Vegetarian Night

Saturday night seemed like a good time for the next round of the project. I figured I'd let Summer decide what was for dinner. She went with vegitarian fare. I guess the plan is to make everything in the book, so what the heck, and although I would never go completely vegetarian, there are a lot of great vegetarian dishes out there. Besides, it gave me an oppurtunity to make polenta from scratch.

So, last night we invited our vegetarian friend Kalie over. (Yes, we have a vegetarian friend; we are hip like that.) I made 'Soft Polenta w/ Caramelized Onions and Spinach' and the 'Edamame and Cherry Medly'. What's a medly you ask? As far as I can tell, it's a salad. Anyway, Both dishes were pretty simple to make, but both needed plenty of saute time and working out the balancing act became a bit of a chore. I think I need to plan better. The Polenta was very easy to make. I'm excited to do different things with it and try for a firmer polenta. The rest was also easy, but a bit more involved, and as I mentioned, a bit of a juggling act. Still everything turned out good. I did get good feedback from the diners, although they may have just been being nice. Not sure I would make either dish the same way again, but could see experimenting with them.

Well, I probably won't be working on the project for a little while. The fam is headin' out west in a couple days to holiday with the in-laws. I have been commisioned to do Christmas dinner, but they want traditional, so sadly nothing from 'Colore' will be making an appearance. I'll probably whip something up later on in the trip with some of that fresh California produce I've heard so much about.

On a side note, I can hear my poor wife sobbing in the other room. I mean really sobbing...as in a big blubbering baby. Apparently the end of 'Marley and Me' is quite touching. You gotta love her!

Until next time...Happy Holidays to all 3 of you!

And so it begins...

...ok, so it actually began a few days ago. I decided to start simple. I made the Open-Face Tuna Melt and a Cantaloupe and Avocado Salad w/ Chili Dressing. I know, your thinking "oooh, a Tuna Melt...how fancy", but it was actually quite a sexy little dish incorporating artichoke hearts, green onions and provolone browned under the broiler. And as a nice change to the sloppy mayo laden standard it was dressed with a little olive oil and lemon juice. Summer enjoyed it's "tangy goodness". The salad also turned out nice. The recipe called for red leaf lettuce and butterhead lettuce. I was forced to omit the butterhead when much to my chagrin, Queen Soopers didn't have any on hand. (don't expect me to go to more than one grocery store for this damn project) Anyway, I don't think we missed out on much. The stars of the show were definitely the melon, avo and dressing. The dressing called for prepared chili sauce. I opted for Sriracha. It was definitely spicy, but a hefty dose of honey helped make it tolerable for those with weaker taste buds, i.e. Summer. Personally I thought it was delicious (I had the leftovers on a salad w/ mango and onion tonight).

Last night I went all out on the project and made the 'Easy Balsamic Dressing'. I should have got a picture of this one. Next time ;)

3 down, 275 to go...oh yeah!

The Plot:

So I was watching the movie Julie & Julia, and out of nowhere I had this brilliant idea. I would make every recipe from a local cookbook I own called Colorado Colore: A Palate of Tastes. I know, great idea right? I don't know where I come up with this stuff. Anyway, I started cataloging the recipes into excel, and soon realized this was going to be a bigger project than I anticipated. Turns out there are no fewer than 278 recipes (unless you don't count pizza crust or dressings as their own recipes, then there are a few fewer). But that's ok; pretty much everything in this book looks delicious and it will provide a nice variety of cuisine for my ever so lucky wife to feast upon. Of course to make things legitimate, I should probably incorporate a deadline for this project. I figure I'll give myself 5-10 years. I may be able to knock a couple years off of that with good behavior...we'll see.

So, until next time, bon appetit.