Thursday, September 22, 2011

Update:

Cookery!

For some reason this last week I've had the urge to cook all the things!

Last week we went to visit a friend who just had a baby and so we brought them a casserole, an apple cake, and 2 blankets my mom made. This is the same friend I gave the little blue sweater with the star buttons, if you recall. At the same time I made another casserole and apple bread for us, and so my oven was actually full! I don't know if it's ever been that full before!


This weekend I made another apple cake to bring when we played Battlestar Galactica, only I used Frangelico in this one because I was out of amaretto. It was good but I think the amaretto version smelled better :)

On Monday I spent most of the night making chicken croquettes from my cousin's recipe, because there are several stretches of time where they need to rest. The recipe made 15, so I froze about half of them and we had some for dinner on Tuesday along with glazed carrots (I leave out the parsley and pepper from that recipe) and roasted asparagus. The roasted asparagus was both incredibly easy and good! All I did was trim the ends, roll them in olive oil, sprinkle with kosher salt and a little pepper and roast for 10-15 minutes at 400, but I think they were Ben's favorite vegetable I've made yet! he told me I should have taken a picture, but I was too hungry :)

And yesterday I made adorable little mini meatloves! They were so tiny and cute! That recipe made 6, so we have enough leftovers I won't need to make any main dishes for a week! I served them with leftover carrots and green beans almondine with well-roasted almonds, yum.

I have bananas ripening on the counter which are destined to become banana bread this weekend, and last night I had an urge to make chocolate chip cookies, though I resisted it. I might make some dough tomorrow and just make 4 cookies and freeze the rest, hmm...

I'd almost forgotten how much I love to bake! It's like doing chemistry but ending up with baked goods, it's awesome.

I told Ben I was probably reacting to the change in the weather, fall is coming so I want to make things with apples and stock our larder! He cracked up because by "change in weather" I mean it's down to 92 F (33 C) :)

I am excited though, I think I'm getting better at meal-planning and coordinating side dishes. It's harder than it seems to make a whole meal ready at roughly the same time every weekday! Growing up my family ate dinner together pretty much every night and it's important to me that we do the same, it's a really good bonding time I think, so we are all formal about it, it's fun.