Eating Dinner With My Family

I loved tonight's dinner. We had our "Meatless Monday" tonight as we had guests Monday night and just swapped days we made meatless. I had an eggplant from Front Porch Pickings so yippee I get to make some even though the boys aren't fans.  Just one more great reason to use a csa or community sponsored agriculture.  (Although FPP is better than any other one I have used. I love that you can customize your baskets.)  Funny story my husband started singing "you down with FPP " so of course I answered "yea you know me". Your welcome for the ear worm.  But back to having a CSA, there are so many reasons I love and advocate for people joining one.  First and most important to the foodie in me is that the quality, flavor and variety can't be matched by a large grocery.  Secondly it is the healthiest option for your produce.  Local means more time to mature on the plant and more nutrients in your food.  The delivery of local and seasona...

I got the most beautiful tagine as a gift from my MIL.  I have been wanting one for a long time.  Now I am not timid in the kitchen, but I was a little nervous about using the clay vessel with the glass top stove, so after a bit of poking around on the Internet, I ordered a heat diffuser and a cookbook about cooking in these clay vessels.   The heat diffuser was recommended by the makers of my tagine but didn't say required, but I figured for 12 dollars it was worth the insurance.  I should have checked to see if my tagine fit inside my cast iron skillet, but too late:).  This is my first recipe out of the cookbook I ordered Tagines & Couscous .  If this recipe is the only one we like, the book was worth it.  We had some wonderful friends over, who didn't mind being guinea pigs to our first attempt with the tagine as well as the recipe;).  The only ingredient that I couldn't find at my local publix was the ghee.  The cookbook ...

My darling husband took me out to lunch the other day.  We went to a new resturant in town that had it's good points and bad.  It's biggest fault was that everything was overpriced for the quality.  Some parts of the dish would be good, but other aspects would take away from the good points.  That's a problem this price point.  Anyways, I digress.  One of the really good things was their Romesco sauce. (that were over unremarkable meatballs)  So I went and found several recipes for Romesco Sauce and dishes that have Romeso in it.  I chose this one first because it seemed the most basic and I had shrimp.  The sauce was OUTSTANDING! The shrimp with it was good too.  The flatbreads... well lets just say that they were less than sucessful.  I don't know if the yeast was dead, if I made the water a little too warm or what but the dough didn't rise at all. The resulting bread was edible but didn't do anything add to the dish.  Consid...

I have an absolute addiction to the Blue Diamond Wasabi and Soy almonds!  I could eat them until my eyes water, and then eat some more.  They are not the cheapest snack, especially when you eat them like I do.  I need to limit myself to the one ounce portion size recommended for heart health;).  So, when I saw that blue diamond had a recipe for wasabi almonds, I couldn't wait to try them out.  (my previous attempts to recreate them have never lived up to the original!)  The first thing I saw was that I had been seriously under portioning the wasabi powder.  This recipe called for 2 whole tablespoons!  I liked the fact it called for an egg white; I individually freeze egg whites whenever I need just a yolk.  I am always looking to thin out the bulging pantry and fridge/freezer.  When I reached the stir part in the baking, I noticed that the almonds were stuck in a giant chunk.  So when I "gently stirred" I actually beat the almo...