Friday, February 17, 2012

Week 7, Day 6 - Hello 100!!

As the craziness of life has begun to creep up on me, this project has somewhat fallen to the wayside.  Don't get me wrong, I'm still cooking in the Smitten Kitchen every night for dinner.  But I've lost the zeal for lunch and breakfast recipes and baking just because I feel like it.  I'm not too concerned - it will return.  However, amidst all the busyness, I complety neglected the fact that at the end of week six I reached the 100 recipe mark!!  Woohoo!  And, if you refer back to the ridiculous calculations I presented here (Eh, maybe don't refer back.  Just take my word for it.) you will see that I was actually ahead of schedule!  Which will make up a bit for my recent streak of laziness.  So now, let's catch up, shall we?  

We kicked off the week with a late night Mexican dinner called Migas with Chipotle Coulis (or, if you're my husband, "something Spanish").  Here's the jist of it all:  You make a savory coulis - think pureed goodness - of tomato, onion, and chipotle and top that with this cooked mix of chorizo, homemade corn chips, and scrambled eggs.  Then, if you're me, top it with cheddar cheese and serve with sour cream.  Straight up, the dish is not attractive.  But you're tastebuds will love it and one bite will have your eyes forgiving you.



Tuesday was Valentine's day which means basically nothing in our house.  However, it ended up being a good excuse to make a themed craft at playdate and while my friends took care of that, I made lunch.  Because it was supposed to be cold and snowy, I made this roasted tomato soup that sounded heavenly mostly because it is topped with a crouton "lid".  Deb makes these in individual mugs which are so cute that next time it will be motivation enough to go out and buy some oven-proof mugs.  Alas, having none, I settled with a pot and 12 mini croutons.  And though the snowy afternoon actually became a gorgeous warm day, the failure of meal-matching-weather did not spoil the deliciousness.  For dinner I made what I deemed a quintessential Valentine's day food - mushroom lasagna.  Something about Valentine's day makes me think Italian restaurant (hey, it's where my girl Sue got to go!) so I thought this lasagna fit the Italian bill but in a more grown-up way. Lasagna does not need to have red sauce.

On Wednesday I spent three hours in my kitchen baking six layers of two very different types of cake (more on these later).  Needless to say, I made dinner easy.  Linguine with an almond pesto.  The fresh basil and Deb's gorgeous beach-town pictures make this a wonderful summer dish.  Ah, summer...I can dream, right?

We went out with a bang last night - short ribs on a bed of Swiss chard and pearl onions topped with a horseradish cream and sided up with creamy mashed potatoes.  Woah, I know.  We bought the short ribs this past weekend from the farm - a couple days defrosting, an overnight marinade, then hours braising in the oven led to a fall-off-the-bone red meat goodness that we sadly do not enjoy often enough.  Oh - and just when you start to feel like you know it all...My mashed potatoes came out gummy.  This was strike two.  Strike one was Christmas day when I was asked "Why are the potatoes like caramel"?  Who messes up mashed potatoes and who does it twice?  Well, I determined to get to the bottom of it, and I did - overmixing.  You see, in an attempt to move things along and also avoid using any extra ounce of energy, I came up with the brilliant idea to make them in my food processor.  Bad idea!  Lesson learned and hopefully lesson taught as well.

Finishing up the second of two cakes tomorrow, so expect sweetness ahead.


*New here?  Check out this post for all the details on the project!*

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