Italian seafood salad: Jumbo Sea scallops, calamari, mussels, jumbo shrimp cooked in old bay spice and white wine liquid then marinaded with limoncello liqueur, fresh lemon zest and lemon juice then tossed with the poached liquid and olive oil with garlic, oregano and red pepper flakes. How can you go wrong?

Ina Garten’s recipe. So good and had a great depth of flavor.

Ina’s salmon and guacamole sandwich with bacon.

The ultimate grilled cheese! Andrew’s ultimate favorite. (of course). This has three cheeses inside: Parmesan, gruyere and cheddar, then to top it off bacon bites.

Sweet potato crostini with fresh ricotta and sprinkle of sage leaves

Black olive pate with sweet cherry tomatoes

Roasted butternut squash salad with warm cider vinaigrette

Baked shrimp scampi

Over multi grain linguini

Then the weekend was over.

I had another tough week last week….just when I thought my body was recovering, I had another pretty bad reaction from the pill my doctor put me on. Oh boy, was it awful.

After -6 lbs later, I’m beginning to feel like myself again.

What do I do when I gain my energy back? Cooking, of course. ;) We are having our good old friends over for a lunch and I’m super excited to see them!

Crostini with poached fig and goat cheese topped with pancetta and fresh mint

French dip sirloin roast beef

Mini pumpkin cheese cakes

Thank you Reinmuth family for coming to share a meal with us. We love you guys!

My goodness, this is really good bloody Mary.

Thanks for taking me to Oyster heaven!

He took a picture of me eating, so I did too. 🙂

Got to meet celebrity chief, John Besh.

Great music,

fantastic drinks and oysters shared with an awesome friend on a beautiful autumn day in the city. Sans kids. (No offense kids. ;))

I needed this to sober up to go home.

Starting with some olives, cheese and  patté

Savory coeur a la creme { Ina Garten’s recipe }

Roasted pear with stilton and cranberry on arugula salad and butternut squash soup

Roast Pork loin with chili pomegranate glaze { Michael Lomonaco’s Porter House recipe }

Maple glazed acorn squash with pine nuts and raisins

There’s also Penne Alla Vecchia Bettola { Nick And Toni’s recipe } which I didn’t get to photograph

Bourbon vanilla ice cream with espresso Franfelico, shavings of chocolate, toasted hazelnuts with biscotti for dessert

I’m so glad I didn’t burn anything down and everything was cooked and they were edible. All in all, I say the food was pretty good. My God, I cooked with praying heart. 😉

I’m hosting a dinner party and I’m so excited to use our dining room for the first time.

I found these awesome looking grey pumpkins at a farmer’s market called cinderella pumpkins (who knew?) and that’s how the color inspiration came for the table setting. I bought small white pumpkins and some regular pumpkins to go along with them and I painted in grey and metallic gold.

{ Candlesticks from Serena & Lily, • Dinner plates from Anthropologie, • Sterling silverware from hand-me-down from my mom, •Crystal wine glasses from vintage find in Nyack, NY, • Window blind used as a table runner from Ikea,  Placemats and napkins from west elm }

Ready to party~

We went to Ochs farm this afternoon for some pick your own experience.

Look how many apples that one tree has!

Up, he goes! Go uncle Ben.

Thanks for taking a picture of us.

The fruits of our labor.

What a beautiful fall day!

The Lee family stayed with us for the last two days and they are leaving today. Kids have been really enjoying the family especially Eliana.

They even helped Uncle Danny with Eliana’s bath last night. It’s been our pleasure having you guys here. I could already tell Chloe would cry yesterday… and sure enough she did.

She didn’t give me a hug but she had no problems giving Chloe and Shane hugs many times.

She finally let me hold her while I was giving her some pine nuts. Bye bye! Come visit us again!

Hello my friends from NY, Chicago and Virginia.

I loved having you guys over. Love you all. It was a long overdue reunion.

We played in the local play ground this morning.

Then Shane’s friend from his old school came to play.

We also had play dates with my friends and their kids in the afternoon. What a busy but a super fun day! I loved playing a stay-at-home mom.

My friends are coming over for lunch today.

They are the first guests in this house!

Whoa, that’s so high!

Happy to be back together again.

Uncle Austin is making an “action” movie with kids.

They are pretending rocks are coming down from sky.