Hey Good Lookin', Whatcha' got Cookin'

Jemima:  I eat dog food (with only an occasional table scrap from Mama Jo).  The rest of the family eats like kings!  Behold...

I don't know why it is sideways, but, Spaghetti Carbonara, with homemade pasta!

   A braised onion with really smelly gorgonzola cheese!  Thank you Readers' Digest.

 An awesome lentil dish, with a pound of bacon in it!  Not for the faint of heart!

 French Onion Soup to simply roll over and play dead for!

 Baklava!  A little dab would do you.  Very rich and luscious.

  Black Bean Soup.  Notice the (homemade!) Creme' Fraiche on Top.  How could you miss the artfully displayed cilantro?  I was told this soup was a "10" on the yum factor scale!

Bon Appetite!

When the moon hits the sky like a big pizza pie….

Mama Jo:  I’ve been taking my news year’s resolutions more serious this year. Well, I only made two. Still, I’m taking them more seriously!

Resolution #1. Stop being a hermit.

Resolution #2. Make a new recipe every week. Mama Mia! This has been fabulous. Most have been wonderful. A few we were grateful for the experience, but probably won’t serve it again. I’ve been taking some cooking classes (definitely helps with resolution #1) and also creating some major yum from some delightful cook books. I’ll share more about them later. In the mean time, bon appetite!

In regards to Resolution #1, I decided to sign up for a Block of the Month at the local quilt shop.  The blocks are from the book "Sylvia's Bridal Sampler," by Jennifer Chiaverini.  It has been brutal.  I can honestly say that I am a fairly advanced quilter, but I'm not impressed with the instructions, etc.  We have to make seven 6" blocks every month.  If I hadn't pre-purchased 10+ yards of background fabric I would drop it.  So BOO to this resolution.  (Although, the blocks that I have made are really pretty...more on that later!)

Resolution #2 is going well, in part, due to a series of cooking classes that I have taken.  I have taken a home-made pasta class, soup, sushi, artisan bread, cupcake, crepes, etc.  It has been fabulous.  Below is some home-made ravioli with two sauces:  Marinara and a butter sage sauce that is to die for!   

Ciao Bella!

FORBIDDEN FRUITS

Mama Jo:  Actually, I should title this post “Forbidden Words,” but perhaps it wouldn’t have caught your eye.

In every household there are “inside jokes” or “inside family stories” that No One else quite gets, but the family just thinks that they are hysterical.

For instance, when we lived in England, it was forbidden to say the word “wonderful” in a prayer. Why? you ask. The answer goes something like this…

“Thank you for this wonderful day. We are so glad to have this wonderful food. Please bless us to have a wonderful night’s sleep,” etc. etc. etc. So I suppose that we started the “think of another adjective” game at that time. Our family prayers were more “adjecta-tive,” that’s for sure, but it overall it made certain members of our family “think” more about the things they were saying.

That all changed when Go-Bot was in 6th or 7th grade. He and his not-so-amazing friend Grant got into their heads that everything was “diseased.” When that particular word also became “forbidden” then they just made up other annoying words. One particularly annoying set was “Chicken Rice.” You could insert those two words into any problem, sentence, or situation and immediately those two would laugh and soon these two, perfectly innocent sounding words (chicken rice) were on the “Forbidden Fruits, er, Words” list. Makes no sense at all, does it?

By the way, would you like some Rice-A-Roni? Maybe I should rephrase that…Chicken Rice, anyone???