I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Our leftovers are officially gone, sad.

This year we had a Thanksgiving lunch with Jeff’s family. So happy that Jeff comes from a family of good cooks. Everything was delicious!

I made entirely too much food. I always do that, even at home.

My contribution this year was bacon buttermilk mashed potatoes. Not the least bit healthy, but so so so good!

Bacon buttermilk mashed potatoes

A decadent side dish of creamy buttermilk mashed potatoes with crispy bacon bits.

Ingredients

• 15 medium-sized yukon gold potatoes
• 1 stick melted butter
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 8 to 10 strips of bacon
• salt and pepper to taste

Cooking Directions

1. Peel and chop potatoes and boil until tender. Drain and add to the bowl of a stand mixer.
2. In a medium saucepan, slowly heat buttermilk and butter until melted and warm but not boiling.
3. Pour melted butter and buttermilk over potatoes and mix slowly until incorporated.
4. Add in sour cream and mix through, add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Bake bacon on a wire rack over a baking sheet at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes or until crisp.
6. Chop bacon and stir into potatoes.
7. Transfer to a baking dish if you will need to reheat it before serving.

I loaded up on a little bit of everything and definitely went back for seconds.

My favorites are always the sweet potato casserole and the stuffing. I’ve actually never had stuffing that was cooked inside the bird, I think that’s called dressing anyway.

Afterwards, we headed to his aunt Jill and uncle Allen’s house for dessert. There was pecan pie, almond pound cake, and a gorgeous tiramisu cake. (Jill, you rocked this one, that mascarpone frosting was so incredible!)

Jeff and I just finished a huge hunk of that cake last night over more video games and a growler of beer. Hooray for Sunday sales passing in Decatur!

And now, it’s that time of year where I frantically try to complete all of our holiday shopping in a few short weeks because I meant to start months ago but never got around to it. I don’t mess with that whole Black Friday business either, I hate malls.

Making any headway on your holiday shopping?

November 28, 2011 Alayna Discussion 5 comments

Sunday was Jeff’s birthday and I thought it might be nice for us to go back to Abattoir for dinner since that’s where we went for it last year and have been dying to go back ever since.

There’s the birthday boy!

He got a bit tired of me snapping photos of him and grabbed the camera to take one of me when I wasn’t prepared.

“Why are you taking a picture of me eating bread?”

Ah, that’s better!

We started things off with a couple of signature cocktails. Mine was a rum cider cocktail with dark rum, cider, apple gastrique, and some other tasty stuff I can’t remember. His was the Herb’s Harvest, a really boozy tequila drink tinged with fall spices.

The menu at Abattoir is incredible; everything sounds so good. We ended up ordering a bunch of small plates rather than entrees so that we could try more things.

First up was the steak tartare with miso soy glaze and a sesame aioli. I could have just ordered 2 or three of these and had that as an entree cause it was so so good! Buttery to the point of almost melting and heavily flavored with oniony chives and creamy aioli. There was too much of it to all fit on the crostini so the last bite was just a fork full of it topped off with a super soft quail egg. Insane.

And we got one of the specials for the evening which was a pair of duck meatballs in miso glaze with sauteed asian vegetables. They were soft and pink-centered and perfect.

Then one of my favorites: sweetbreads. They were spicy and crispy and paired wonderfully with the bacony cabbage saute.

We also tried the chicken liver mousse with whipped apple butter. This one was not my favorite. I like liver when it’s spiced well but this one was completely plain so you tasted all of it’s livery, minerally glory. The texture was odd for me too. My brain kept expecting a dessert flavor with the creamy moussey texture and then freaked out at the shock of liver that came instead.

This place is named Abattoir for a reason. Abattoir means “slaughterhouse” in French and the menu is undoubtedly meat-centric. I always love a good charcuterie platter with one or two cured meat selections and a little wedge of cheese to smear on crusty bread with some good-quality whole grain mustard, but I was completely thrown off guard by the charcuterie selection that landed on our table which I quickly dubbed “the giant meat plate of doom.”

Seriously, we had no idea we would be receiving all of that! It had crispy prosciutto spirals, duck prosciutto, blood sausage, honey roasted ham, head cheese, bacon-wrapped pork terrine, and some other sausage I’m not sure about, all paired with pickled vegetables and fruits, two types of spicy mustard, quince butter, and a wine-soaked dried fig. EPIC.

I cannot believe we had room for dessert. We chose the buttermilk tart with roasted pears, pear sorbet, creme anglaise, and brown sugar crumbles. Oooooooohh……yeaaaahhhh….

Another mind-blowing meal at Abattoir and another glorious year of life on this planet for my wonderful husband!

Looking forward to another night of playing with one of Jeff’s birthday gifts, the new Zelda game! I actually love to watch other people play video games, to me it’s like watching an interactive movie. Yes, we’re nerds.

What is one menu item you can never resist ordering if it’s available? (Mine is tartare of any kind.)

November 22, 2011 Alayna Discussion 9 comments

This past Thursday I met up with a bunch of the Atlanta-area bloggers for a cocktail hour at Tuk Tuk Thai Food Loft. One look at the giant tuk tuk in the entryway told me I was in the right place.

We all sat at the bar at first which has an amazing view of the Atlanta cityscape. This photo just doesn’t do it justice.

I ordered a Boston Mule cocktail which was incredible. It had some sort of tea and elderflower vodka in it with ginger ale….I think. I can’t really remember what all was going on in it, just that it was delicious enough for me to go back for seconds….and later thirds. 😉

The owner was nice enough to set us up with a few complimentary appetizers. There were beef skewers with a sweet chili dipping sauce and crispy roti with a green curry dip. Both were excellent.

After about 45 minutes or so, we all started to feel like maybe we’d like to actually order dinner rather than just drinks and snacks, so we headed to a table to order up.

I ended up sharing two dishes with Laura. We split a chicken and rice dish with a black soy bean chili sauce and a tuna salad with a sweet and sour dressing.

We all also got a surprise mini cocktail shot from a very nice boy at the bar.  😉 Cheers!

We were all still having fun so we ordered a dessert for the table to share. It was a thai style snow cone made with rose syrup sitting atop a bowl full of gingko nuts and sweet jellies.

It was fun to watch it being made right next to our table!

Tasted a bit like bubble gum but still pretty good.

These meetups just get more and more fun as we really start to get to know more about each other. And I’m always excited to meet new people as our little group keeps expanding.

The list this time included:

• Laura – Sprint 2 The Table
• Kristy – Kristy Runs
• Stacy – Stacy Eats
• Brooke – Exercise For Fries
• Carol – Lucky Zucca
• Traci – yellow Wishbone
• Heather – Girly Ever After
• Lee – In My Tummy
• Tina – Faith, Fitness, Fun
• Heather – Better With Veggies
• Tracy – Kitchen Ambition

Whew! Takes a while to link all those up.

Next time, I think we’re gonna try a potluck. Look forward to seeing everyone again!

November 21, 2011 Alayna Discussion 11 comments