It’s Tuesday…and all I can think of is the past weekend and the weekend coming up. We live for weekends don’t we? Weekends seem like the only time I am able to play in the kitchen and take photos at my own pace…and this weekend I did just that.

Started off with breakfast outside on the patio….

Here I am busy working in the kitchen while Casey snoozed:

End result = eggs with chives & cheddar, toast with strawberry puree and coffee!

Our plates were licked clean…

I did some gardening…

I bought a new doormat for the patio…

A new fern for each bathroom (i love them!)

We fixed up our other deck and ate the Orange Strawberry popsicles I made on Friday to celebrate!

I stuck three cucumbers in the juicer and out came this lovely shade of green…

The cucumber pulp inspired me to make tzatziki…and then I ended up with this:

I made turkey meatballs without following a recipe…

And of course I had to use that cucumber juice so I made a delightful ginger-ale/cucumber/mint/lemon concoction…

cheers!

Also:

-watched a few movies (La Vie En Rose, Into the Wild & Alpha Dog)

-Casey continued to work on painting our kitchen cabinets

-I started a sewing project that ended terribly :(

-Took a trip to Home Depot

-Daydreamed about my perfect kitchen…..

What are you doing this weekend?

This weeks girls night (plus 1 boy) was all about comfort food.

I made a New York Times recipe for Creamy Macaroni & Cheese (found via Smitten Kitchen).

Thank you Deb!

Did I ever tell you how much I love the crunchy bits of Mac & Cheese??  I used to fight with my two older brothers over the crunchy parts when we were growing up.

Aren’t you jealous- Ryan?

Here’s a close up of the creaminess….the cottage cheese was a nice touch!

I paired the mac & cheese with a salad (cucumber, tomato, red onion & feta with a mustard dressing) and some steamed broccoli.

I HAD to balance out that fat/veggie ratio….

Creamy Macaroni & Cheese

New York Times 01/04/06

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup whole milk cottage cheese
•  2 cups milk (not skim)
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1 handful of breadcrumbs (not in the original recipe-I added this)
• Pinch cayenne
• Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
•  1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated
•  1/2 pound elbow pasta, uncooked.

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees and position an oven rack in upper third of oven. Use 1 tablespoon butter to butter a 9-inch round or square baking pan.

2. In a blender, puree cottage cheese.  When consistency is extremely smooth, add milk, mustard, cayenne, nutmeg and salt and pepper together. Reserve 1/4 cup grated cheese for topping. In a large bowl, combine remaining grated cheese, milk mixture and uncooked pasta. Pour into prepared pan, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes.

3. Uncover pan, stir gently, sprinkle with reserved cheese and breadcrumbs. Dot with remaining tablespoon butter. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes more, until browned. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

***The only thing that I regret…is not making a double batch!***

And for dessert…..

Earlier that day I decided to make these brownie cookies I found from one of my flickr buddies. I totally screwed up the batch when I made it a couple of weeks ago.  I ended up with 1 big cookie the shape of my cookie sheet!  I got it right this time…Not sure what happened.

Better-than-Brownie-Cookies

makes about 18

The recipe came from  Welcome to My Pantry  (thank you!)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups total chocolate chips
• 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate
• 1/8 cup unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

-Set oven to 350 degrees

1. Melt 1 cup chocolate chips with 2 oz. of unsweetened chocolate. Add butter, stir til melted.

2. Mix eggs, vanilla and sugar in a medium bowl.  Combine thoroughly. Set aside.

3. Mix flour & baking powder together in a small bowl.

4. Add melted chocolate mixture to the egg mixture and slowly add your dry ingredients.  When stirred, add remaining cup of chocolate chips- stir!

5. Scoop cookies onto a cookie sheet.  Bake & try not to scarf them down the second they get out of the oven!

FINAL RESULT:

My makeshift neapolitan dessert!

I put two cookies in each of bowl, topped it with vanilla bean ice cream and added some strawberry sauce on top!

For the strawberry sauce, I pureed strawberries with a little bit of sugar & water. Taste as you go and check the consistency and it’s pretty darn easy.

What’s your favorite comfort food?

As you might know, I got some really great strawberries at the Farmers Market on Saturday.

Here they are right before I started digging in:

So after my strawberry overload breakfast (see below) I decided to treat myself to a refreshing beverage.  After working around the house/yard over the weekend, it was well deserved.

I started juicing them with my juicer!

I juiced two of the containers! It produces the best puree!

I think I will use it for pancakes or perhaps in my yogurt….or ice cream!

I muddled some basil leaves with a little bit of sugar. I added some fresh strawberry juice and some sparkling water.

Put in a straw & top with a little strawberry and you have yourself a refreshing drink!

The basil was great! If you aren’t as daring…try some mint! MMMMMMM

Last week my mom made me an Orange Glazed Pound Cake from one Ina Garten’s cookbooks.

She gave me a whole loaf to take home.  So dangerous!  What a good momma!

So I cut into it this morning:

I cut up some farmer’s market strawberries using a trick I found in the current MS Living magazine.

Just use an egg slicer!  It worked perfectly!

I took some honey, plain yogurt, a slice of the cake and assembled…

I scarfed this down!

The drizzle of honey was heavenly on top of the yogurt…

My husband leaped out of bed to find this waiting for him.

You can find the cake recipe here.  Just look within the whole recipe and you’ll see the cake part.

Although.. a Raspberry Orange Trifle looks pretty awesome to me.

Don’t you agree?

It was so hot in our bedroom on Saturday morning, that we took off our thick/winter duvet cover and bought this new one.  We must prepare for the warmer days ahead!

I really love it.

Our neighbors dropped off some beautiful lilacs from their garden….

I fed my green grape addiction…

I did a MASSIVE amount of gardening around the house.  I’m pretty sure I will be sore tomorrow….

I put some hot links on the grill and we had ourselves a mini BBQ dinner as the sun was going down….

(*It was to honor the Red Sox game*-Casey says)

Casey helped me chop the onions…

Did I ever tell you how much I LOOOOOVE mustard??

There was nothing left in the end…

I also made chocolate chocolate chip cookies…but had a disaster!  I’ll share the recipe when I MAKE IT WORK.

It was a nice mellow weekend.  I hope you enjoyed yours too!

Off to watch more of Carnivale!

I spent this past weekend with my prettie/vegan best friend, Erin. Every year we try to see each other at *least* twice. She came down to visit this past weekend and we had loads of fun trying some vegan treats in the Bay Area! Of course we’re both really into food- so we did some damage at a few places…..

I started off by making Penne with Pesto, Asparagus & Roasted Pine-nuts (all vegan) for dinner on Thursday:

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons Earth Balance Margarine
• 2 heaping tablespoons Better Than Cream Cheese
• 2 bunches asparagus cut into little pieces
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• juice of 1 lemon
• handful of pine nuts
• handful of walnuts
• a large batch of the pesto from the link below for recipe & ingredients
• 1 1lb package penne

To make the pesto part of this dish- follow my pesto recipe but omit the parmesan. I added more pine nuts and a handful of walnuts in this batch!

After you cut the asparagus, melt 1 tablespoon butter in a frying pan and cook the asparagus in the pan on medium heat. (It’s really good if you brown them a bit but do not over cook!) It should take about 5-7 minutes. Splash a teaspoon or two of the garlic powder in with the asparagus.

Once finished, set aside the asparagus and add the pine nuts to the pan. Toast them in the pan for about 5-8 minutes until they turn brown. Be sure to not over cook them as you don’t want nuts that look like coffee beans in your pasta! ack!

Once the pasta is cooked, drain into a strainer and reserve a little bit of the pasta water. Put the pasta back in the pot and drop the remaining 2 tablespoons of the margarine in. Mix until pasta is coated.

Add the Better Than Cream cheese to the penne and stir. The penne mixture might get really thick…so start adding a bit of the reserved pasta water. Now add your pesto (the more the merrier!!!!) Then add the asparagus and pine nuts. I saved a bit of each to garnish on top of the served pasta. Stir it up and add some fresh lemon juice!

***This pasta was excellent the second day! I even had some a few days later. Just add some more lemon juice to freshen it up! It’s sooo tasty. This recipe serves about 4-5 people. There were 3 of us who had second helpings and there was tons left over! It would be a great dish to make on a Sunday night and continue to eat for the next few days. ***

It’s really good if you add Parmesan on it….I’m just saying….

Back to the visit….

We spent the day shopping in the city on Friday with another good friend and had sushi at a place called Cha-Ya in the Mission.

Here’s our table & the sea vegetable salad I ordered:

next we had edamame & the best miso soup I’ve ever had:

we devoured avocado rolls/avocado tempura rolls & eggplant nigiri:

fell in love with veggie tempura & the vegan roll:

On Saturday, we went to Fraiche in Palo Alto to get some soy frozen yogurt:

And for the big blow out, we went to Millennium in SF on Saturday night with my parents for a fab meal!

here’s our table & the menu:

we HAD to order the mushroom flatbread pizza & garlic fries:

scarfed down some fried mushrooms & avocado grapefruit salad

I ordered wild cherry & chard roulade & Erin picked the smoked tempeh with sweet potato mash

Casey got the edamame & shiitake cakes & I drank a sparkling grape soda with mint

For dessert…

coconut rosewater panna cotta with strawberry sorbet & pecan orange cake with mint julep sorbet

And of course…the sweet indulgence plate & a ginger lemon digestive drink to end!

Also during the weekend we:

- binged on the first season of Carnivale (love!)

- stayed up til 3am chatting

- went to Target, Sephora, H&M, & GAP

- ate our weight in bagel chips

-snacked on some ginger almond cookies

-tried to do pedicures…but gave them the cold shoulder

-had a drink with a friend

-shared home ideas over coffee & vegan pastries

-found out our good friend is having a baby girl!

-met an illustrator who had a high strung dog that bit my finger

It was such a good weekend. Thank you woot! I love you!