Mexico has been on my mind a lot lately. Lazy afternoons by the pool, frequent naps, room service, and tacos… So many tacos… As many as I could shove in my face in one sitting.
Have you ever been able to eat just one taco? Me neither. Obviously.
Cheesy Orzo
I have had a box of orzo sitting in my pantry for a couple of months now because I had no idea what to do with it. Every recipe I found was for a pasta salad and since pasta salad is not something I like to eat regularly, I have been putting off using it.
FINALLY I found something to do with this rice-like pasta that is not a cold salad, but a warm, luscious, simple version of Mac and Cheese.
Sinfully Rich Reese’s Cheesecake Brownies
I feel like there is a lot of pressure put on people for office potlucks.
Though it’s not required, people are expected to bring something. If you don’t, well you aren’t making any new friends. If you do bring something, you are at least in the club, but if you bring something you bought from the store, those who put effort into making something turn their noses up at you ever so slightly. Oh and if you make something and it sucks, everyone will be talking about it.
After months and months of buying things for the potluck, the pressure finally got to me…
I caved.
Thus, the whole “healthy living” thing was put on hold for this ridiculous chocolate peanut butter mess. Peanut butter and chocolate is the one combination that no one can badmouth. Unless you hate chocolate.
Prosciutto Wrapped Chicken with Mozzarella and Basil
I remember when I lived in Italy how easy and inexpensive it was to get prosciutto at the grocery store. After making a habit of eating prosciutto and spicy salami sandwiches every day, coming back to Denver was a rude awakening when it came to my meat cravings. Though prosciutto was available to me, its cost slide outside of my poor college student budget and thus I was left to buy prosciutto only for very special occasions…
Good thing #5 about becoming an adult = having the funds to buy prosciutto whenever you want.
This is directly behind buying alcohol and eating cookie dough for dinner of course….
I am big believer in wrapping prosciutto around anything you can. Shrimp, asparagus, melon, scallops, the list goes on and on. Surprisingly enough, this is the first time I have wrapped chicken in this wondrous meat (which in my opinion is better than bacon by leaps and bounds… THAT’S saying something).
Back to the Kitchen – Shrimp and Bacon Risotto
Coming back to reality after a week of nothing but sleeping, eating, drinking, swimming, and celebration is SO HARD.
I am seriously struggling here.
My mind is in about five hundred different places at once and my usual to-do list just tripled in size.
Finding a moment to just breathe has been damn near impossible. Really I should have had the foresight to take an extra day to get back in the swing of things before returning to my normal routine. Hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?
I know you are all dying to see my pictures of Mexico (even though I neglected to take enough pictures of food and took way to many pictures of the ocean instead because I am a freak), but that will have to wait until later in the week.
Right now, I want to talk to you about this risotto…
My Love of Balsamic
This week I was craving balsamic vinegar. For me, this craving comes and goes every couple of months. I attribute it to my time spent in Rome. I was OBSESSED with the stuff while I was there. I wouldn’t go a day without it (this also applied to Nutella but I will save that love affair for another time).
After returning to Colorado, my favorite meal became tearing into a loaf of French bread and dousing it in balsamic vinegar… Super healthy, I know. Though I am pretty sure this love of balsamic is how I hooked my hubby. I remember when we first met we would hole ourselves up in my bedroom a few nights a week with a loaf of bread, some vinegar, and a movie. Yep, I’m a cheap date. 🙂
It’s A Pizza!
New flavor of the week – homemade pizza topped with mozzarella, goat cheese, pepper, tomatoes, and salami.
New adventure of the week – trying to spin pizza dough (I don’t believe this is the correct terminology but I am going with it since it sounds better than ‘pulling’). Yea, this is definitely not one of my strengths… It began with a rolling pin but that just wasn’t cutting it with the pizza dough we bought (yes, it still counts as homemade pizza even though I didn’t make the dough. I didn’t say dough made from scratch, now did I?). So I thought about all those shows I have seen where people are spinning their dough in the air with the greatest of ease… This turned into me clumsily throwing dough in the air a couple of times before I realized this course of action could result in the puppy having a yummy dinner made of flour and gluten. So I began tossing it back and forth between my hands, and soon the dough began to stretch. My hopes for a perfectly shaped pizza began to soar until the dough began tearing. At this point I am covered in flour and alternating between pulling, tossing, and rolling the dough out. After all this effort and making a massive mess I successfully ended up with a round shaped pizza – not quite a circle, not quite an oval, but it still had round edges in the end! The rest of the process was a blast. Smothering dough in sauce and cheese and picking out random toppings is just as fun now as it was when I was 10 years old. [Read more…]
