Christmas already?

With Halloween gone, is it time to start thinking about Christmas? My crafts skipped Thanksgiving, when I was inspired by this:

I'm not that talented but this is the work in progress, I hope that it will turn out better in the upcoming weeks. Wish me luck!

In the kitchen this week

 I was craving my mom's spinach soup and I never knew the trick to getting it just right - until she told me about a month or so ago. And there it was, the brightest green soup ever.




I seared chicken breasts in olive oil with garlic and fresh rosemary from the herb garden, threw in some tomatoes from the balcony and finished it in the oven.

On a day when things weren't going too well in the kitchen, the fact that the pumpkin gratin and sauteed shrimp turned out okay, was reassuring.




One of the things that didn't go well were these pumpkin cheesecake cupcakes, which I was making for Tom's lab meeting. I was being conscientious of the fact that one of his lab mates is allergic to gluten, so I made a crust with pecans. The crust burnt. Then the cheesecake rose in the oven (cheesecake is not supposed to rise), and then they sunk! Went back to the Joy of Cooking and on the other page (yea, the recipe continued on the other page, the page that I didn't flip), there was the rest of the recipe for the sour cream topping, which I guess would have filled the cupcake. Too bad I didn't have sour cream. Here I am with a dozen yummy pumpkin cheesecake without a base. Yummy!

Tomorrow is Divali, and I am trying to muster the courage and motivation to get back to the kitchen to make some indian cookies (nancathai). I think enough cooking for today.