It's Been Awhile...

I'm almost intimidated to begin trying to catch up on all that's been going on.  But, being busy has got to lead to more interesting blogs than "I did nothing this week," so here we go!  I'll begin the catch up with, what else?, food!

Tuesday, March 10th

Potato salad, tomato soup, grilled cheese.  Mainly, I wanted to make a tomato soup, as I found a recipe that got rave reviews...  And, given my soup pickiness, I liked that there was no way to screw up any of the ingredients!

And, what goes better with tomato soup than grilled cheese???  NOTHING, that's what.

...Except maybe a huge baguette.  Whatever.

To the recipes.  I wanted to make a potato salad, even though it didn't exactly go with the meal.  I don't do mayonnaise, so finding a good potato salad recipe has always been a challenge.  I didn't love this one, either, but I also only included the potatoes.  (No pepper, olives or artichoke hearts.)  If anyone has a good potato salad recipe, PLEASE SEND IT TO ME.  I would pay you if it was close to the potato salad that I got back at Cafe Europa in college.  Seriously, if you're in Charlottesville ever, go there, get the potato salad.  SO GOOD.  (Also get the tomato basil soup.  Perhaps that's why I made potato salad and tomato soup together...  Reminds me of Cafe Europa.)

I made this creamy tomato soup - I would not use butter, though.  (Not a fan of the oily film it creates.)  For grilled cheese, I had some nice, rustic white bread, beautiful heirloom tomatoes, and some tomato-basil cheddar.  Delicious!

[Also, look at my fun plates!  M3 got "samples" from a new supplier that she's working with - Working Class Studio - and distributed them.  Such fun!  And I love love love square plates...]

Thursday, March 12th

Salad, asparagus, garlic bread, bean pasta.  M1 wanted to make a fun pasta sauce, and found this recipe from Barilla!  Obviously, she changed the pasta shape (love mini shells,) used vegetable stock in stead of chicken stock (thanks!) and we sprinkled a three-cheese blend on the top, instead of ricotta.  Yum!  I really liked all the vegetables that worked together in this sauce - broccoli, sun dried tomatoes, white / cannellini beans (which I rarely think to eat...)

She also made a salad and garlic bread, and we roasted asparagus - coat in olive oil, toss with salt and pepper, oven!  (I also have to think that this must have been a pretty healthy meal - good for us!)

Sunday, March 15th

Guacamole, fajitas, pineapple upside-down cake.  M3 made guacamole, which I'm extremely grateful for, as she's never been huge into guacamole herself, so I have to assume my guacamole-loving presence may have influenced that slightly.  She also found a tip - if you make guacamole and throw a pit back into the mix, it'll stay green longer.  (Brown guacamole just isn't that appealing.)  In the end, I think we're both still on the hunt to make guacamole as spicy and good as Wholly Guacamole!

Fajita makings included: tortillas, guacamole, black bean / onion mixture, peppers / onions, salsa, cheese, sour cream...  And some steak thing that was apparently amazing...  If only I ate meat...

I would like to state here and now that I love "create your own" meals.  With all the different tastes of our little group (I don't do meat, M1 doesn't do spicy, M3 doesn't do... a lot of random vegetables,) being given a lot of different things that will all taste great together, but being able to leave out what you don't personally like is just great!

For dessert, there was upside-down pineapple cake.  One of my favourites!  (Pineapple obsession?  Me?)  Actually, the maraschino cherries may be my favourite part...  Add some coconut, we've almost got a pina colada!

Sunday, March 22nd

Spicy mac and cheese, garlic bread, apple cobbler / strudel.  In the absence of M1, M3 jumped on making something spicy!  She loaded mini bow tie pasta with cheese (at least three kinds, though I forget which,) green chilis, tabasco sauce, chili powder and paprika.  It was delicious, and I, traditionally, do not do mac and cheese!  (This, though, is referring to the kind from the box - the powdered cheese kind of creeps me out.)

[I'm also realizing - garlic bread comes up again and again in our meals.  It's just so frickin' good!]

She also made some apple dessert - apples wrapped in pastry dough of some sort.  It was delicious.  And I am hugely sorry for forgetting my camera this night!

Tuesday, March 24th

Salad, butternut squash risotto, pistachio gnocchi, "white forest" cheesecake.  Mine!  This meal was inspired by Ivy, which is currently my favourite restaurant - small plates (meaning you can try a lot) and a wine list where most of the bottles are $26 - what's not to love???  They recently changed their menu, though, discarding of the two dishes that M1 and I always got when we went.  So, obviously, I needed to try my hand at these.

[I made my first salad (of these dinner series) that didn't involve fruit - spinach, red and green peppers, purple onion, tomatoes...  Simple.]

I had made butternut squash risotto before, on "Risotto Trio" night.  It turned out lovely, once again.  The other dish that we loved was this pistachio gnocchi.  In my head, at least, Ivy's was still better than mine, but that's not to say it was bad.  I found a recipe for Pistachio Cream Sauce, so I threw this over gnocchi (from Trader Joe's!  I'm on a huge TJ kick currently!)  The results were pretty good...  I'd perhaps suggest a bit less cream (?)  And there were tons of leftovers to last me for several days!

Despite my poll claiming I was going to let people vote on the first cheesecake that I was going to make, well, I couldn't wait a week!  So, I made the White Forest Cheesecake (white chocolate, maraschino cherries.)  I'm going to hold off posting a recipe for this - I made several substitutions on ingredients, and the result was quite sweet.  (Note: One should not use maraschino syrup as a substitute for cherry flavouring.)  Not bad, I mean I ate half of the 9" cheesecake, but I'd definitely make some changes when trying it again!

That being said, as predicted, I had all of two votes for my cheesecake poll.  I saw at one point there were three votes, two for the "Cookies & Cream" version, so I'm declaring that the winner - project for next weekend!

And, with that, I'm actually off to M3's for Sunday night dinner.  As of this afternoon, she didn't know what she was making.  But I love surprises - especially when they involve food!