I’m having a hard time adjusting to my new routine with the new job and keeping up with the blog lately. Mostly because I don’t get home until 6:30 these days, and I’m either running out of the door to meet up with friends or frantically trying to make something for dinner before passing out in front of the television for the rest of the night. Despite the fact that I’m still struggling a bit with the workplace transition, there have still been many blog worthy times I meant to write about.

In light of my work transition, it’s been important to me to keep up with my Postal friends lately. Leading up to my departure from the Postal Service, Kirios and I hosted my coworker and her boyfriend for a wine and cheese night. Kirios and I picked out four new cheeses at Whole Foods:

-Mitica caprichio de cabra pepper – tasted rich like goat cheese with hot red pepper on the outside

-Somerdale Wensleydale with Blueberries – sweet and desserty, but not a soft/spreadable cheese. I liked the blueberry flavor a lot, but it tasted better on sweet things than salty crackers. (we had variety pack of crackers which included some that were graham cracker style)

-Igor gorgonzola piccante mountain gorgonzola – a bit salty for me, but made for good variety, and the leftovers were great in salad!

-Rosemary and olive asiago – this was probably everyone’s favorite cheese of the night. The rosemary flavor shined, and while I wouldn’t say it was a particularly special or interesting cheese, it’s definitely the kind that you want to keep eating with crackers – very satisfying.

We also served some leftover smoked gouda and leftover toscano with ground black pepper. Yum!

More recently, two other Postal friends of mine came over for brunch. Kirios and I made pancakes with chocolate chips and nuts in them, and served pumpkin bread, fruits, challah with nutella, and chai tea.

I think I’m going to have to come up with some healthier ideas for keeping in touch my former colleague friends!

In addition to seeing Postal people, Kirios and I kept busy over the holidays. We attended eight holiday parties over the course of a month. I made Argentine Chimichurri bread with onions, parsley, cayenne pepper, and other spices for a potluck. It was a recipe from my dad that I found on my computer and I was a bit nervous about it. I’ve never thrown that many random ingredients into the bread machine before, but it ended up being pretty tasty and there weren’t any leftovers by the end of the night. I also made my dad’s chocolate bourbon tart recipe (but substituted the bourbon with Johnny Walker red label) for a party which was divine. It’s a chocolate tart crust with a dense fudgy filling. It was very rich, so despite being a big hit there were lots of leftovers – most of which the host and hostess were glad to keep. I’ll definitely be making that recipe again.

In addition to trying out recipes from my dad, Kirios’ parents taught me how to make some of their favorite Greek cookies over the holidays this year. We made kourabiedes and melomakaroma. Kourabiedes are my favorite of the cookies they make – almond butter cookies coated in rose water and powdered sugar, traditionally served at weddings. Melomakaroma are Kirios’ favorite cookies – first you make a simple cookie with flour, oil, orange juice/zest and spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, all-spice. Then you take your sugarless cookie and completely drench it in a warm spiced honey syrup and top it with crushed nuts, so in the end, it’s basically the cookie equivalent of baklava. It’s completely parve, and you can substitute out the honey for sugar making it vegan too. Plus, because of all of the syrup, the cookies stay good for a very long time. Next I’ll have to start learning how Kirios’ dad makes such delicious cakes… My parents are both great cooks, but that’s one thing they’ve never mastered. (My mom is famous for having hilariously bad outcomes when cooking cakes – she even exploded the pan once!)