Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Cooking Marathon


For reasons I no longer remember after washing the sixth (or was it the seventh) sinkful of dishes, pots and pans in four days, I had arranged to have dinner guests Saturday and Sunday nights and told my husband I really felt like cooking and eating in on Friday. To top it off on Monday night I tested a recipe destined to be published in a food magazine to be named later (more on that when it happens).

Friday night was whole wheat pasta with feta cheese, garlic, red onions, kale, rapini (a green), carrots. It felt wholesome and was yummy and provided quick lunch sustenance for the cooking marathon ahead of me.

Saturday night I served cider vinegar chicken (a recipe I came up with based on the taste I had a taste for, click on the link for the recipe), mashed potatoes (made with olive oil and chicken stock), asparagus, green salad, fresh bread (which I didn't bake) and homemade pumpkin pie (which I did, even the crust).

Sunday night I used recipes from The New Spanish Table Cookbook which I basically liked but had some quibbles. The Roasted Vegetable Soup was very similar in taste to the one I made from Super Natural Cooking, but was a lot more work. Because I didn't know if my guests were anchovy lovers, I skipped the anchovy paste topping for the croutons served with the soup and substituted olive tapenade, which worked well. The main course was a paella that I adapted. I am a fairly experienced paella maker and I thought the recipe had a lot of extra steps that didn't particularly add to the flavor or impact of the dish. It was fine and was enjoyed by all, even me, but I wouldn't make it again. I've used this cookbook before and have been very happy with the results, so my most recent experience with the cookbook is not typical of the results I've gotten with it. Oh, and we had pumpkin pie for desert (I made two on Saturday.)

Tonight, well, I made (censored).

What's on the menu for the rest of the week? Leftovers.

In other news, pop on over to Sugar Savvy and read my post about the most incredible rose sorbet.

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