Icky Weather?

Yesterday was a sad reminder that winter in New England does not leave in March; the weather was gross, and cold and rainy. So what were a southern boy and a sick-of-being-cold New England girl to do? COOK! I have exclaimed in the past that cold weather is perfect for knitting (and it is) but it is also super for getting your kitchen windows steamy with pot after pot of warm deliciousness.

Sauteed mussels with fresh cilantro

Doing our grocery shopping at Whole Foods, Rick saw a 2lb bag of mussels for $5, pretty hard to resist so I had to improvise a mussel dish but it could not have been easier. I sauteed some garlic in the pan with butter, once they were a pale golden color I threw in the mussels and quickly covered them with veggie broth. After 3-5 minutes they had all given up the good fight and were ready to be devoured. I'm not embarrassed to say that once we had eaten all of the mussels we quickly moved on to the broth slurping it up, YUM!

My take on Bananas foster

Our second course was homemade chili with corn bread, it however was not very photogenic. So on to the third course. I'm a huge fan of sauteed fruit for dessert and bananas have always been the best. I roasted some walnuts in the pan, then added butter, mixed it with some brown sugar to make a caramel like glaze, then once I had the pan really hot I toss in the sliced banana. I like to add some vanilla to really get it sizzling and then I just keep tossing in the pan to get everything evenly coated in sugary goodness and get the bananas nice and soft with a caramelized exterior. This dish is great on its own and feels utterly divine when put on top of vanilla ice cream, or just as decadent (but much healthier) when placed on top of fresh Greek yogurt as shown here.

Best Indian dish ever: Chana Masala

If mussels, chili, corn bread, and roast bananas weren't enough, I decided it would be a great time to make some chana masala to put on cous cous for lunch later in the week. I've been craving Indian food lately and this has always been a favorite dish of mine. Plus, nothing sends away the winter blues like the smells of fresh cilantro, fresh ginger, and a whole heap of garam masala.

Baked salmon with sauteed kale and twice baked potatoes with feta.

Rick and I have been on even more of a cooking streak lately and are constantly discovering new recipes and ingredients that we love. Thanks to Nigella Lawson we can now cook salmon that is consistently delicious (I have a phobia of cooking seafood since it never used to turn out well). This dish just made me feel like such a grown up. Sure I may freak out when I do my taxes all by myself and I have to fight the urge to call my Mom for help, and sometimes I can't understand if the letter from my grad school means I owe them money or they owe me money, but in the kitchen I can cook and eat like an adult!

...oh and one more thing, HAPPY EASTER!!