We had some great leftover red wine, so I decided to make a ground turkey red wine ragu.  I used ground turkey, carrots, onions, red wine, and a little cream.  Good to let simmer as long as possible to let the flavors meld together.

Such a simple yet delicious salad - butter lettuce with avocado and sea salt.  Perfecto!

Celebrating 6 months of marriage and our first time back at Tahoe since the wedding!

My favorite place in the world to drink my morning tea.

Make your own pizza night!
We used Pillsbury dough which turned out great!  Other fun ingredients included:
Fresh Mozzarella, Shredded Mozzarella, jar pizza sauce - marinara and alfredo
Pancetta, Pepperoni, spicy sausage
Onions, peppers, garlic, roasted garlic, mushrooms, green onions, broccoli rabe, olives, pepperoncini

6 months of marriage!

Wine tasting time!  David puts on a great blind wine tasting game that everyone, including the organizer, can participate in.  

David's baked ribs and mac and cheese - doesn't get much better than that for a winter in Tahoe!

This is a recipe based off of Rachael Ray's French Onion Soup and is really quite easy and tastes like you've been cooking all day.

Ingredients: 

• Large Yellow Onions (I used 4 for this recipe)
• Shallots (2)
• Garlic
• Fresh Thyme
• Beef Stock
• Sherry wine
• Butter / EVOO for cooking the onions
• Flour
• Baguette (sliced and toasted)
• Gruyere Cheese

Heather's Directions:
I started by heating up butter and EVOO together - butter for the flavor and EVOO to get the heat up.  Add all of the onions, sliced in half moons.  Then add shallots, garlic and fresh thyme and let everything sweat and get all soft and cozy together in the pot.  Once they are getting caramelized,  add about a 1/2 cup of Sherry and stir until the Sherry cooks off.  Then add a couple tablespoons of flour and cook the flour for a couple minutes to make sure the raw flour taste is gone.  Then add the beef stock and let it simmer away for as long as you can.
Once you are getting close to suppertime, put in individual bowls and cover with toasted sliced baguette and gruyere cheese and put under the broiler until melted.  I put a few sprigs of fresh thyme on top for looks and a bit of extra flavor.

We had our wonderful friend, Carrie, staying with us and decided that an exciting brunch was in order.  David came up with the idea of Chicken & Waffles, and it turned out great!  David based his recipe off of a Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe - 17 spices and he brined the chicken overnight in a buttermilk brine.  

We got to use our Belgian Waffle maker for the first time, and the waffles turned out great!  We cheated a bit with the waffles and the gravy, using package items for both, but it all turned out delicious!  We paired it with 100% real maple syrup (heated up in the microwave).  Yum!!!