A Brooklyn Christmas

Hey everyone!  I hope you guys had a great weekend!  Can you believe it's officially Christmas WEEK????  That is some insanity, right there!!!!  We had a great FESTIVE weekend, starting on Saturday where we headed up to Brooklyn to visit our friend's Mom, Josie, and to get a 'tour" of her neighborhood. 

And Josie was ready for us!!!  Could this have been a more welcoming sight??? 

Not to mention that when you crossed an invisible barrier leading into her kitchen, you were met with the most insanely wonderful smells from her AWESOME cooking!  It was like a big bear hug welcome:)

And speaking of welcome, we were greeted with warm bowls of delicious bean soup (and bread, of course:)

Followed by (yes....MORE after a bowl of soup) a Broccoli Rabe Pie....too die for! :)

Annnndddd...we couldn't get away from the table without sampling ONE of the MANY desserts Josie made for us that day...and she started off with the insanely amazing PANETTONE BREAD PUDDING!

The reason the picture is so blurry was because I was trying to take it as quick as I could before I dove in!!!  It was just rich and decadent and festive and uhhhh....so amazing:)  What a welcome, huh??????

After our 3 course meal lunch, we headed out for a tour of the neighborhood.  First stop was Crown's for some fresh bread....

(don't those round loaves just make you drool???)

And along with the insane bread selection they had (more on that later!), they also had my favorites:  Italian cookies all bundled up in pretty festive packages:)

Oh yeah...and pastries!  It was a good thing we had JUST polished off that bread pudding or about 5 of those cream filled "Lobster Tails" (bottom right) would have found their way into my bag;)  (although maybe I'll get one on day next week...hint, hint;)

Next up was to the famous "pork store", that I had heard so much about:)

Josie was right when she told me that the appeal of this place is that it is SOOOO clean!  They make the fresh sausage right next door and the room was clean as a whistle:)

And it didn't hurt that there was soooooooo many good things to choose from!  I had a tough time narrowing it down;) 

I managed to walk out with a pork braciole, smoked mozzarella, some fresh sweet sausage and a little treat for tomorrow nights dinner.  But what did I forget????  THE PORK CHOPS!!!  Oh well...next time;) hahahahahhahaa....

Next we traveled over to the pasta store (furiously burning calories along the way, right??:)  I seriously LOVE stores with cookies piled to the ceiling surrounded by old school Christmas decorations <3

We, AGAIN, had lots to choose from....(I think Scott said "Ooooooo" about 12 times;)

But I managed to only walk out with a pound of fresh bucatini.  I can't WAIT to make it!!!

Even if the cart fulls of bread looked appealing too;)

And one last stop was made to Coluccio's import store...which was sorta like the Sam's club of Italian goodies;)

And make no mistake...we had to take the car here, because it would have been a little tough to lug back FOUR cases of San Marzano tomatoes between the four of us;) hahahahhahahahaha

And after we shopped till we dropped, we headed back to Josie's, who met us with-yep, you guessed it-another meal!  LOVE HER!  She reminded me so much of my Grandmom, who would ALWAYS make you a full meal if you were even the SLIGHTEST bit hungry;)

And she officially became Scott's new best friend when we walked into fresh Pork Parmesan:)...

And the most TO DIE FOR roasted stuffed peppers EVER!!!!!!!!!!  I don't know what she did to them....but they were OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!  SOOOOOOO GOOD!

Next up was some roasted chestnuts (cause it's Christmas, after all:) and her Sicilian recipe of orange slices drizzled with olive oil and black pepper.  Yum!

And finally, yes....there was MORE dessert;)  This time her homemade cookies & cheesecake (yes...can you believe she MADE that cheesecake?????  It looked PERFECT!)

To say we left "full" is an understatement.  'Bursting at the seams' is a little more accurate:)  We love Josie! :)

But thankfully there was at least a LITTLE walking left in our future, as we headed about 5 minutes away to the famous Dyker Heights lights!

Everyone in the neighborhood goes FULL OUT FESTIVE!  It is QUITE a sight to see, let me tell ya!

We had an absolutely WONDERFUL, relaxing, warm & FESTIVE day....thanks again to Annie, Killer and OF COURSE, our new BFF Josie!! :)

And the fun didn't stop there:)  As Sunday morning we tried out one of our goodies from the bread store.  Are you ready???

CHOCOLATE BREAD!!!!!!!!! 

We were DYING!  This was soooooooooooooo amazing!!!  The outside was crunchy, the inside was chewy and STUDDED throughout with Chocolate CHUNKSSSSS!  TO DIE! 

Wohoooooo...well, now that we've officially printed up our "We Love Brooklyn" t-shirts, I hope this post made you want to take a visit there for yourself:) 

I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of our weekend recap (since we're having simple tuna chickpea salads again tonight:)  Have a great Monday! :)