Grilled Chicken Salad and Basil Lemonade

Ahh...Saturday. The start of a very nice 3 day July 4th weekend.
I have absolutely nothing planned today and that was apparent when 2 o'clock rolled around and I realized I was hungry.

I meandered over to the fridge and stood in front of it with the door wide open, looking at all the leftover bits and pieces of veggies and ingredients from the past week.

"I want something light, like a salad... but I want some protein...and definitely want to use up this homemade pasta we made last night...hmmm. What to make?"

What came out of my fridge and onto my plate was an arugula salad with thinly sliced red onion, yellow bell pepper, tomato, crimini mushrooms, cucumbers with a smoked paprika english pea and grilled chicken. I made a quick oregano and lemon vinaigrette to drizzle over the salad.
On the side I made fresh pasta with sun-dried tomato, basil, and parmesan cheese.

Last but not least I made a basil lemonade from the garden, twas divine.

Now I think it's time for a nap :)
Hope you are all doing something like that today.

-K

Savory French Toast

I found that Austin left a whole french baguette in the fridge unwrapped overnight and now it is stale. Sad state for the french bread that had so much potential to be lunch for tomorrow.

I figured I could make croutons or bread crumbs out of it like I usually do, but instead I decided to bring the bread back from the dead :)

I made a milk and egg batter with cheese, green onions, and salt and pepper. I poured it over the sliced bread and let it sit again in the fridge overnight.
I brought it to work with me this morning and popped it in the oven for 1 hour. Just in time for all the artists to arrive to work. The bread fluffed up like little pillows and browned nicely on top. What would've made this dish better would have been pancetta or ham to complete the savory breakfast :)

-K

Apple Tart at 10pm

I wanted to eat this so badly tonight that I made it and ate it at 10pm.

It was good as I thought it was going to be :)

Of course, like I explained in the very first post, the tart was cold by the time I ate it because Austin and I wanted to get the lighting just right.... This is going to be an issue.

Snack Time

So, I love the people that I work with and more than anything, I love to see them happy.

Today's snack time was homemade Tiramisu. They ate it all up and half of them love me and the other half hate me (tis beach season).
I hope they likey~

Here goes nothin!

Sigh* Ok. Here goes nothing.
Austin (my bf) always said I should blog about my cooking, or about anything crafty that I do. I really don't make/do anything special or out of the ordinary but I CAN cook and LOVE doing it.
I think of food all the time. When I wake up in the morning, while I making breakfast, while I'm eating my breakfast, while I'm at work...you get the point.
So. I guess with all the effort I put into thinking about food, the food I make turns out pretty good.

This blog will be a journey for all of us. Kinda like the movie Julie & Julia where she tries all her recipes except I will experiment with new recipes and try to recreate dishes I adore. You as the reader get to watch what happens when a novice cook takes too much time worrying about how the picture will look and not actually get to eat the food while it's hot.

So let the journey begin. You ready?

-K