What I assumed would be a Monday snow day, when I made the menu for the week, ended up being a snow week. The cold weather and extra time around the house allowed for some fun, leisurely cooking. Enjoy our week of warm winter foods:
- "Smokin' Drunkin' Chili" was our candidate for the preliminary chili community group cook off. Usually, our chili recipes are very thrown together: 15 bean dried soup mixes, veggies galore, meat, tomato, etc...but we figured that if we were going to have to reproduce this recipe if chosen to represent the C.G. The original recipe comes from The Healthy Hedonist: More Than 200 Delectable Flexitarian Recipes for Relaxed Daily Feasts - Paperback (Aug. 30, 2005) by Myra Kornfeld and Sheila Hamanaka. However, we took a few liberties to suite our tastes. For example, the recipe uses a meat substitute--not us. We used some bacon and shredded chicken that was cooked in the cast iron. Now that's what we call "smokin'." Other smokey flavors spawned from the chipotle peppers and zesty tomatoes. The "drunkin" end of the title is from the bottle of beer you add to the mix. We are happy to say that the C.G. gave it two thumbs up, and we will be reproducing it for the official cook off event.
Lentil Soup was a much welcomed new recipe to try after a day of watching, walking, and playing in the snow. We were showered with 7-8 inches, making it the most snow A. and I had seen in a long time. The soup recipe came from
Everyday Food: Great Food Fast by Martha Stewart Living Magazine. It was a great way to use bacon, lentils, and carrots that we had on hand, and it went well with golden raisin bread that we had received as a gift from friends! Another plus to this meal was that we were able to share it with a friend that A. rescued from her apartment.
Curry Chicken with Couscous, Spinach, and Golden Raisins, another recipe from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast by Martha Stewart Living Magazine. Instead of using curry powder, I made use of some red curry paste that we had in the pantry. I liked that this recipe used chopped red potatoes in it and was pleasantly surprised with how well the sauteed spinach and golden raisins paired with the dish.
*Note on the picture: the cookbook page shown is were the spinach recipe came from, not the curry chicken. 
Sweet Potato/Spinach Mac. Now this was another Frankenstein recipe. I was reading through Everyday Food: Great Food Fast I came across a recipe for squash and shells recipe. Basically, you brown onion, add pureed butternut squash to it, mix it with pasta, Parmesan, and bread crumbs, and bake. Well, instead of butternut squash, I mixed a package of frozen spinach, the leftover sweet potato cream sauce from last week's gnocchi meal, and used macaroni noodles instead of shells. The result was a cozy, comfortable meal that made great leftovers. The hardest/most time consuming part of this meal was waiting for the onions to brown and resisting the urge to stir them.
That was the bulk of our meals. We did try two sweet recipes that we were able to make and take to share with others.
Chocolate Cherry Scones: This was originally a breakfast apple scone recipe (Apple Cookbook by Olwen Woodier) that we finagled into a dessert scone. Instead of cinnamon and nutmeg we substituted unsweetened cocoa powder and we nixed the apple for chocolate chips and dried cherries.
- Banana Chocolate Trifle: About a year ago, A. stumbled across a chocolate chip cookbook, The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook: Recipes from the Classic Cookie to Mocha Chip Meringue Cake [Bargain Price] [Paperback]Elinor Klivans. Thus far, we have enjoyed every treat that we have tried from the book (chocolate chip bread pudding, mocha chocolate moose, chocolate chip chiffon cake...). This is a bi-fold recipe. First, you make the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Banana Cookies. Next, you use those cookies in the following trifle rotation: fresh whipped cream, sliced bananas, bittersweet chocolate drizzle, cookies, repeat... Then all of that goes into the refrigerator to chill unit set. Yum, yum, yum!
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