Cooking Night

Last night was a night of cooking. I sadly, didn't take pictures, but maybe will one day! Not only did I make dinner (with The Pedant!), but I also made soup and zucchini bread and TP made mac and cheese.

Mac and Cheese (times 2)
There was a tiny bit of confusion between me and TP about dinner. I was going to make a baked mac and cheese for dinner since I had milk to use. This is a Vegetarian Times recipe and it's pretty fantastic: using skim milk, you create a "cream" sauce and then add in 1/2 a cup of reduced fat cheddar cheese and 2 tablespoons of Parmesan. You top it with panko and then bake it. It comes out really great and much healthier than regular mac and cheese. So, I had to run some errands after work and asked TP to start water for the pasta. He got home earlier than I expected and started to make the pasta from the mac and cheese he got from the BBQ festival. Since it was Kraft and gooey and delicious (read: too many WW points...) he ended up making the Kraft stuff for himself and we made the mac and cheese from VT for dinner still.

Green Beans
We got a TON of green beans from our CSA and are making a Hungarian Strogonoff in the slow cooker tomorrow, we made a sort of French style green beans with almonds. TP did most of the cooking (I was doing zucchini bread) and they came out great. The beans were still crispy and the slivered almonds were perfectly toasty. It was a great dinner: baked mac and cheese and green beans.

Squash Soup
Since squash is in season, I made (yet again) my new favorite soup - Chilled Curried Squash Soup. (I already have 2 containers in the freezer!) Plus, since squash is in season and super cheap at the Farmer's Market, it's so tasty. It's pretty easy (I've blogged about it here) and fun to play with. For this one, I think I put in too much salt (or, parve chicken soup) and a bit too much curry, but I think it's still tasty.

Zucchini Bread
As I said in my last post, I got a TON of zucchini. I used half of the GIANT one (which means I still have 1/2 a giant zucchini and a large one left!) and made 4 zucchini breads. The recipe I have makes 2 loaves, so I bought some aluminum pans at the Teet on Monday (I only have 2 loaf pans). It was a GIANT batter. I had to use my GIANT glass bowl to mix and it was a work out. Nonetheless the bread came out great and tasty. I've gotten several complements from my coworkers (I brought in a loaf) and will enjoy the other 3 loaves in my freezer.

But now - I need to do something with the rest of my zucchini. Ideas??

Squash and such

A post! Finally!

It's been a busy summer - between work being busy and taking a class, it's been a rough summer for blogging. And cooking! We've been in and out and busier so although we have great CSA produce, it's not necessarily blog worthy - nothing new and exciting.

However, I did make zucchini bread this weekend with a zucchini from the farm and I loved it. Super tasty. I will probably make it again since I just got a HUGE zucchini from the neighbor of a friend's parents. I might even make 4 loafs (my recipe makes 2 loafs - although I only have 2 loaf pans...) it's that giant.

This weekend was spent with friends at their parent's lovely house in New Jersey. My friend L. made a really fantastic dinner: soba noodles (which were basically cold sesame noodles - my FAVORITE), a bean and squash salad, and seared tuna (The Pedant loved it). She also made a plum and cherry crumble, which was perfect (and better the next day for breakfast). We had cocktails of champagne and strawberry puree and some cheese which was great. For lunch yesterday we all went for dim sum.

Tonight's food will likely be pizza at costco since TP and I need to get some shopping done.