Pantry Revisited

Hostess this week is one of my favorite bloggers, Margaret of Tea and Scones !  As you all know by now, I'm not a fish/shellfish person, but I really wanted to cook along with Margaret this week so I substituted chicken for the fish.  I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but we were pleasantly surprised. It was delicious!  So good in fact, I cannot wait to have the leftovers for tomorrow night's dinner. Well next week is Thanksgiving and I wonder if you all are already getting overwhelmed about how you will manage getting it all together.  For me, I have my family coming in from out of town and we plan to have our Christmas together at the same time.  So it is a double whammy for me.  I have half a tree put up in my living room, and a couple of gifts bought, but this weekend will be interesting to say the least!  I'm a list maker, so I will probably have more lists made than I know what to do with.  A grocery list for sure. Thanks Marga...

HOST:  Kayte of http://www.grandmaskitchentable.typepad.com/ Kayte is one of my favorite blogging friends and we are in several cooking groups together.  I love going to her blog because there is always something good to whet my appetite on there!  Check it out and see what her version of this week's salad is. I do not, however, love whole wheat pasta, so the only substitution I made in this recipe was that I used tri-colored regular pasta. Plus, the different colors in it excite me.  I don't know why!  I paired this with a rotiserrie chicken and Chan loved the pasta!  He wanted to eat the entire bowl of pasta but I made him pace himself.  I had to keep reminding him that we had dessert which was coming later. I know there are all different types of cooks out there and we all have our own way of doing things.  For me, I like to get all my ingredients out on the countertop before I even begin to read how to put the recipe together...

Host this week:  Jessica of Singleton in the Kitchen Jessica is one of my favorite bloggers.  I was excited she chose this cranberry shortbread so I could try it out before the holiday arrives.  And it was worth the trying out!  We absolutely loved it.  And it was so easy to make.  The dough came together really well.  Next time I might add a tad bit more sugar to the cranberry mixture however.  Mine did not rise a whole lot.  I'm not sure how tall it is supposed to be.  It is about the size of a one layer cake.  I cannot wait to see how others turned out.  I plan to make this again this weekend to take to a friend's house for dinner. They are serving chicken pot pie so I think this will be perfect with it. Going into the oven: Coming out of the oven: I can't wait to eat another piece tonight!!

Hostess this week:  Nicole of Bakeologie Well Halloween has come and gone.  That means Thanksgiving and my birthday are right around the corner!!!  And the best part of Thanksgiving this year is that I get to see my new grandbaby again.  I am counting the days.  Halloween brought lots of goodies at work including a pumpkin decorating contest (I lost), lots of candy, a free breakfast and dessert party, and the Saturday night a fun-filled night of dancing and wearing costumes at our dance club.  Chandler and I went again as pirates wearing our costumes from last year and we were fortunate to be one of the costume winners this year!  I made some brownies to take that had swirls of pumpkin in them, and I was not a fan.  I'll take my brownies plain thank you.  Chandler and I watched a scary movie (as is our custom).  I prefer some type of ghost story like a haunting, but we chose Frozen.  Kids stranded on a ski slope.  It got rea...