It is almost Christmas time again

So much has happened this year. I have prepared so many new and exciting meals. Safe to say I enjoyed myself so much in my preparations.

This next year is coming up rather quickly. My challenge has been a flop. 2011 here we go.

Happy new year

Fabulous Pizza

Have you any idea how simple making pizza is? I made the sauce a bit skeptical but you know I loved it. I usually shy away from spaghetti or pasta because i do not enjoy the taste of the sauce. This was absolutely fantastic. I made the dough from scratch and it too surpassed my expectations. It was wonderful. This was a family meal so we did not include wine. The kids chose milk to go with their pizza. It was a hit. I have no left overs and in this house that is rare!

Lamb, couscous with vegatables and home made dinner rolls

A sister of mine rarely comes to visit. She lives out of state and when she is in town her schedule is too full to fit a visit to my house in. It was a pleasure hosting a nice dinner with her as my guest. I must admit I spent my entire day planning and preparing for this meal. I wanted our time together in my home to be forever engraved in her memory banks as "delightful and charming."
My mom came along for the get together so I tried very carefully to prepare a meal she could eat. You see my mom has type 2 diabetes. I chose the vegetable's with couscous because I knew the ingredient's would help to bring her blood sugar levels down.
Our meal began with our salad and special dressing made of olive oil, garlic, Dijon mustard and olive oil. We accompanied our salad with homemade rye and white dinner rolls. The rolls went well with our main course as well. Our choice of wine was Argentinian Malbec. It was magnificent with the barbecued lamb chops.
I am enjoying the time I am spending in the kitchen and my eagerness to entertain is growing more and more.
It was a pleasure and I hope my guests will return for another treat in my kitchen.

Pasta- I am supposed to be making tortilla's!

OHH but the challenge to take a recipe and make it my very own and bring out those wonderful flavors. Considering I own a Kitchen Aid mixer you would imagine I own a pasta cutter attachment. Unfortunately, the truth is I do not. I found a recipe I wanted to venture on and guess what? I needed to make pasta from scratch. I will admit it seemed easy. I remembered the scene in the movie "Kung Fu Panda" where his father tells the Panda he is born to make pasta. I was born to make pasta or was it tortillas? Well, I went to get my ingredients and started on this amazing (my new word)task. Initially, the pasta was to have Arugula. I prepared the Arugula to add to my dough but I think it was too wet because the dough was laughable! It was one gooey mess. To play it safe I decided to make a separate plain dough recipe which I then let rest for an hour. This is where my pasta cutter would have come in handy. I rolled the dough out to a very fine large tortilla and then cut it into fine strips. I then hung the strips out to dry over my cutting board because I have yet to invest in some wooden sticks for this purpose. From this point it was pasta as usual into the boiling water etc, etc...
If you could only smell the pasta- fresh pasta. MMMMM, who would have known?
This was Pasta with Pancetta and arugula and it has no sauce but only the flavors from the ingredients. You know the only time this recipe called for salt was for the water I boiled the pasta in. Another recipe on the success list.

Mom, baby sister and son's girlfriend come to dinner

Menu
Appetizer
Asti Sparkling Wine
Brushetta and green olives
Entree
Dover Sole with Lemon sauce and Parsley
Whole wheat couscous with Vegetables and harras
Spinach and Arugula salad with pine nuts
Balsamic Vinegar
Borbolo red wine
Desert
Sweet cornbread
Verbena tea

Our toast welcomed or guests to our table. My mom, baby sister and son's girlfriend all joined in to enjoy in conversation over the meal my husband and I prepared with careful consideration to our vegetarian and Diabetic present. The Asti was a gesture to my baby sister who loves drinking it and the red wine was our customary addition to our dinners.
The entree was ever so surprising. We made harass for the first time and were so shocked at how many "arbol chile's" it needed. Spicy? Boy you have no idea. It was HOT. The vegetables were cauliflower, carrots, onions and potatoes all simmered in chicken stock with garlic and tons of seasonings such as Cumin, thyme, tarragon, curry, salt and pepper.
The Dover sole was prepared in a little bit of butter. It had been covered with flour and seasoned to taste with salt and pepper. To go with the Dover we prepared a lemon sauce made with the juice of about 9 lemons, butter and parsley. To say our meal was delicious doesn't quite describe how wonderful it tasted. The wine selected made the meal all the more enticing not to mention the delight in our company. I hope they walked away ohh so satisfied both in spirit, and their bellies.

Experiment underway.... First Night....

I decided to experiment with my love of the kitchen. I am doing a blog on my experiments with recipes from all different sources and different cookbooks. This is my new years experiment for 2010. I hope my journey brings many to my kitchen for what I consider my way of expressing "Love" and leaves them feeling mushy inside.

Tonight I prepared "Aregentine stuffed Flank Steak with fried Polenta and Spinach salad with pine nuts and Prociutto." I had some Barbera red wine with the dinner and the flavor was magnificent. It was my jwedding anniversary- What a celebration.

For my first recipe, I have to say it was fantastic. I was not dissapointed but amazed at how little time I needed to prepare the meal but how much more time i needed to go out and shop for the ingrediants.

Initially, my plan was to prepare Veal but low and behold no one had it in stock so I found out I could order it for $50.00 a week in advance from my local butcher. Lucky me! I opted for the Flank Steak and guess what? Costco carries it. Dughhh...... The veal will have to wait for next week.

I am not dissapointed in the least but am eager to embark on this new years resolution with much gusto. I hopey ou will all enjoy the stories yet to be told. Happy New Years to you all and may 2010 bring you many blessing and lots to eat.