Spring...and February...

It's February and this is happening. Yes, they're pretty. Yes, I still hate Florida.

Remember these little guys?

Well, here is mama bird getting started on yet another nest in the same bird house. How exciting!

Yay for Spring ♥

Tasty Little Cakes

Mmmmm.....

Dark chocolate cupcakes with a vanilla and orange blossom swiss meringue buttercream and little fondant orange blossoms.

I ♥ cute little food.

Pesce!

Kingklip (nothing fancy or exciting going on with the fish) with dilled baby potatoes and green beans with almonds.

Ginger shrimp stir fry with bell peppers, carrots, sesame seeds, snow peas, and broccoli. Tasty and fast!

Swordfish on couscous with a bell peppers, tomato, and caper sauce.

We've been eating a lot of fish lately, it would seem...

Holy Weird!

I'm so buying these.

Fire

Ricky surprised me on Valentine's day with reservations at my favorite restaurant, Fire. We've only been once before, but we both loved it so much, and here's why.

(all photos courtesy of the Fire website)

Our starters

Duck nachos with orange, jalapeño, Apricot crema, Cotija guacamole in wontons with a hoisin glaze.

Mushroom Fontina beignets with truffled aioli, parmesan dust, and herbes de provence.

We both had the mixed lettuce salad with candied pecans, Laura Chenel goat cheese, and a sweet chile vinaigrette.

Ricky had the pecan crusted red snapper with Caribbean mash, apple jicama relish and brown butter vinaigrette.

I had the rock lobster carbonara made with house made fettuccine, pea puree, a crispy poached egg, and tomato oil.

For dessert Ricky ordered the citrus mascarpone cannolis served with champagne macerated berries, pistachios, and white chocolate.

I had the warm apple tart with vanilla pastry cream, vanilla ice cream, and balsamic glaze.

♥

Drunken Waxwings

So today at work we had birds flying into our front windows and dying. It was horrible. Some wouldn't die right away, some did, and another one was pretty stunned and I just held it until it closed it's mouth and flew out of my hands. That part wasn't so bad. I remembered that last year this same thing was happening, so I called the Pensacola Wildlife Rescue and asked them about it. The birds (the woman knew right away what they were from my vague description) are Cedar Waxwings, a migratory songbird that passes through this area every winter. They eat overripe berries and get a little drunk off of the alcohol in them. Weird, right?

Anyway, I think I'm going to get some special decals to put on our windows to make sure the birds see them, we have huge windows and it's no wonder the birds just think it's open space. The woman at the rescue also told me that we can bring any injured birds to them, and told me how to take care of them until we can bring them by. That made me feel better.Poor things.

Source

What an odd day.

Chili!

I've never made chili before, but I was having people over for dinner and did that thing where I make something completely new to me because it somehow...eases?... the stress of having house guests. I don't know why I do this, it's dumb and I should stop.

Homemade fried tortilla strips, thanks for the idea Grandma!

My chili was the bomb dot com. Cubed chuck, jalapeno, poblano, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and a homemade chili spice blend with chipotle, ancho, New Mexico red chile, Mexican oregano, cumin, and coriander seed. I set up a toppings bar so people could just dress their own. Mine has raw onion, green onion, jalapenos, black olives, cilantro, and queso fresco.

Dessert was simple chocolate souffles with orange blossom whipped cream.
Just cream, sugar, orange blossom water, and orange zest.
How good is orange and chocolate? I want a chocolate orange milk shake. Someone make that happen.

Dan is here!

Ricky and I were friends with Dan Heise when we lived in Germany. We left and came to Florida (hooray.) and he got stationed in Turkey. Now he's here too, and he came over for dinner last week.
Snack board!

I cook a lot. A lot. I'm afraid of very little in the kitchen, but there are still things I just haven't done. Live lobsters, to name one, but I've also never broken down a whole chicken.
I know, shameful. Lazy me would rather just buy the sucker already cut up.
Not this day! This day I was feeling squirrely.

Thank you Shun, for making knives sharp enough to hack through chicken bones. Not to self: invest in a good pair of kitchen shears. The backbone was tricky. I'm open to shear suggestions.

I felt such pride! Watch out lobsters, you're next.

I stewed my dismembered chicken with tomatoes, roasted red peppers, cippolini onions, garlic, parsely, and prosciutto, then served it over saffron rice.
So wonderfully comforting on these oddly chilly Florida days.