A Smattering of Recipes

Well, I've been having fun cooking for an adult other than myself once again.  The thought did occur to me, though.  What if I'm not going to enjoy it again?  What if Jamey is home for dinner and I just don't have the urge to try new things any more?  What if it's going to be spaghetti, pizza, quiche and cheese quesadillas forever and ever and ever?

Thankfully, at least for us grown-ups around here, this has not been the case.  I've made some new things the past couple weeks and want to share a few of them with you.  I have not gotten back into the habit of remembering to take photos of the food I make, so I apologize for the lack of visuals.  If you click on the links, though, you'll get to see photos that would put mine to shame anyway.

First, I made Pioneer Woman's Curried Chicken Pasta Salad.  My.  This was absolutely amazing.  I served it up right away, so it was still warm.  I used real cream like she told me to.  It was amazing.  Did I already say that?   The kids didn't like this one as much because it was a little "spicy" (I even backed off on the curry a bit), but listen to me:  MAKE IT ANYWAY.  The kids can eat peanut butter and jelly, okay?  One thing I would suggest is that you double the amount of pasta it calls for.  I did this because I love pasta and just figured I'd have to mix up more dressing.  I ended up have dressing left over without doubling it!  So, go on and double the pasta and keep the rest the same.  I loved it loved it loved it.

Another recipe I tried was Broccoli Soup with Cheddar Cheese from Epicurious.  As I was making it, I wasn't too sure what I thought about it.  It was more broth-based than what you normally expect for a broccoli soup.  I ended up skipping the final step of putting individual bowls of the soup under the broiler to melt the cheese sprinkled on top.  The shredded cheddar melts nicely by itself on top of the hot soup.  So, what did we think?  We LOVE this recipe.  The soup thickens slightly and isn't as heavy as all those cream-of-broccoli soups usually are.  That said, the flavor was still intensely wonderful.  The leftovers were just as good and I enjoyed them for my lunches in the days after.  For those of you who like a little meat in your soup, I found that some leftover browned bulk sausage thrown in with the leftovers tasted amazing.  This one is also a keeper.

I discovered that these Fruit and Oat Muffins are amazing with diced apples (use 1 1/2 cups diced apples and increase the cinnamon 2 tsp.).  The muffins we didn't eat stayed wonderfully moist.  The cinnamon-apple flavor combo is perfect for this time of year.  The kids eat these UP!

The last recipe I'll mention is this Leek and Swiss Chard Tart I found over at Smitten Kitchen.  Did  I tell you that we grew leeks this year and they are out in the garden waiting for me?  If I haven't it's because I plum forgot about them!  They are in the back of the back garden and you know how I've been experiencing garden indifference, right?  Well, Jamey finally reminded me about the lovely leeks and I went in search for a recipe to try.  I didn't find that many.  This one turned out to be pretty good, but between the earthy flavor of the leeks and the earthy flavor of the chard, it was, well, maybe a little too earthy.

Do you have any leek recipes you love?  Please share if you do.

Okay, well, I've thoroughly exhausted myself talking about so many recipes.  I need to go take a nap.  Oh, yeah.  No nap.  Three kids.  Actually four (a friend is coming to play for the day). You go take a nap for me.  I'm going to need it. Pin It