Samosas and eggplant curry, to be precise. From the good ol’ Moosewood. Yum-o!, as Rachel would say.

As you may be able to tell, I burned the garlic bread. Bah! I cut off the crispy, black edges and served it anyway. The lasagna was good, but I have to say that I’m terrible at reading the recipe through before I get started. I thought it said to bake for 25 minutes. What it really said was bake covered for 25 minutes, uncovered for 25 more. Ooops. We ate a bit later than planned.

…this dinner would have been perfect.

Living in Chicago for five years, it was natural that I would become a big fan of Thai food. It’s on practically every corner. My first Thai meals were with my husband, and he introduced me to chicken sate (or satay) and peanut sauce.

He’s quite the peanut-sauce magician himself, so I wasn’t all that sure of whether to even try my hand at it. But the recipe looked so darn tasty.

It was all going very well — the mixing of the spices, the marinating, the skewering of the tenders, the side dishes, all of it — until about two minutes into the broiling process when I smelled smoke and opened the oven door to a near disaster. Burned skewers! Now there was absolutely no mention in the recipe of burning skewers. Nor was there any mention of how to avoid burning skewers.

I freaked at first. Of course. That’s my style. But then, with Scott’s help, I deskewered the chicken and stuck it back in the oven. The dinner was saved expect for the tradition of removing the chicken from the skewers, which is highly overrated if you ask me. And the peanut sauce was abolutely lovely.

(Shot the photo without adjusting the ISO on my camera. Again! So there you have 1250 ISO chicken. Pretty, eh?)

Or some such title. I’m too darn lazy to go back and look it up. The carrots are made with a cumin dressing. Very easy. Not sure, though, whether I loved them enough to do it again. The salad is yet another of my uninspired spinach concoctions. You can never say this family doesn’t get enough of its spinach!

I love balsamic vinegar, but tonight I discovered just how easily it can splatter on everything. My new white t-shirt has little vinegar spots all over it.

Harrumph!

And now back to my work, which I should be doing rather than updating my lame ol’ website.

Or so the Cafe Solace menu said

Two cheeses (um, provolone and I think cheddar), spinach, tomato and ham. Yum!

I kind of wish I’d gotten the spanikopita, though. I LOVE SPANIKOPITA.

A bigger and better selection of restaurants. Plus the new bookstore. Downtown GR just keeps getting more exciting, I tell ya.

Chocolate Raspberry Cobbler at Mezze Cafe & Cabaret (no, the spoon wasn’t dirty)

I love, love, love, love, love, love dessert.

So much so that it impairs my ability to lose the five pounds I put on this winter eating too much…dessert. And rich desserts DO NOT bother me. Sugary ones either. Bring on the Peeps, peeps!

But the chocolate monstrosity above kicked my butt! I ate a mere third of it, if that. And my stomach was complaining about it for a few hours afterward.

I’m not sure how Kathy fared. She ordered the same thing. But the dinner itself was scrumptious so all is forgiven.

On another note: I’m heading out to Chicago tomorrow morning for a weekend photography class in the ‘burbs. I’m planning to schlep around the city tomorrow, though. Hopefully I’ll bring back some photo goodness. Send good vibes my way, dear readers, because I’m going to miss the boy a ton. Oh, and the husband too, of course!

Yet another Devin and Mommy concoction: Banana Coconut Rum cookies from the latest issue of Cooking Light. Chock full of oatmeal, bananas, coconut, golden raisins and sliced almonds (the recipe called for walnuts, but I don’t like ‘em). No worries, peeps — there’s a scant teaspoon of the rum in the batter. So, no, my kid is not tipping the bottle.

Have a splendid weekend. I’m taking the tot to Grandma’s so Daddy can study for his last paper of the semester. Kalamazoo, here we come!

Here’s the turkey meatloaf. I had a hard time getting a good pic. Meatloaf isn’t really, well, pretty. It’s topped with salsa and filled with cheese. Smack dab in the center. Oozing and gooey. It turned out great. And, of course, the kid decided that he would have none of it. Booger! He’d eaten some of the cornbread earlier, but threw his dinner portion on the floor.

I don’t get his logic. After standing alongside me as I mixed away, sampling ingredients as we went along, and observing the whole process, his answer was to demolish rather than consume. I repeat: Booger!

The little guy helped me whip up some Black Pepper Cornbread this morning. I plan to pair it with a salad and some turkey meatloaf (layered with cheese!) for dinner. Have I mentioned that I love baking with my son?

Chai oatmeal topped with raisins, currants and brown sugar

Apple Cream Cheese Roll-ups

Eh. I made these two years ago and I had some notion that I just HAD TO make them again. They can be a hassle, though. A lot to do with handling phyllo dough, but moreso the process of rolling them up. When you plunk the prescribed amount of mixture onto the dough and begin rolling, lots of it comes out of the ends of the thingys.

Add to that the fact that my child was perched on a step stool just inches away from all of the gadgets (bowls of various additions, measuring spoons, and the like) that went into creating these, and it wasn’t the smoothest of baking processes. But he was such a good boy. Watched patiently, munching on graham crackers, while Mom, blabbing on and on about how “messy this is,” managed to complete her task and pop ‘em in the oven. They ARE tasty, but I’m not sure I’ll repeat this next year.

I’m having a ton of fun having his companionship in the kitchen the past few days. I promised him some muffin mixing once this holiday stuff is over. I’d like to churn out muffins and breads regularly since they’re great snack options for him. And I can’t see why he wouldn’t be up to taking a few turns with the mixing spoon. Although I may well be proven wrong!