Friday, January 02, 2009

What's cooking?

One of the things I've been meaning to write about here is what's happening in the kitchen. The boy and I keep talking about doing some serious menu planning and keeping track of all the tasty things we've tried, so that when we ask "what's for dinner?" there's a go-to list. Basic, right? We've had some half-hearted attempts, but what better time to start with a full-blown attempt than January 1st? So being the geeks that we are, we now have a shared google doc spreadsheet with our daily menu with links to the recipes and all!

MEYER-LEMON GNOCCHI
I had been meaning to make gnocchi for the boy since moving here. He loves it and I had tried it out on my family last spring to rave reviews. So on New Year's Day we had a marathon gnocchi-making session—Meyer-lemon gnocchi. Well, sort of. After one too many glasses of champagne I proceeded to add the
zest of the specially purchased meyer lemons to the egg whites, instead of the egg yolks necessary for the dough. Oops! Ah well, zested some regular old lemons and had zesty Meyer lemon french toast the next day! All rocked in the end! While I don't have snaps of that venture, below is our Jan. 2nd dinner: the boy's creation of a yummy layered concoction of rice, refried beans, leftover steak, jalapenos, sour cream, cucumbers and cheese, all dipped into with tortilla chips -- Yummy!

More eating adventures to follow shortly.


Crafty gifts

I wanted to make as many of Christmas gifts as possible this year -- since I had some extra time and NEED to save money! I decided to go with a cooking theme, since it's something my family enjoys doing together and that I've been doing a lot of these days. I made my own recipe books with my favorite recipes from 2008 and packaged them with felted potholders that I knit. Yippeee! They turned out pretty well, though these pictures are quite crappy.

Baby blanket knitting completed—finally!

I am pleased to say that I finally finished knitting a baby blanket I started more than a year ago (said baby is now 1 1/2 years old—oops!) I think I actually finished the knitting in November, but it took December to get the finishing details. In the end, I'm very happy with it and still like the pattern. Have a look at left.