CTB 2014 - Williams Sonoma - New York

I have two full containers of corn meal in my cupboard. I was making pizza and bought some. Then I was making another pizza and bought another one. What's a girl to do with all that corn meal? 

Make fried polenta!

This stuff is so freaking good. It's a side that takes a bit of preparation, but it's totally worth it. 

I made a similar recipe many many years ago, when I was still in grad school. When I happened on this recipe in the Williams-Sonoma - New York City cookbook, I knew that I had to make them again. Especially since this recipe was classed up with mushrooms and mascarpone cheese. 

You should definitely make this for dinner. It's ah-mazing!

Make Ahead Monday - Chicken & Rice

Sometimes you just want to come home to a meal on the table.  When you are the main meal prepared of the household, this is a rare occurrence.  It is with this desire in mind, that I decided to bring about Make Ahead Meals, or MAM Mondays (Oops, make that Tuesday this week!)!  Based on the traditional 1950's casserole dinner, but with a healthy 2010's twist.  MAMs are made on the weekend and cooked during the week in the oven or crockpot!

You all know I'm not really a fan of condensed soups and I love my dinners to be full of vegetables.  Most MAMs that I come across are either prepared with two cans of condensed soup, or are simply pasta with sauce covered in cheese.  I like to call these "comfort casseroles."  With springtime approaching (and bikini season around the corner), I'm looking to keep the MAMs light and healthy.

The best thing about the MAMs that I have prepared so far, I come home to Boyfriend in the kitchen, pulling a hot dish out of the oven.  His timing is usually pretty good as he stalks me with his phone to see when I'm coming home.  (Want to stalk your significant other?  Download the Find My Friends app to their iPhone and yours.  Authorize each phone to view the other.  Voila - you've just lo-jacked your SO.)

This weeks MAM is a creamy chicken and rice casserole.  I added way more mushrooms and peas than the original recipe called for, because mushrooms are delicious.  I threw this meal together on Sunday in about thirty minutes and BF tossed it in the oven Wednesday night for a quick heat through and crisp up.  I was enjoying dinner a mere minutes after I got home.  Which when your commute is two hours each way, sometimes it's nice to not worry about what is for dinner.

Have any favorite casseroles that you want to see lightened up and made into a MAM?  Drop me a comment below and I'll see what I can do for you!

Morel Risotto

I wanted to take a minute to thank you all for helping out with my bake sale benefiting Relay for Life.  With your help, we were able to raise over $350 for the cause!  Thank you so much!  I'm very excited to take part in the Relay this coming June.  Now, to celebrate our successful fundraiser, I've made you a fancy dinner.


They're so weird looking!

According to my mother, I have spent 26 of my 30 years on this earth going to school.  I started pre-school at the sweet age of 3.  Blonde with ringlet pigtails, I headed off into the world to learn my ABCs and 123s.  Apparently I wanted to go to school the year before because my brother was going and I was jealous. 

I always liked school.  I liked learning, taking tests, doing homework and bringing home good grades.  When I got a good report card we went to the toy store and I got more Barbies.  High marks = more Barbies.  That's some good math for a little girl.

As I continued through high school, the Barbie brides fell away and I simply realized my nerd potential and kept up my good grades.  I don't think it would surprise you if I said I took advanced placement chemistry and placed in the top of the New York State Chemistry challenge.

I spent a year in college, trying to pretend that I wasn't a big old nerd.  I was a photography major!  I spent hours learning about shutter and aperture, shooting roll after roll of film and wandering blindly through the color darkroom.  I wasn't a nerd, I was an artist!  Unfortunately, I was doing better in my calculus classes than I was in my art classes (I am not a painter).  Come sophomore year, I switched majors and the rest is history (or a story for another time!).

Ravioli di taleggio con salsa alle spugnole

After our journey through Paris and our trials in getting a rental car, we made our way through Switzerland into Italy via train.  We decided that it would be a bad idea to try and learn how to drive a manual transmission car and drive it through the Swiss alps.  This was the best decision of our entire trip.  While we ended up missing out on a day in Interlocken, we gained so much more time by travelling by train. 

Rather than focussing on maps and driving directions, we took our time on the rails to learn about our next destination, play games and talk with fellow travellers.  We travelled through the mountains, skirted lakes and pulled into Venice, from our window seats.

After we checked our luggage at the baggage drop, we made our way through the winding streets of Venice.  A pair of American tourists gave us their vaparetto passes (their friends gave us a second pair, which we passed along to a couple on their honeymoon), which allowed us access to the Venice boat busses. 

We rode the vaparetto along the grand canal and under the Rialto bridge, passed by gondolas and ancient churches.  As the grand canal opened up into the lagoon boyfriend turned to me and "This is completely surreal."  Even though we had seen so many famous landmarks, climbed an unbelievable amount of stairs and taken hundreds of photos, this was truely a surreal moment.

Of all the days we spent travelling across the continent, I remember that day in Venice so vividly.  Our walk around Piazza San Marco, the amazing mushroom tortellini from a hidden bistro and the hazelnut gelato we ate while watching a crazy house dog, all combined for a perfect day in such a unique city.  It would have been a perfect day, had our hotel not given away our room and sent us to the Hotel Marco Polo.


At least it has one redeeming quality, it's PINK!



Brining memories home with mushroom ravioli



Thai Chicken Soup

The weather has taken a turn for the worse here in New Jersey!  Walking out of my apartment yesterday morning I was confronted with a torrential downpour.  By the time I got to work, the temperature had dropped by ten degrees and the wind had increased by twenty miles per hour. 

The weather seemed to deteriorate as the day went on.  By lunchtime, the winds howled and a chill began to take hold.  Shortly after returning from lunch we sat in our office (discussing highly intellectual things like chemical bonding and cell assays) (actually, I think we were talking about food), I looked out the window to discover hail bouncing off of the windows.

Waiting on the train platform everyone looked like cows, with their backs to the wind.  Forty mile per hour gusts blasted us commuters, tearing through even the thickest jacket, scarf or hat.  I was never so happy to see the train lights cutting through the night.

In an effort to warm up, spicy soup was in order.  Luckily, this soup was ready in no time flat.  The stock and chicken were prepared this weekend, the thing that took the longest time was cleaning the mushrooms!  Boyfriend and I were warm in no time!