this and that, and more of that

I've been busy in the kitchen--honestly! I know, I know, nothing's shown up lately on ye olde blog but hey, you're still here, right? (Right?)

So what have I been up to, culinarily speaking?

Here are a few honorable mentions, in no particular order (some are possibly from a couple of months ago, but nobody's telling):

• Greek lemon yogurt pound cake, with a mixed berry sauce I conjured up from frozen berries, sugar, and a wee dram of white wine (drool over photo above)
  
• Greek chickpea stew (revithatha)--lovely for winter (I also added lemon juice and cayenne pepper)
  
• Red lentil soup--comfort food found via Small Notebook that originated from Orangette (Seattle-based foodie)
• Lotsa homemade soup - asparagus, tomato, lentil, leek and potato, chicken and orzo, etc.
  
• I've made a couple of meals for families with new babies from my MOPS group--I love TakeThemaMeal.com! One family was vegan so I made lentil curry, rice, salad, and a vegan-friendly version of the chocolate tofu peanut-butter pie (I changed the choco out for carob and the mommy told me she loved it so much she actually dreamed about it that night after eating it!). I've also made fish pie and cottage pie for some other folks.
  
• M-Bean and I made cookies this afternoon--his request was "chocolate-raisin cookies" so I used an old standby chocolate-chip oatmeal cookie recipe and we threw in some mixed dried fruit that included raisins, apples, pears, peaches, and apricots. I chopped some Lindt 50% chocolate to add and it turned out dandy.
• Guinness brownies, again and again
  
• When berries were in season, I dressed up an Everyday Food magazine recipe--a raspberry baked custard became a blackberry-chocolate baked custard. Yum.
  

• I've made homemade cranberry sauce twice this holiday season so far--in Japan I used my homemade umeshu (plum wine) in the sauce, but now that we're in the States, I'm adding bottled sangria instead and it lends a nice fruity flavor. The original recipe calls for port but I never have any of that on hand. The cranberry sauce got rave reviews at my friends' home on Thanksgiving! (And if you happen to have any left over, it's great on plain yogurt for a pre-bedtime snack.)
  

Wanting to make and devour:

• Julia Child's French bread (I've got her DVD set and she makes it look so fun!)
• Kim's egg nog (yummy-soh!)
• Pioneer Woman's leek and potato pizza (in her cookbook that I waited months for at our library)
• latkes - a friend told me about her Hanukkah party and made me drool!
  

Better go get some sleep so I have energy to get back in the kitchen tomorrow...