Category Archives: Holidays

Thanksgiving at the M Street Cafe

I didn’t get a chance to post this last year because, holidays.  But since I just posted a restaurant review of the St. Paul Grill I remembered that I had intended to do the same for the Thanksgiving brunch that the M Street Cafe had this past year. The M Street Cafe is another restaurant at the St. Paul Hotel. It’s only open for lunch and I had never been there before. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to handle making my usual Thanksgiving feast that we do every year because I was still recovering from my shoulder injuries, so I made reservations at the M Street Cafe.  They have an amazing spread with various stations all lined up. I didn’t get good photos of the meal courses because it was so crowded and I didn’t want to butt in line to get photos. The meal was good but I think my favorite part was the dessert room.  Yes, there were so many desserts, it needed its own room!

You can’t really compare a Thanksgiving meal out to a home cooked meal. There were lots of choices and I wish I had kept the menu of all those choices, alas, I did not nor can I find it online. But, there was something for everyone. If you didn’t like turkey, you could have ham, for example. Unfortunately I don’t remember all the food that was offered. But it was worth it not to have to worry about re-injuring my shoulders by preparing the feast, however, there were no leftovers and they didn’t allow us to take home our desserts.  Oh well. It was a nice meal nonetheless.  Following are galleries of the photos that I took. I’ve created a separate gallery just for the desserts. I think you’ll see why.

And now for the desserts:

2 Comments

Filed under Holidays, Minnesota

Weekly Photo Challenge – Gathering

I’m going with my first thought when I saw this week’s theme. In 2010 my mother won the lottery. Yes, it does happen! She decided to spend some of that money to have her family spend Thanksgiving with her in Florida.  Oh, the memories! It was a marvelous time so I’d like to share a gallery of the gathering of my family that year. Click on the link to view other entries or to enter yourself and enjoy!!

2 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Holidays

Weekly Photo Challenge – Treat

Some of my favorite holiday treats: rugelach for Hanukah, snicker doodles for Christmas and noodle and raisin kugel for any Jewish holiday:

It’s always a treat to see what hubby and daughter come up with each year when they carve the pumpkins.  Here are some from past years:

Check out more entries or enter yourself here.  Enjoy!!

6 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Holidays

a once in a while Hanukah celebration

We always light the candles for Hanukah but this year Miss M also requested a Hanukah meal.  I don’t make a special Hanukah meal every year and it has been a while since the last one, so I got to celebrate with fun food along with lighting the candles this year.     Of course I took photos along the way so come along and see how this family celebrates Hanukah.  First, a photo for every night we lit the candles, except one because there were only two and both were bad!

My Hanukah meal consisted of roast chicken, potato latkes, noodle kugel and carrots in a maple/orange juice sauce.  One word: Delish! I’m kicking myself because I forgot to take a photo of the chicken!  But I did get some nice ones of the other food.

I always make rugelach every year as they’re my favorite holiday cookie.  A mixture of currants, honey, nuts, sugar and cinnamon rolled up into a butter/cream cheese/flour dough, then brushed with cream and a dusting of sugar.  Yum, yum, yum.

In this house we celebrate both Hanukah and Christmas, one because it’s my heritage, the other is due to my beliefs.  I also look forward to and celebrate the solstice.  The days have a little more light and now we’re moving in that direction again.  It always makes me feel better for some reason.  And it gives me the strength to get through the winter.  Spring will come again!!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Happy New Year!!

19 Comments

Filed under Holidays

Weekly Photo Challenge – Twinkle

Two photos taken today that say twinkle to me.  This year’s Christmas tree, just decorated and later reflected in the window:

Why not join in the challenge yourself?  Or check out other entries at this link.

11 Comments

Filed under Challenges, Holidays

last minute gingerbread cookies

Since we spent the weekend before Christmas away visiting family, we didn’t have much time to make cookies.  On Christmas morning my daughter and I set about making gingerbread cookies since I didn’t have to put the turkey in the oven until about 2 p.m.  Oh but wait!!  I had forgotten that the dough needed to chill for a few hours before we could roll it out.  So we switched gears, put the dough in the fridge, found a recipe for snicker doodles to appease hubby who really loves them.  Didn’t notice the recipe made 66 (SIXTY SIX!!!) cookies until it was almost too late.  Are you enjoying my story so far?  I realized that I didn’t have enough butter to make the full recipe of snicker doodles and have enough for our Christmas meal.  Instead, we halved the dry mixture and made a half recipe.  The other half is in a ziploc bag for when we get the urge to make snicker doodles again.

We had our nice Christmas meal and after the dishes were done and put away, we got back to our gingerbread cookies….at about 9 p.m.!!  I must be crazy but it was so much fun.  My daughter and I have made and decorated gingerbread cookies for several years now.  Here is a collection of photos of our gingerbread cookie production.  Better late than never!!

16 Comments

Filed under Holidays

Christmas cat

I had so much fun photographing Fritz while we opened presents. I think Fritz enjoyed it more than we did ;)

First he got into a box smaller than him:

Then he got out of the box:

Then he decided to play with the box:

and here he is just looking adorable:

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas!!

11 Comments

Filed under Holidays, pets