekins just for the flan!

Honestly, I was a little skeptical about attempting flan because it seemed way too complicated and involved techniques that we don’t normally do in the kitchen. But this is all about trying new things together! In the end, we found that this recipe is pretty darn easy.

Warning: This is going to be a long post with photos!

First up, making the caramel. Um, we had to make-do with a nonstick calyphon frying pan because we didn’t have a sauce pan. But hey, it worked!

The corn syrup and sugar bubbling up..

We were afraid of burning the caramel (and the pan) so we did it slowly over medium heat (instead of medium-high). It took awhile before the mixture started to brown and actually look & smell like caramel.

Voila! This is the first time that I’ve ever had homemade caramel. So much better right out of the pan than the gooey crap in stores.

We quickly poured the hot caramel into six 6oz ramekins. (I couldn’t find 8oz ones)

While the caramel cooled and hardened in the ramekins, we got working on the pumpkin mix. Instead of a strainer, we decided to use a cheese cloth instead.

Look at all that gunk left behind on the cheese cloth! We strained it 4x before the mixture looked very smooth.

Time to pour the mixture into the ramekins! I lined a casserole pan with a dishtowel as suggested. This is to ensure the ramekins do not get too hot from directly touching the pan.

Wrapped each ramekin individually tightly with aluminum foil before pouring in a hot water bath (not pictured). Then into the oven for 35 minutes!

And here is a ramekin, right out of the oven! It was jiggly but firm enough for us to know that it was done cooking and time to sit in the fridge.

After sitting in the fridge for 2-3 hours, we ran back to the fridge and inverted one of the ramekins out onto a plate. Beautiful! And it tasted delicious too! Before making this flan, I was not a big fan of said dessert…always tasted way too rich and sweet, but this was just perfect. The sweet smokiness of the caramel added such a nice flavor to the pumpkin flan.

Look how awesome the top looks! The hardened caramel had melted and infused into the pumpkin flan while in the oven. Y’know, I never really knew how flans had that caramely top until now. Was always a mystery!

Taking the first bite…

Mmm it was rich (but not overly) and so creamiliscious. The pumpkin flavoring was very subtle. Next time, we will try a regular vanilla flan though.. just to see the difference.

Two big thumbs up! This was not only fun to make, but the end result was pretty and delicious. Mucho kudos to IvoryHut (the guest contributor on PW) for thoroughly explaining each step of the way. This helped to ease my intimidation of making what appeared to be such a delicate dessert.

During a visit to his grandma’s one week, Chris had mentioned that he loved her Rocky Road bars. Then, on our next visit she brought out a container of them for him to take home!

Very yummy and oh so rich… chocolately with a hint of peanut butter. They taste awesome with a glass of milk or eggnog.

Bagels for breakfast! Chris and I split two different bagels so that we’d each have a half of each. Top is a toasted everything bagel with regular cream cheese. Bottom is a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel with strawberry cream cheese.

I ate the regular one first so that I could savor the sweeter one. Also, it probably would’ve messed with my tastebuds eating it the other way around.

A very pretty fruit tart pie that my sister-in-law brought over for Thanksgiving. It was a nice treat and not too heavy on our stuffed tummies.

I love what she did with the sliced peaches!

Normally for Thanksgiving, I buy frozen rolls and bake them in the oven. But this year… one of my favorite food bloggers posted a recipe for buttered rosemary buns that baked in a cast iron skillet. The pictures and description made it sound SO awesome. Plus Chris and I had bought our first cast iron skillet a couple months ago and have been trying to use it more often in our cooking endeavors.

I did run into some glitches trying to find frozen pre-baked roll dough at the supermarket though. Very aggravating.. I eventually found them at a different store Thanksgiving morning, but the dough was ROCK SOLID FROZEN! So I actually bought alternative already cooked rolls as a backup, thinking there was no way the dough would thaw and then have time to rise before lunch would be served.

The dough was bought at 7am… and surprisingly, by 10am, it had thawed out just enough for me to use. I followed the recipe and placed them in the skillet under a cover to rise for a couple hours. We have a much bigger skillet than the one PW used, so I placed 13 balls of dough.

Around noon, when everyone was just about to eat, I put the skillet in the oven. The dough hadn’t risen as much as it could have, but I thought it would be okay. And it was!

And the result… (I removed the buns from the skillet, as it was scorching hot and not something I wanted to place at the table.. even with a plate underneath):

The buns didn’t come out looking like PW’s, but the taste was probably very similar! Buttery with the fragrant rosemary.. and the coarse salt was a great addition!

LOVED this recipe and will make it again and again and again!

Gotta love late night pizza munching! Very reminiscent of my teens and early 20s. I can’t remember exactly why we were so pre-occupied during the afternoon/evening that we did not prepare dinner ourselves, but we wound up heading to Saviano’s in Bohemia at 9 or 10pm to grab these slices.

This was both our first times trying Saviano’s. As we entered the restaurant, it was nearly empty due to the late hours. We both hoped that the pizzas wouldn’t be blah from sitting out all night.

We each got one regular and one Grandma slice.

First up, the regular slice. I loved the crunchy thin crust.

See, thin! Gotta love NY style pizza.

And now the Grandma slice. The plum tomato sauce was very good. And again, the crust was awesome too.

Check out the underside! That’s perfect =)

Perhaps next time, we will try Saviano’s during the daytime… instead of just right before closing time when the pizza might’ve been sitting out for awhile.

A leftover piece of the Bailey’s cake I got for Chris on his birthday. It was just a small log cake from the frozen aisle at the supermarket. Originally, I wanted to bake a cake but didn’t have much time. Since I was driving over after work and would be with him at the stroke of midnight, I wanted to have a little cake and to be the first with a birthday wish & a cake/candle for him to blow out. So super-market cake it was =)

The cake was non-alcoholic — just had a subtle taste of Bailey’s Irish cream. Not too bad, but I probably would not get it again as it wasn’t extraordinarily good or anything.

Spoilt myself last Sunday with some seafood for dinner. I was feeling envious of Chris who was at a football tailgate party where they were serving whole lobsters & the works! So poor me…I had to satisfy my seafood craving with these pre-frozen Chesapeake Bay crab stuffed mushrooms

I baked them in the oven for half an hour, then paired it with a side of corn and cheesy broccoli rice (another splurge). The mushrooms were pretty good. I was good and did not brush butter or mayo over them like the instructions suggested!

Still, I would’ve preferred a big red lobster!

I’ve been seeing commercials for Jello’s new line of low-calorie mousse snacks on television for the past few weeks. Figured I’d give them a shot since they’re only 1pt per container.

The mousse was good… umm but it sure looks a lot better in the packaging photo. Realistically, doesn’t it look like ..er….something else… *cough*. Not quite appetizing if you overthink it… =P

This was a super quickie dinner that I put together one night. I would’ve taken my usual foray to the supermarket for a quick salad, but I had one for lunch already. So to switch things up a bit, I decided to just go straight home from work and use up these pre-cooked meals in the fridge. The beef brisket came from one of those Hormel pre-cooked entrees. The rice was also a 7 minute cook in the pan.

The beef was a little salty IMO, but guess I couldn’t really expect much from a pre-cooked meal. High in sodium and preservatives…ehhh. The rice was Asian-chicken flavored and was pretty good, although probably high in sodium too. :-\

The two peas looks like it’s an angry rice blob!

Oooh this was a delicious yet simple sandwich I made for a quick snack. A few slices of deli-cut chicken breast, thick tomato slices, a squeeze of light mayo, and my toasted multi-grain flat bread.

The thick slices of tomato really made this tasty!

Continuing the salad bar dinners…. yes I’ve been very lazy this past week in making food for myself after getting home from work :) This night, Waldbaum’s did not have my favorite seafood salad available so I went for what I thought looked second best, which was the pasta shells marinated in an herb olive oil mix. Didn’t need any additional dressing. I sprinkled a bit of grated Parmesan and was set.

Normally, I do not like al dente pasta, but in a cold salad.. the bite of a slightly harder pasta is pretty yummy.

I’ve been super lazy this past week in making dinner after coming home from work. Instead, I drop by Waldbaum’s and make my own salad from the bar there. My favorite combination from all the available toppings is the [imitation] crab salad mixed with spinach, mixed colored peppers, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and olives. I don’t even add dressing because the flavoring from the crab salad is just enough!

So delicious. Even better, it does not leave me feeling greasy and heavy afterwards!

Bought a few packs of tuna/chicken/seafood salad + crackers because they were on sale. I’ve tried the more fancier versions which were yummy.

I gave Chris the tuna & chicken salad packs and grabbed the seafood one for myself. I did enjoy them quite a lot. It was a nice little treat… and I am happy to report the seafood salad to cracker ratio was on par!