Dinner Last Night

Since I was doing some home work and The Pedant was researching, dinner last night was fast and simple. I decided to make a kind of succotash, since I had a yellow squash and corn from my CSA. Also, I love succotash. I kind of made it up as I went along, somewhat following a recipe I'd made before for zucchini and green bean succotash from my favorite Weight Watcher's cookbook. First, I sauteed half an onion and some garlic until nice and brown. Then I added in a chopped yellow squash and some frozen lima beans with salt, pepper and ancho chili powder and a bit of EVOO. I then let it get all caramelized and tasty and threw in some corn that I was boiling. And it was tasty. A perfect late summer dinner (and lunch for today too!).

Brunch 2: The Brunchening

Yesterday the Sherbs and I made brunch for about ten people. Our menu, revealed now that the guests are no longer surprised by our cooking ability:

1) Mini Fritatta from our super-difficult vegetarian cookbook. This recipe puts sauteed leeks and cubed sweet potato into an egg/feta mixture, then bakes them in muffin tins. They were crumbly, but delicious.

2) Shakshouka from the Sherbs's personal recipe.

3) Egg salad with caramelized onions, also from the Sherbs.

4) The corn, snap peas, pepper, and dill salad from the diet blog that had done so well for us in the past.

5) Home-made pita chips (whole wheat pita) coated with a little bit of olive oil and zatar, then baked. Served with store bought hummus and babaganouj, and home-made lima bean dip.

6) Fruity couscous from a Weight Watcher's cookbook. You can put in three times as much orange juice as the recipe requires and it will turn out OK.

7) Fruit salad.

Other people brought desserts, including some delectable lemon squares, and delicious fun was had by all. Today the Sherbs and I had Brunch 2, where we ate the leftovers; the mini fritatta went quite well with two strips of Morningstar fake bacon and slices of toasted blueberry breakfast bread spread with Smart Balance "spread."

Chick-a-pea-pea-pea-pea...

Spring is slowly coming, and I recall my youth in Massachusetts, when the merry chickadee would make its appearance.

Also, because the Sherbs and I made a chickpea dish out of Vegetarian Times. It was a "chickpea and butternut squash stew," or more accurately, chickpeas in prefab butternut squash soup, over couscous. It wasn't quite as flavor-riffic as I was hoping, but it was tasty, which is more than could be said for the tahini soup fiasco of last week.

I'm having my tuna casserole from last Saturday for lunches this week; it's Campbell's recipe, but with Teet brand condensed soup, baby lima beans instead of peas, canned green and wax beans instead of pimientos (who eats those, anyway?), and extra mushrooms for greater shroominess (we do this with the slow cooker hot & sour soup, too - we add Teet brand canned straw mushrooms, my favorite mushroom of all time).

Finally, this is an accurate assessment of the Wii game Cooking Mama, which I found frustrating.

Lima Beans = Amazing

I think The Pedant summed up what I wanted to say about the Ren Faire. Totally a (sub)culture shock (it was my first). Amusing and entertaining, minus the fact I stained my brand new shirt. With Corn on the Cob. I don't know how that's quite Renaissance, but... it was tasty!

In other food news, TP and I made an interesting creation last night for dinner: Lima-Bean Pot Pie. It was based off of Chicken Pot Pie, but we appended TP's mom's recipe. We used lima beans for protein (since tofu would have had an odd texture and the Chick'n Strips would have disintegrated) and instead of pie crusts, used Grands Biscuits (the kind in the cool tube) on top. It was a success. Quite tasty. It did taste exactly like the frozen CPP I used to have as kid.