JunkMonkie N Magnus

Lilly Breadsticks

Getting Lilly to try new foods is a struggle. I know at school she eats a wide variety of foods - she tells me everyday the new food she's tried. She is starting to show some interest in cooking - and I want to foster that. I love to cook and trying new dishes. I hope that by fostering her interest in cooking (mostly baking) she will venture out of her standard dinner meal.

We had a great time creating breadstick letters and home made sauce (referred to as "dinosaur blood"). She loved making the letters, helping to bake and making up the sauce. She especially loved grating the parmasean cheese with the micro planer! She ate the whole thing! Next time, we might try "calzone" it up a bit with some of her favorite veggies and cheese. :-)

Note: Lilly's eyes look very dark because I let her put on her own make-up for this photo shoot. That included some extra dark purple to go with her Rapunzel dress! :-)

Wow. This is surprisingly good!

The title, a quote directly from my dear husband's mouth. He is very supporting of my food experimentation - but rarely do I get such a wonderful reception.

So what superb dish did I create? Warm spinach salad.

We joined a co-op and received a wonderful assortment of fresh fruits and veggies, including a huge bunch of spinach. With a quick look at some online recipes - I whipped up a spinach salad including pine nuts, apples, pears, strawberries, yellow bell pepper, and leftover grilled chicken. I sauteed (with EVOO) up some bacon, red onion, garlic and added red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar and pepper. Toss it all together - and a masterpiece came together!

My in-house food critic said that the dish was delish - with the only recommendation of adding MORE bacon next time around!

Oregon berries are the YUMMIEST!!

My roommate, Danno, his girlfriend, Ivory, and I went berry picking this weekend. Wow - 99 cents a pound and FREE all you can eat berries! We picked raspberries, marionberries and a few other types of blackberries. They were so ripe, sweet and delicious! They came right off the vine into our hands. Needless to say, we came home with purple hands! We picked 13 pounds of berries!!! What a deal - the weather was perfect, the sun was shining and we got free lunch!

Ivory made the best berry cobbler - from a recipe in the local paper. She did a terrific job. We've be gorging on berries for the past few days. It's amazing how quickly they spoil after they are picked.