Happy New Year!

We are back from sunny, blue-skyed, 70 degree weathered Miami! We spent the holidays with our families, ate lots of Cuban and Venezuelan food, went to every restaurant imaginable, and stuffed ourselves with all kinds of desserts. The holidays are all about food, right? We ate cookies, chocolate souffles, arepas (Venezuelan), media noches (Cuban sandwiches), croquettas (Cuban snack), bollos (traditional Venezuelan Christmas Eve dish), pulled pork sandwiches (New Years), honey-glazed ham (my grandma's Christmas specialty), pancakes...

I could go on and on....

As much as we loved having everyone take us out to eat and shower us with delicious treats, I could not wait to come home and cook my own food!! We are huge healthy eaters! One of the reasons I love cooking so much is because I know what's going in my food and I know how to make it healthy, or at least, lighter than the original version. Being our first night back, I went to the grocery store this morning and picked up all the ingredients for my first recipe from Rachael Ray's Look and Cook cookbook!!

Yes, the hubby got it for me for Christmas. And so did my Mom. And so did my mother-in-law. :) I must have mentioned that I wanted this book quite a few times then, hmmm...

Anyhow, without further ado, here are some pictures of the various food/dishes/desserts we had the pleasure of eating throughout the past two weeks! I hope your holidays were just as marvelous. :)

Baking up a storm in my Mom's kitchen. Christmas Crunch Cookies & Peanut Butter Blossoms. They were both SO GOOD that I may in fact make them again very very soon...

A chocolate souffle we had at an Italian restaurant.

Here I am waiting for my pasta!

Fusilli pasta with mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil.

Mini dessert shots at our New Years Eve Party.

This is called a Bollo, which is like a tamale, that we ate on Christmas Eve. My husband's family is Venezuelan and this is what you traditionally eat on Christmas Eve.

 

Croquettas!! My favorite Cuban food and what I miss so much living here in Michigan!! They are filled with ham and cheese and then fried to perfection...

There are lots of Cuban sandwiches, but this one, the media noche, has been my favorite since I was a kid. It is piled with layers of ham, pork, and cheese, between two pieces of Cuban bread. I LOVE them.

Here were are at the Cuban restaurant, La Carreta. See how happy I am? And no, that's not a cafe con leche, I got hot chocolate, it was chilly that night!

A brownie dessert we had out at a restaurant.

And here we are as a family on Christmas day. :)

There you have it, a few food pics from our trip. Trust me, there was so much more that I forgot to photograph! Hope you enjoyed. :) Stay tuned for a ton of Rachael Ray's new recipes, I just made one tonight that was amazing.