This past weekend Brent and I drove to the Chicago area to drop off some pies for my mother and visit my college friends. I spent the few days before we left making a huge mess in the kitchen preparing Christmas gifts. I made the pies for my mother: pumpkin eggnog, caramel apple, and cherry. I made all the pies and then froze and wrapped them for my mom. She’s going to thaw and bake them for the family Christmas party over the weekend.
I also made some candied nuts (I forgot to get a picture and I ate most of the leftovers
), peppermint bark, and truffles!
The bark was super simple and I thought it would make a nice addition to the gift boxes. I just really like how festive it looks.
The truffles I made were Chocolate Truffles from the Barefoot Contessa and Chocolate-Peanut Butter Truffles.
The truffles were fun for me to make because they were something new, but they turned out to be a lot more difficult than I expected. The truffle mixtures were easy to make: Heat all the ingredients and then cool, but the rolling was difficult. If the mix was too warm, it melted all over and was impossible to shape and if it was too cool, it chipped and broke and wouldn’t get into shape. I got them all done, but it definitely took more time than I originally intended.
I wanted to make a larger variety of truffle flavors, but after my shaping difficulty, I figured two kinds were enough. The gifts were enjoyed by their recipients. My father loved the peppermint bark, my mother loved the candied nuts, and my friends Tessa and Greg enjoyed the truffles.
I have to make another pie today for Christmas with the in-laws tomorrow, but other than that I’ve just been lounging around enjoying my break. I did finally get a haircut. I’m notoriously bad at getting my haircut. I frequently go nearly a year without doing it. Yesterday’s cut was my first since February. Here’s a before & after:



























Tuesday night dinners are hard for me. I have clinical from 6:30-4:30, and when I finally arrive home I’m exhausted, kind of cranky, and STARVING. I was craving some comfort food (and red wine!) big time so I went with an old standby: tomato soup and grilled cheese.
I’m off to work on a careplan! I can’t believe how quickly time is passing. I am in shock that Thanksgiving is pretty much two weeks away. Guess I better start planning that too!
I thought it was really delicious and so ridiculously simple. I’m definitely going to try to remember this for the next time I want a quick pantry meal.
Another dish from last week, that I can take absolutely no credit for is this soba-tofu noodle dish. Brent makes very good Asian dishes and as mentioned previously, he makes good tofu. This had carrots, red bell pepper, scallions, tofu, soba noodles and some sauce created using the Asian condiment shelf in our refrigerator.
I should wrap this up because I only gave myself 15 study-free minutes to blog, but I wanted to mention Brent ran his first race today! We ran the
Tall, isn’t he? He enjoyed it, so I think we’ll probably do some more races together in the future. 
