After a summer of cooking avoidance (save the grill), fall always lures me back into the kitchen, with visions of shopping, baking, and cooking. My Martha Stewart fantasies run amok. Yesterday, to get the ball rolling, I eased back into it by practicing some “almost” cooking. For an after-school snack, I made Barefoot Contessa’s chocolate chunk blondies. The mix is pricey, but they taste like homemade. (and the dough is good, too …..) Later, for dinner, I made Real Simple’s shepherd’s pie. Oops, it’s actually easy shepherd’s pie. While I loved the idea of cramming lots of veggies into the potato/meat mixture, I found the sauce mixture (mostly ketchup) to be quite bland. However, if you’re ten, you may find this to be the perfect meal, as my son loved it. Prepare at your own (tastebuds) risk. Things are looking up, however. Tomorrow’s dinner will be orecchiette with sausage and roasted peppers, from my Everyday Food cookbook. Why not tonight? Tonight is soccer practice, served with a side of leftovers.For dessert, if you’re as crazy for Mad Men as I am, read Maureen Ryan’s (lengthy) article, part of which ran in today’s Chicago Tribune. I have to get caught up with last week’s episode “the Wheel” before I watch the finale tomorrow night. Hope that iTunes makes it available!
totally unrelated addenda:
Today’s Daily Candy:Everywhere got it so, so right. Click on over to Three Potato Four right now and check out their wide variety of uniqueness. This site has holiday gifts written all over it. (isn’t the pinocchio mug set adorable?) I’m going back to shop ….