I got so many cooking/kitchen related gifts for Christmas this year. I guess I will be doing a lot of cooking!

Last night I used the pizza stone and pizza peel Mr Triathlete picked out for Christmas. Now our homemade pizza has a crispy crust. Yum!

I got a cast iron grill pan and medium saucepan from my Mom. I highly recommend a grill pan if you don’t have an actual grill. So far I have just cooked BBQ chicken (and vegetables) on it, and it came out much better–more tender.

I got the book, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. I wanted an encyclopedia of good quality tasty recipe ideas–mostly vegetarian so I have more ideas of how to get my fruits and vegetables.

We got a Crate and Barrel gift card, so Mr Triathlete and I went shopping and got a proper quiche pan (I was using pie pans and it never came out quite right), nonstick skewers for the grill, and a meat tenderizer. Before, Mr Triathlete was using a 15 or 20 pound weight to flatten the chicken!

With another gift card, we went shopping to the Cook’s Warehouse (Alton Brown has shopped there in Atlanta before!) and got a cut-proof glove to use on the mandolin so Mr Triathlete doesn’t lose any fingers. And I picked out a spatula–you can never have enough.

Another gift from Crate and Barrel: My Mom picked out this decorative plate. The color is so pretty, and I could use it for many things!
I also got a bunch of wine, various nuts, and Mr Triathlete went shopping at Whole Paycheck to get ingredients to make homemade V8 (that’s another story).

I better get cooking…