Green House is Cooking Up a Storm

The last couple of weeks have been a return to normalcy after returning from Bronwyn's 10 days at the hospital during her illness.

A big part of that has involved cooking more meals. Last week I made slow roasted lemon-thyme-garlic chicken. I didn't pay enough attention to the word "slow" when reading the recipe and neglected to notice the 4 hour roasting time. We ended up eating it at 11pm. It was worth it though!

I also made Kevin's favorite "Birthday Dinner" blue cheese chicken. He could have it every week and be happy. I prefer to cook it occasionally myself, just to preserve the special occassion-ness of it.

I attempted to re-create The Matador's garlic prawns without much success.

This weekend was spent doing some serious cooking. Here's a run-down on some of the things Kevin and I banged out in the kitchen.

Honey-Ginger-Garlic glazed chicken wings, garnished with cilantro.
These were particularly outstanding. The night before I purchased 5 pounds of wings for our favorite buffalo wing recipe. We quickly realized five pounds was far too much for one dinner and decided to save half of the uncooked wings to experiment with a new recipe the next night. I'm so glad we did! I cannot wait to make these again.

Homemade Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Sauce.
Oh. My. Gaw. Incredible, Just like what we had in Rome. We made a huge batch, cooked off half and froze the rest. This was a time-consuming, multiple-step involved process but it was very easy technique-wise and had a huge payoff (plus it's cheap). Who knew the humble russet potato could produce such spectacular results. I'm looking forward to cooking off the frozen batch and making it again and again.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.
Not a bad effort. The cake is complex, rich and dark tasting. Not too cloyingly sweet, something I appreciate. But like many cakes made from scratch, a bit on the dry side. The frosting needs work. I'd double it next time and find another recipe.

Blueberry-Lavender Chutney Crostinis.
This was provided at my baby shower and was a big hit. The recipe is Kathy Casey's and can be found online on her website www.kathycasey.com

Kevin and I followed the recipe somewhat, substituting cream cheese for the goat cheese (I'd try the goat cheese in the future). We also mixed it up a little and made half of it with just the chutney and melted blue cheese on top. Keivn and I preferred the latter.

*I bought the Blueberry Lavender chutney at Metropolitan Market in Tacoma (by Dish D'Lish, a Kathy Casey product).

Bacon wrapped, blue cheese and walnut stuffed dates.
Kevin didn't dig these. But I did. It's exactly what it sounds like. Kevin took issue with the texture of the dates and I admit they're a bit gooey-mushy. But my! They sure taste mighty fine.

Someone told me that some women gain weight during pregnancy and some gain weight during nursing. I didn't gain much weight during my pregnancy and it came off almost instantly after the baby was born. Not that it matters in the bigger scheme of things, but I was pleased all my pre-pregnancy clothes fit within five days post birth. I'm starting to suspect I might belong in the second category of women who gain during nursing. Nursing definitely increases my appetite and my desire to cook has conicided with my stay-at-home maternity leave, giving me ample opportunity and time to explore my culinary forays.

Nila Wafers.
Okay. Lest you think I'm making fancy-pancy dinners each and every day of the week... the reality is I had a colossal binge that lasted 7-10 days and revolved almost entirely around Nila Wafers and Vanilla Pudding. It was bizarre. Some days I ate an entire box of Nila Wafers and 4-5 puddings. Did you know that Safeway sells Nila Wafers for almost five bucks? Did you also know that Target sells the same Nila Wafers for 2.79? Well this is something I now know. My box-a-day Nila Wafer habit was quickly becoming expensive. Thank goodness for Target.

When it began, the first couple of days, I could delude myself with "you don't have time to eat/cook. Just shove those wafers in your mouth and get back to the business of taking-care-of-baby." But it quickly escalated into a "very bad habit" and by the time the weekend rolled around... I was still shoving those Nila Wafers down my mouth like they were going out of style. Kevin became concerned and attempted to intervene a time or two.

Somehow I weaned myself from them and am relieved/embarrassed/proud to say I have kicked the Nila Wafer habit.

The vanilla pudding is another matter.