Potluck.

I hosted a "potluck." Nobody else brought food, except for some chips and dip. I'm okay with this- I love to cook and cooked way too much, but I have to note that people here suck at potlucks. (Although the homemade bean dip was very good.)

I made this stuffed pepper recipe from the Deborah Madison Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone cookbook. I used green peppers from my garden instead of red. I skipped out on the bread crumbs because I don't have a food processor/good way to crumble bread. I love the stuffing a lot. I think next time I try this, I will just cut up the peppers and put them in the mix. No point in stuffing. Makes it too hard to eat.

(I also made a tomato pasta dish that I don't care to elaborate on. It wasn't wonderful. I think I will freeze it though- it would be good in soups.)

For dessert I made strawberry cupcakes using overly ripe strawberries from my health food store. It told me to puree, but again, I have no food processor, so I mashed them up with a potato masher. (I'm not actually sure if it is technically a potato masher. That's just all I've ever used it for. Until yesterday.) I iced the cupcakes with this super simple frosting. The cupcakes ended up tasting almost like strawberry shortbread- the strawberry flavor wasn't entirely throughout the entire cupcake, but it was pretty decent.

Simple Sandwich

I haven't been around my own computer lately with internet access.

Just wanted to show you all this glorious sandwich that I conquered earlier this week:It's made of homemade bread, fresh picked lettuce from my garden and extra sharp white cheddar cheese. I wish I had a tomato, but this simple sandwich was quite good enough for me at the end of a busy day.

Whole Wheat Bread

I am currently making my first loaf of bread ever. A friend let me borrow her bread machine and my current housemate and I decided to use it.

I found the recipe on the internet.

1 1/3 cups milk
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons honey or sugar
4 teaspoons margarine or butter
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 active dry yeast

(In my bread machine) Add ingredients in order listed; wet first, yeast last. Select "basic" cycle. This is going to take three and a half hours.

The anticipation is killing me!

Pancakes

I made these on my first official day in the SENS house- my first cooking project to get to know the kitchen.

I found it on the internet.

1.5 c. flour
3.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 1/4 c. milk
1 egg
3 tbs butter, melted

Mix all dry ingredients. Make a well and pour wet ingredients inside. I used butter in a cast iron skillet. Reloaded the butter in between every couple of pancakes.

Very good and simple. The butter gives it an excellent flavor. Worth repeating.