Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Yay for actually cooking!

I'm proud of myself because last time I made dinner (basil chicken in a coconut curry sauce) it actually turned out all right and I didn't poison anyone. Gives me hope for when I'm not living off my mom's good will anymore.

The best thing I made this week was a tomato-spinach-quinoa soup and caprese panini (which, I just learned, is plural. Panino is singular, but it's not used that way in the U.S.). I wanted a fancy version of grilled cheese and tomato soup, so I made one up. It was healthy, cheap, easy, and delicious. Also vegetarian.

Then I ate dinner at Panera for the first time tonight, and it put my efforts to shame.

Last night I made coconut chicken curry. And it was divine. I was supposed to make chicken zucchini curry, which I had never before tried, but we were drowning in zucchini and needed to do something with it. And after I pulled out most of the ingredients, I found out that my mother-in-law had thrown away all the zucchini. And there wasn't any ready in the garden yet. So we put that on hold. (For some weird reason, instead of growing 1-2 zucchinis at a time, it's growing two bunches of 4-6 zucchinis at a time. So when they hit, we drown in them.)

Oh, and last time I cooked, I made gnocchi with a homemade rosa sauce. (Well, the alfredo half wasn't homemade, but the tomato half was!) Also good. But not as good as the curry. But is anything as good as the curry?

For there record, I did make chicken zucchini curry, and it was rather tasty. Though, next time I'd put in more curry (it was a little bland) and swap out the evaporated milk for coconut milk.

I had leftover ends of lasagne noodles from making lasagne out of and we made pasta salad with it (olives, tomatoes, olive oil, vinegar, pepper, and Parmesan).

I had cereal last night, and will probably have mac and cheese tonight ... my roommate is on a diet and it seems pretty pointless for me to cook just for myself ...

Peaches boiled in simple syrup. Some French bread. Juice.

I'll probably have a steak tomorrow and salad with garden tomatoes. Recipes submitted to cookbooks would look like this:

Slice a peach. Add sugar and water. Boil. Consume?
Forage for lettuce and tomatoes. Procure dressing. Dress. Eat!

My various boyfriends have liked to make increasingly ridiculous cheesecakes, stuffed shells, peanut butter layer cookies, pizza from scratch . . . I enjoy the fruits of the labors but do not attempt, as with driving, ski jumping, and <i>The Glee Project</i>. I just don't get more utility out of multi-step meals than simple ones.

we went to the Ginger cafe in Springville, I had the falafel wrap and it was De-licious. My husband had the salmon and was pleasantly surprised that it was fresh.

Portia, I think I see the problem. The word "utility" has no place in fine dining.

Emiliana-- perhaps you could make a few meals and freeze the extra portions for later. That way you don't have to subsist only on mac and cheese, and you don't have to waste extra food either. Just a thought . . .

Halibut. I love halibut so much. If it wasn't $20/pound I would eat it every single day.

In the effort to reduce refined and processed foods in our house (and up our vegetable intake), I've been branching out with my dinners lately. We had spaghetti squash for the first time as a family (with marinara sauce and parmesan, asparagus on the side), and the kids ate it up! I also made a variation on this (http://www.thesisterscafe.com/2010/03/h ... noa-stew-2), which calls for dijon mustard. I thought it was a pleasant twist, but Sauron doesn't care for mustard, so I'm not sure he'll let me make it again. My daughter ate it happily, but my son just ate the carrots.

We had tacos last night. And lately we've been on a roasted veggies (potatoes, carrots, onions) kick which is great since we have tons of them from the garden. Cut up everything in bite-sized pieces, toss in olive oil and salt, bake on 425-450 for 30-45 minutes. Mmmmmm. We've started to have to double the recipe just so that we can have leftovers.

Heh, this seems as good a location as anywhere to post: friends of my wife run a warehouse-type business up in Lindon and they just had a couple pallets of lemon and lime juice get dumped on them. So if anyone on the message board has any desire for lemon or lime juice in bulk for cheap let us know. (By 'in bulk' I mean they have somewhere on the order of 2500 32oz bottles of the stuff, so they're selling it at under a buck a bottle, down to 50 cents each if you buy it by the case.)

Last night I made "refrigerator soup" because I had two tomatoes and three potatoes that I needed to use before they went bad. I threw in an onion, a few cloves of garlic, and a can of corn that I had on hand, plus some green beans, zucchini, and canelli beans that I bought for the occasion. Pretty dang good.

So I've discovered a really delightful, easy way to make a healthier "alfredo" sauce. After draining your pasta, just add three or four ounces of fat-free cream cheese, a few heavy shakes of garlic salt, and a little of the reserved pasta water to smooth it out. It's not as decadent as a true alfredo, but it's healthy, easy, and very tasty. It's also great with some veggies mixed in--I've tried things like sauteed carrots, roasted cauliflower, or spinach (from the freezer) mixed in with the pasta and sauce, and it's pretty dang great.

I did pull-apart pizza tonight. I love it, because it's so versatile. Take 2 cans of biscuits (or make your own, but I've never had luck with that, but my sister has) and cut them into fourths. (Unless they're jumbo sized, then I cut them into 6ths.) Add your sauce along the way so they don't stick together. Then add all your toppings (including cheese!) and mix it all together. Add only enough sauce to lightly cover everything (or it'll take forever to cook), pour into a greased 9x13, top with more cheese, bake at 350ish for 20-45 minutes. (Totally depends on how much sauce you put in.) Just keep checking to see if the biscuits are cooked. Use a fork to lift them up to see if they're still doughy. If it starts to brown before it cooks thoroughly, put tin foil on top.

Tonight I used ingredients from Papa Murphy's chicken, bacon, artichoke pizza. Love that pizza. So I used a garlic alfredo sauce, baby spinach, chopped bacon, shredded chicken, chopped up artichoke hearts, and mozzarella and parmesan cheese (ok, Papa Murphy's only listed parmesan, but I wasn't certain that'd hold it all together well, so I did mozzarella mixed in and parmesan on top). Oh, and I used italian seasoning for the "zesty spices".

So good!

Made delicious pumpkin soup last night (w paprika and garlic instead of bacon): http://allrecipes.com/recipe/creamy-pum ... etail.aspx

I love artichoke hearts on pizza! Spinach and zucchini are also good.

I made vegetarian potato soup: Boil three large potatoes and half an onion in 2 to 2 1/2 cups vegetable broth until the potatoes are slightly mushy. Mash them up a bit with a fork. Add 1 1/2 cups milk and a few tablespoons of butter; salt, black pepper, parsley, and thyme to taste. Cook without boiling about 10 more minutes.

I really, really love that it's soup weather.