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cooking

COOKING UP ITALY

While shopping around Amalfi, I spotted the prettiest pasta I’ve ever seen! Take a look –

HOW GORGEOUS?! Almost too pretty to eat, almost ;) Few Sundays back we cooked up a version of this recipe. Only thing I recall leaving out was the heavy cream and cheese, to keep it a little lighter, instead used shaky parm.

Luckily, it yielded enough for two nights, glad we got to eat again because it turned out so yummy!

To make the Italian themed dinner even more complete, we made Lemon Spritz, which are so tasty and easy.

  • 2 ounces chilled limoncello
  •  8 ounces chilled prosecco
  •  sparkling water
  •  2 slices lemon
  •  ice
  •  fresh mint, for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Divide limoncello and Prosecco between two glasses. Top up with as much sparkling water as you’d like. Give each glass a squeeze of fresh lime juice, stir, and add ice.

During our dinner we brought up categories from our trip and listed off our favorite memories – few examples – excursion, city, meal, souvenir, etc. it was so fun to relive the trip while it was fresh in our minds. I highly suggest this idea – grabbing something to cook on a trip, cooking with partner or travel friend or even someone who didn’t go but sharing the experience and reminiscing!

RECIPES | COOKING FLOURISHING FOODIE

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For Saturday’s football watching meetup with friends I made a roasted cauliflower leek and carrot soup by Flourishing Foodie, recipe can be found here.

Overall it was easy it just got a little tricky when I transferred the soup into the blender since it had to be done in batches. Her recipe yielded about 6 servings – we shared with friends, had one small helping and then another medium size helping. Perfection!

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She said to serve lukewarm, we ate it both ways. I preferred warmer.

Very much recommend!

Tonight I’m checking out Dixon Rye, a new homeware and design shop on the Westside in the old Atlanta Iron Works building. I’ll have the camera in tow so stay tuned for a peak inside the store!

RECIPES | COOKING SMITTEN KITCHEN

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We had another rainy weekend so I took the downtime to continue on this baking streak I’ve got going.  Since I still had most of the buttermilk from last weekend I looked thru Smitten Kitchen and found her recipe for her “favorite buttermilk biscuits” which were easy peasy!

 

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Couple things I did differently (and maybe shouldn’t have…)

-I don’t have a circle cookie so I used a small bowl which is not the same but worked fine.
-Thought we had baking soda and didn’t so we did some research and just adjusted the baking powder, it worked but I’d like to retry with ALL the ingredients in her recipe.
-Lastly, I rolled them out a little thinner than she had mentioned. Which made them rise a lot less (really not at all) but I didn’t mind. They were still light and for the breakfast sandwich (below) Dustin just doubled up with two.
-Add chopped rosemary which was a good idea but I wish I had just put in the mix versus on top (though I like the way it looks in the photo) because it would have stayed moist and we would have tasted it more. I love me some rosemary!

Overall, they tasted really really good! And like I mentioned, they were light and didn’t make us feel uncomfortably full.

On Sunday, I took the leftovers and made biscuits and gravy using local Delia’s chicken sausage.

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Not pictured: the smothering we did with Cholula, we love that stuff!

Dustin and I were pleased with both meals. During the breakfast sandwich I exclaimed “I don’t want this to ennnnnd!” it was THAT good!

Next up, a leek + carrot + cauliflower soup via Flourishing Foodie!

RECIPES | COOKING LOCAL MILK

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From the bridal shower and sending out our official invites with all the information on them, we’ve started receiving wedding gifts which has been a lot of fun – Like an early Christmas!

We’ve been replacing old baking sheets with fresh new ones and donating usable items, like our plates and bowls, to Goodwill. One of the most exciting gifts so far has been the Kitchenaid mixer.  I’ve wanted one since my mom got hers when I was in 1st grade!

What else to do with all these new kitchen gadgets then to BAKE! On Sunday I baked two recipes I had been eyeballing. Both come from Local Milk blog and both contain buttermilk.

The first one is an apple and rosemary quickbread and the second is blueberry and goat cheese hand pies.

I won’t tell you it’s a breeze baking things from scratch but I will say I had a whole lot of fun running around the kitchen, experimenting and experiencing things I had yet to do!
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This milk company just appeared at my local Kroger and they do a bottle exchange “bring back this empty bottle and receive $2 off your next Homestead Creamery purchase” which I thought is pretty cool! I don’t drink regular milk but when it comes to buttermilk, I’ll definitely continue to use this company!

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My experience:
Not sure if it was because I did these in the disposable, paper loafs or what but I had to add on a good bit of time to Beth’s suggested 35-45 minutes, somewhere around 15-20 minutes extra.

How it tasted:
It’s like Fall in a loaf a really, really yummy loaf!  Like she suggested, best served warm.

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These lil guys were a boatload of fun! I couldn’t tell you the last time I used a rolling pin but love the marble one my friend Liz gave us from West Elm. The weight of it helps with the momentum and makes it a breeze (well, after the dough became more room temperature.)

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My experience:
I used the exact measurements provided with both the dough and filling and ended up with more filling than dough. But this may be because I was scared to overfill. I also chose to look for basil in the neighboring community garden and didn’t have any luck so that was forgone in the recipe but they still came out A+++

We’ve only had them once so far and warmed up and topped with Greek yogurt. OMGOOD. You could also try with vanilla ice cream!

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Before I tasted either I was patting myself on the back, simply for them coming out the oven looking edible…and then I had a taste and was like ..YOU GO GIRL! Pretty proud of myself for these babies!

I didn’t include the recipes here because Beth put in a lot of work so visit her site if you’re interested in trying these. Bread recipe here. Pie recipe here.

Let the baking begin! *Maybe I should wait till AFTER the wedding to get really into this?!?!