Your Favorite Recipes of 2010

This year, I've struggled to find time to do a lot of the things that I love to do. Now, I've never been that huge of a cook, but now that I have VERY limited time to be in charge of the cooking, it's like a privilege that's been taken away. I did try a few things, like cinnamon rolls, the lemon-basil martini, and lots and lots of things out of our very first real-deal vegetable garden.

I get asked to participate in lots of recipe exchanges, and I always feel a little lame having not much to contribute. I get most of my recipes online or out of my favorite Giada cookbooks. But, I would love to be better about recommending recipes, because I always get great ones in return.

So, I thought I'd try something new. Why not do a recipe exchange blog post? Tell everyone what's been cooking in your kitchen lately. I'd especially love to hear your simple (fast? slow cooked?) and kid-friendly recipes. So do share! You can link to your own personal recipe (post it on your own blog), or anywhere in the World Wide Web!

Roasted Pumpkin and Squash Seeds a la Pumpkin Girl

There's a few things I love about Fall, and one of them is being able to turn on the oven again. In fact, it's so cold now that I can't wait for an excuse to turn it on and take the chill off the house. Breads, treats, pumpkin seeds...they've all been cranking out of my kitchen lately.

Most of you probaby already know that my nickname, Pumpkin Girl, comes from the fact that growing up my family ran a small pumpkin farm. We had somewhere around an acre of pumpkins that we hauled up to our driveway every October and organized into nice piles according to size. The money we made helped both my sister and I through college. We also got pretty good at carving pumpkins and roasting the seeds. My sister definitely excels at the carving, me at the roasting.

Here's my favorite way to make pumpkin or squash seeds. First, you need to clean them up. Make sure you get all the stringy stuff off and give them a good bath. Then, set them out on some aluminum foil to dry out for a day or so. When they're ready, mix up your "secret sauce." Now that I'm revealing the secret recipe, I guess I'll have to rename the sauce. Okay, let's call it the "super sauce." This should work for a fairly well covered cookie sheet.

2 T. butter, melted in the microwave
2 T. worchestershire sauce
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. garlic powder

Mix up your sauce and pour it over the seeds. Bake at 350 for 10 - 15 minutes. If you start to hear a popping sound coming from your oven, it's time to take the seeds out. These will keep okay in a bowl at room temperature for a few days if you don't eat them all (yeah, right). Cover them with plastic wrap.

What other treats are you enjoying this Halloween?

Yummy Caramel Cashew Ice Cream Recipe

It's such a cliche, I know, but a pregnant woman loves ice cream. And I'm no exception. I've only been making homemade ice cream for a very short time, but I really love it. I am missing my favorite ice cream place Izzy's in St. Paul, MN so maybe this helps make up for it. The Milwaukee, WI area is really all about frozen custard, and I'm just not as much a fan. I have yet to find a single ice cream place anywhere around, so if you're from the area, do fill me in if you know of a place. They have this flavor at Izzy's, I think it's called Coffee Break, which I seem to remember being a coffee ice cream with Oreo cookies...dreamy.

But I took some liberties with a Caramel Cashew recipe I found online and it turned out great. Keep in mind that I didn't measure all of the ingredients when I made it, so I'm approximating here.

If you make it, tell me how it turns out.

Pumpkin Girl's Caramel Cashew Ice Cream

Ingredients:
--1 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
--2 C. heavy cream
--1/2 C. diced unsalted cashews (salted if you like a saltier ice cream)
--1/4 C. cashew butter
--1/4 C. butterscotch caramel ice cream topping (or plain caramel would probably work, too)

Mix all ingredients in a bowl, until cashew butter and caramel topping is well mixed in. Transfer to ice cream maker and freeze according to maker's directions. Move to covered container and freeze in your freezer for 24 hours. ENJOY!

Celebrating the 4th of July

photo from marthastewart.com

We're strangers in a strange land, so we haven't had anyone other than family or neighbors over to visit our new house. So we're particularly excited to have a couple of friends over today to celebrate Independence Day by eating a ton of food and hopping in the kiddie pool. Did I mention the sparklers? Good fun for the under-2 set. I have been too preoccupied to do much by way of July 4th crafting, but I did scope out some cute ideas if you need them, like these great pom pom centerpieces from Martha Stewart. I probably love them because I'm just generally a sucker for anything in a mason jar. Flowers, drinks, whatever. I just love them.

Martha, in all her crafty wisdom, also has a cute project if you've got some patriotic colored ribbon around. Basically you shape it int0 a little star, glue it on a sucker stick and voila, instant cute cupcake topper or drink stick. Or, string them up and you have a neat little banner to hang in your backyard.

Most years, I also have spare tomato cages laying around, but this year all hands are on deck for our awesome garden, so I'd have to go buy one for this project. It's a really cute paper tomato cage lanterns with stars that would light up the backyard so cute for your outdoor party.

I wish I could say I whipped up a fab little BBQ party this year, but alas I did not. I whipped up Roseanne Cash's Potato Salad (which is the closest substitute I've found for my mom's recipe, for which there is no recipe) and some beer cheese dip and some chocolate cupcakes. I did go buy some little flag toothpicks to stick in the cupcakes, so at least they'll be a little festive.

Tomorrow I think we might have another wee Pumpkin first -- fireworks!

What's going on at your place this weekend?

Three Things I Love Right Now

I'm feeling random and scattered today. It's rainy and I want the sun back. This early Spring/Summer thing has got me in full outdoor dining, skirt-wearing, ice cream making mode and I don't want to see long pants again for at least three months. So here are three things I'm summer-loving right now.

This awesome Cargo Plant Love lipstick I bought at the Sephora near my house. Oddly enough, I chose CeCe, which is apparently Courtney Cox's celebrity shade. Anyone who knows my husband knows he thinks Courtney's pretty hot, so I guess I'm on the right track. I was first super excited to see that the lipstick is all natural, and then really excited to see that the packaging can be planted to grow your own wildflowers! Too cool!


My garden has gone completely nuts lately, and we're already making salads with all the lettuce. My new absolute hands-down favorite dressing is this Lighten Up Honey Mustard from Newman's Own. Next in line is a lime vinaigrette also from Newman's.



And because a girl cannot survive on salad alone, I've been cranking up the ice cream maker. I have an el-cheapo Rival cannister jobby, and it works just fine. Last week I tried to make a frozen yogurt recipe that I kind of made up, though, and it didn't go too well. I think I'll stick to the Ben and Jerry's cookbook.

What are you loving right now?

Get Growing

Can I tell you how excited I am about starting a vegetable garden this year? SUPER EXCITED! It's been something I've wanted to do for a long time, and I had a really sub-par set up at my old house, so I am just smiling ear to ear now that I have one and it's been planted. Above you'll find the incredible design my dad put together for me. It's essentially two beds, side by side with an aisle down the center for the lawnmower and perfectly setup so you can weed from inside the fence without having to get into the garden. Genius! It's huge -- enough for all the things we wanted to plant.

If you want to, you can certainly copy this design. It was fairly easy to build. It takes about 4 yards of dirt, which is a LOT! Each yard takes about six wheelbarrows to put into place. Phew! But it also fits enough veggies to (hope hope) feed a small army. We planted:
--Cucumbers
--2 kinds of squash
--2 kinds of tomatoes
--yellow onions
--asparagus
--2 kinds of strawberries
--Basil
--Carrots
--Pumpkins
--Green beans
--Lettuce
--Spinach
--Sugar snap peas

I'm probably forgetting something...who knows what will appear!


A couple of important things I learned from my parents, who have gardened for 30 years:
--Pinch off 1/2 of the strawberry's flowers the first year
--Plant squash and pumpkins far apart, or they will cross-polinate and you will have "squmpkins" or "pumpuash"
--Water daily at first
--Get something for your sugar snap peas to climb on
--Don't let in the waskily wabbits...they will eat your green beans
--Don't harvest the asparagus for a couple of years; when you cut it, cut below the surface

So what are you waiting for...GET GROWING! It's so much fun! If you are way ahead of me, tell me, what are you growing? What's your favorite thing about having a veggie garden?

Feel the Love

Do you ever stop to think about how everyone expresses love in a little different way? Some people play music or share songs, some people are physically affectionate, others like to write love poems or notes. Me, I like to bake. I bake my love into brownies, cookies, cupcakes, so many things that are usually sweet to eat for all my sweeties. So if you've ever received a baked treat from me, or if you've been to my house and I've baked something for the occasion, chances are I'm expressing my love for you. Sometimes I even bake up a batch of love and mail it out, if I have to.

So this weekend, and in the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, I was busy. Heart shaped brownies. Bread. Granola. Cinnamon rolls. Phew. It's tiring just to think about it. But I have a lot of love, and a lot of people to share the love with. There's my husband, the fun, carefree, diligent and handsome person who, even if I just think about him loving me, makes everything better. Then there's my son, the painfully adorable, silly, chatterbox train-lover who I'd rather hug and kiss than anyone else in the world. Add to that my immediate family who I love so much and love even more when I see them loving my hubby and son. That doesn't even cover all my friends, who I miss painfully here in my new home state.



As you can see, much baking is in order. But much to my surprise, my guys baked something for ME this Valentine's Day! A great big, heart-shaped pizza! It was so good that I could feel the love. And I could taste it, too. And today, on Valentine's Day, we spent the day wandering through the Milwaukee Public Museum and musing at Dinosaurs, butterflies, and "Winnie Wolf" -- a character from one of our favorite books. It was a good day, and full of love.

I hope you had a good day with those you love! And if you need a little extra, drop by. We've got about a dozen cinnamon rolls left over!

What to do, What to do?

Luckily my kid isn't old enough yet to utter the words "I'm bored" or the various combinations including "This is boring" and "This is stupid" and "Do we have to...?" and "When are we going to...?" However, I am trying to proactively avoid such sentiments this summer by coming up with a "summer do" list. So far, it's only really included "make it through til July" and now we're ready to start checking the fun stuff off the list before the snow flies again (which, in Minnesota, is about a month and a half from now).





I came across this awesome list geared towards grandparents, but I think it's totally relevant to parents, too. I borrowed a little from this list, and came up with a few of my own to create my summer do list:
--Garage saling!!!!!
--Hit the drive-in diner (our local fave is the Dari-ette)
--Check out the farmer's market (more than once!)
--Spend a weekend at a cabin (we're thinking about the Girl Lake Resort)
--Have a picnic
--Spend a day at the Minnesota State Fair
--Give the dogs a bath
--Hit the water park (href="http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=4&parkid=364">Jim Lupient is our favorite)
--Take a weekend off (Girl's Weekend 2009 here I come!!!)

Mr. Pumpkin and wee pumpkin have already done tons more fun stuff, like watching a big Lion's parade, the beach and about 8,000 hours of park time, but me being the working stiff had to keep the must do list a little more brief.

What's on your must-do list this summer?

Firsts: Ice Cream Cone

Some days since becoming a mother, I feel like a pioneer. I am blazing a trail no one has ever blazed. It's new to me, so it feels like it's a new experience, born the day I live it. Then I remember it's motherhood, and millions of me's have done it millions of times before me. It's the oldest story there is.

But, not the way I did it exactly, right? My genes, his genes, the color of the sky, the air temperature, the exact time of day, day of the week, time of year. Those all make it a unique experience, surely. Right? I like the idea of mommyhood being something I invented. Or the way I live it, at least. It makes it seem less generic, like I'm a maverick, to borrow from Sarah P (and pronounced in that way she does, much like a Minnesota accent). Even though I know so many experiences we have are so commonplace, it helps me to think of this as a big adventure that we all make up as we go along. It's so common, it's uncommon.

Introducing the tot to firsts has been a bit of a journey into the appreciation of something you've done a million times that is suddenly the most revolutionary thing you've ever done. Like ice cream. How many ice cream cones have I eaten in my life? Oh, an uncountable number. While pregnant, at least 3,493. Wrapping the napkin tightly around the bottom to avoid a mess, turning the cone easily with one hand to avoid drips, expertly biting into the cone when the ice cream top had been eaten. It's like riding a bike, so they say. I could do it with my eyes closed, and gladly would if it were Izzy's chocolate coffee ice cream.

Handing that big cone over to the wee Pumpkin this weekend -- his first ever -- I felt like Super Mom, Pioneer Mom, Every Mom. At once living out something that virtually every American mom has already done, and blazing out on a trail of my very own. The way I had to show him to grab the cone, and then put it to his mouth so he would realize it was not green beans but in fact delicious strawberry ice cream -- it was pure genious! Then, sitting in his small, red plastic chair on the patio, he smiled almost imperceptibly and began to swing his feet. Then, later how he wanted to try my cone, then daddy's. So individually him, yet like every kid on earth.



Ice cream may be an old story, tired out and told 100 times. But this weekend I lived the story of my firstborn and me and daddy, on the porch, eating an ice cream cone for the first time ever in the history of Wee Pumpkin's life. And boy did it feel deliciously, trail-blazingly good.

What's Fer Dinner?

Oh man, I hate to brag, but we ate the yummiest food all weekend. We tried three new recipes and every single one was a total winner. And they were all relatively easy, too.

Friday night I had a craving for Asian food of some sort, so we settled on the Pork, Mushroom and Snow-Pea Stir Fry. The pork was super tender and with brown rice, even the wee one ate it up.

Today we had to entertain ourselves indoors all day because it was 40 degrees and rainy all day (yay! not.). I decided we'd whip up the Dorie Greenspan Double Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies. We carted wee one's little table into the middle of the kitchen, rolled up our sleeves, and let him go to town dumping all the dry ingredients in and helping to mix it up. When the dough was done, I thought the cookies would never turn out. The dough looked way too thin. But, even though we ran out of parchment paper for one of the cookie sheets, they all turned out and didn't spread out into a thin crisp cookie like I thought they would. They were VERY chocolatey, and brownie-like.

For dinner, Mr. Pumpkin (upon my request) made Spinach and Red-Pepper Calzones, which were absolutely heavenly, and vegetarian, too. Instead of store bought dough, he made regular pizza dough, but I don't think you'd need to. The roasted red peppers were awesome and the smokey mozzarella gave it great flavor.

Well, enough about that, I'm headed to the cookie jar...I'm hungry!

Cake and Choo Choo

This past weekend was a bit of a birthday bonanza at our house, with both an auntie and a grampy having birthdays. We celebrated at our house, so we didn't have to travel, which was nice. It did mean we got to do all of the cooking, which I will gladly opt for rather than a long drive with an antsy toddler. I hustled around the kitchen to make sure everything was *just right* and I think it was. I made some sun-dried tomato and chevre scones, a gorgeous cake out of my new Dorie Greenspan book, and we put a pot of white bean and ham soup on the stove to cook all day (which was the easiest and yummiest thing I've eaten in a long time...basically throw two hamhocks, 12 cups of stock, 2 quartered onions and two bags of navy beans in a pot and cook on medium low). Yum!


To get out of the house, we loaded up the entire family and headed to the Twin Cities Model Railroad Museum to see the miniature Minneapolis and St. Paul train system they had set up. It was pretty remarkable, and even included a hobo campout on the sketchy side of town under a railroad bridge. Right now, through February, they're doing their Saturday "Night Train" exhibit where they turn off all the lights except the train lights after 6 PM. I wish we'd seen it, but it's too late for our wee one -- by that time he's usually finishing up dinner and getting into pjs. I do want to try to get back there for the circus trains, though. Cool. And man, that place was filled with nerds. We were in our element, being nerds ourselves!

What's going on in your neck of the woods? We're gearing up for another snowstorm and hoping it melts quickly!

Staying Inside, Reading Books

We have been cooped up in the house during the cold snap, but it hasn't kept us down. Tonight, feeling the need for a little comfort food, I made "the boys" a dinner of wa-chos. It's waffle fries, covered in a bag of frozen "tex mex" mix like black beans, corn, and peppers and then slathered in melted cheddar jack cheese. O.MY.GOD. You must try it. It takes 20 minutes to make, it's cheap, and it warms you up!

After dinner, wee one made himself a bed out of his books. He's really into moving things from one place to another and then moving them back. Repeat. For example, he could entertain himself for a good 15 minutes taking his crayons out of the baggie they're in and putting them back. Of course, it helps that I say "KA BOOM!!!" every times he drops one in the bag. It elicits lots of giggles.

I've got a new volunteer opportunity in the works. I'll be knitting up a storm for Bundles of Love. Turns out they make bundles of stuff for babies in need in Minnesota. They have a group that meets near me, so I'm hoping to crank out a few things for their next meeting. If you're interested in joining me for a little knit along, let me know. I'm trying to gauge interest.

Good, Wholesome Fun

Last weekend we took a trip out to Afton, MN for a little applepicking. My husband calls this type of wife-originated activity a "bullshit hayride" after an Onion article he read a few years ago. Although I can't do it justice, it was something to the effect of how the girlfriend was always dragging the poor guy to all these lame things like the apple orchard to go on a hayride. But having a kid gives you a free pass, right?

We went on the hayride and all three of us enjoyed every minute of it. Grant mostly liked the big tractor, and I enjoyed not carrying 400 pounds of apples two miles back to our car in the 80 degree heat. And so far the apples have proven a good side benefit -- I made applesauce, an apple almond tart and yesterday, cracked out a recipe for applesauce squash muffins from out of the Deceptively Delicious Cookbook. Er.......WHA? Yes, I have found in my posession something I never thought I would, mostly because no one else wanted it and I stood there as the hot potato was passed, going "what's so bad about it?"

It's actually not a bad cookbook, it's just that the premise is pretty lame. The premise is if your kids hate vegetables, HIDE them in the food. Are you kidding me? I have no comment here, except to say that I will be using the cookbook, and if I want to HIDE vegetables on anyone, it won't be my kid, it will be my husband, and all it will need is a copious amount of cheese.

So anyway, I'm still not sick of apples. Next I want to make some caramel apples. Got any good recipes/instructions for that? I don't feel like unwrapping all those damn caramels!

Yellow Tomato and Purple Basil Caprese Salad

My hubby is the cook in our family, and now that he's the stay-at-home parent, he's also the grocery shopper. Last night he made this gorgeous caprese salad with the purple basil we're growing on our deck and some yellow tomatoes. Isn't it so pretty? The best part is it tasted fantastic, too. He said "you can put it on your blog" and I thought, how does he know about the blog...? But that's another story.

I need some more good summer recipes that don't involve turning on the oven, and don't involve a bun. Not that I'm against ovens or buns (or buns in ovens, for that matter), I just don't think I need to have them daily. Or even weekly. I love cold salads in the summer, or dishes you eat at room temperature. Bread salad, pasta salad...but I need new recipes. Otherwise I'm going to turn into a brat (and I mean the one pronounced BRAAAHhT and not BRAYT). And that just wouldn't be pretty.

Whatcha got?

A First Birthday

I just finished making the birthday invitations for my first son's first birthday. Wow. It turned out so cute, I think (He did all the work being so cute. Well, that and our amazing photographer helped!)! I looked on Flickr for handmade birthday party invitations, and found good ideas galore. I wasn't really even going to send real invitations (email will be the downfall of our civilization), but changed my mind after seeing all the great work there.

We're just going to have a few people over, presumably set up the kiddie pool, and have some eats. Here's what is on the menu so far:

Grillables (of course)
Coleslaw
Three Bean Salad
Fresh Strawberry Pie with Whipped Cream

Any other good first birthday must-do's or must-eats?

Summer Good Eats

Today I made this awesome looking Blueberry, Pear and Strawberry Crisp (similar to this Mixed Berry Crisp). It looks so awesome doesn't it? It's only half done here, and I guess maybe it could look like brains or something but I think it looks delicious. I'll never know.

We went to a friends for a BBQ and took this little treat with us. We figured the eating would commence before baby Pumpkin's bedtime, but come 6:30 no eating had commenced. Of course, we were the only people in the bunch with a kid, so no one else was in any sort of hurry to get anywhere. So, I really didn't care about the dinner, but I was really disappointed to leave my dessert there without even so much as a sliver for myself. Ho hum. Methinks tomorrow I'll just make another one.

I hope you had some delicious food and celebrating to honor our country and our freedom. Freedom fries, perhaps?

Ribbons from Frisco

I recently *had* to spend a week in San Francisco, which under normal circumstances would have been welcomed. I wasn't too keen on it, though, since I had to leave on Mother's Day (my first) and be away from hubby and baby for so long. I tried to cheer myself up by spending one of my evenings at Britex Fabrics. If you go to San Francisco and you are a sewer, for SURE visit this place. It makes Mood in NYC look pale by comparison. It's four floors and one is just ribbons and buttons. Unlike Mood, it's very welcoming and the sales staff are ever-present but not hover-y; helpful and not snobby. A friendly saleslady helped me pick out these ribbons (a total of $45 worth!) and spent quite a bit of time with me, making suggestions and oggling right along with me. I had at least 4 compliments on my sweater while I was there. Overall, exactly what I would want in a fabric store experience. Oddly I didn't buy fabric, but all this ribbon. I guess with so much to choose from I had a bit of a tough time picking a few to come home with me.

I also had some great food while I was there, like Shrimp Chow Fun at a great Chinese place off Market St. and some delish Korean BBQ and potstickers at the food court at Westfield Mall on Market St. at a place called Sorabol's. My big food night out was at One Market right in front of the Ferry Building. I spent a ridiculous amount of money on my meal, but oh, it was so good. I had scallops and wine (lots of wine) and dessert and shrimp and ooooh I was so stuffed.

As you can see, I really suffered a lot while I was away. I jest. I seriously just wanted to come home. I was so restless that one night I walked from Chinatown to Japantown, which is about 2 miles uphill the whole way. It took me about 2 hours! But, I was able to burn off some of my energy AND buy some great Japanese tchotchkes. Yay! I came home, tired, missing my baby and a lot poorer. But I did have fun, despite myself!

Butter Pecan Me, ASAP

I went on a bit of a baking frenzy tonight. I made two things, both of the butter pecan variety. Why, you ask? Well, it's my dad and sister's birthdays (technically it was last weekend), and I wanted to make something other than the usual birthday cake.

First, I whipped up these truly phenomenal pecan shortbread cookies from Gourmet magazine. Can I just say how much I love Gourmet magazine? I'm not really that good of a cook, so I rely on Gourmet to put together awesome menus and have a great variety of stuff in each issue. And they even have a section of stuff that takes under 15 minutes! But, I digress.

I also made a batch of butter pecan ice cream out of my new Ben & Jerry's cookbook. I just pulled it out of the canister and it tastes like frozen whipped cream. I guess that's because that's sort of what it is. It is so freakin good I can't believe I didn't sit down with my spoonula and eat the whole thing myself.

Back to Gourmet. I am also making this month's vegetarian cassoulet for the birthday dinner. No one is a vegetarian and I've got some picky eaters of the under 6 variety, so we'll see if it goes over. Hopefully we don't have to order pizza. I guess we can always just eat ice cream and cookies and be done with it. That's all I need, really.

Baking Bread for Dummies

I like to bake bread, but I don't do it that often. When I was a kid, my mom would buy the frozen loaves and rise them and bake them herself. I just can't get that awesome smell out of my head, so I like to bake my own, too. I tried the bread machine, but it just doesn't quite cut it for me. So this weekend I tried out the awesome No Knead recipe I saw on Tastespotting. The bread was great, and tonight it made awesome sandwiches with chicken breast, fennel, muenster and spinach. Of course, also with some yummy mustard. Delish!

A Life Without Chocolate Is Not One Worth Living

There are few things I find more delicious than good quality chocolate. It's great after dinner with a cup of Joe (or latte, or cappuccino), I love it as a cake, I love it in brownie form, pretty much any way you slice it, I like it. I'm not as much of a chocaholic as my husband; it's because of him that I almost exclusively bake chocolate treats. One thing I have yet to find is a great chocolate cookbook. Any suggestions?

For Christmas, my sister enrolled me in a "Make and Take" truffles class at Cooks of Crocus Hill. I've always wanted to take a class there, but I'm also a tightwad, so shelling out $60 (or more) for one night of "entertainment" seemed a bit spendy to me. But, I got my chance to check it out last night.

Let me start by saying that I completely screwed up by not paying attention when I wrote down the class start time in my planner, and then by getting lost on the way to the class. Long story short I was 40 minutes late and missed most of the demonstration. Nevertheless, I caught the demo on how to make caramel, and that was informative. Also, I got a tip out of my fellow classmates that I also must have missed: when you melt chocolate in a double boiler, first let the water boil, then put your bowl with the chocolate on top of the pan, and then TURN OFF THE HEAT! Otherwise, you risk burning the chocolate. Not good. OH! And, the reason why you don't "ever" melt chocolate chips for uses in things like truffles is that they are specially formulated to not melt, for things like chocolate chip cookies where they need to be semi-intact when baked. Who knew? I thought that rule only applied to food snobs, not average pumpkins like me.

Our instructor was Robin Asbell, former head chef in the deli at one of our local co-ops. After we watched her demos, we broke into groups and tackled some of her recipes. I was on the "Peanut Butter White Chocolate Truffles" team. I felt a little weird at first, since I was the only person there without a "buddy" of some sort, but I just embraced my nerdiness and broke out my camera. Nothing says "outsider" like a single girl at cooking class shoving a camera in everyone's truffles.

After the class was over, and all the truffles were nestled into the fridge to cool, Robin talked to the group about the wonderful local resources for chocolate, and some of really yummy and unique things being done with it, like bacon chocolate bars by Voges Chocolate out of Chicago. I've had the pleasure of eating their Red Fire Bar and I can definitely attest that it is some fantastic stuff — super spicy, so dark, delicious! Locally, she gave shout outs to BT McElrath, Legacy Chocolates, Chocolate Celeste, and also a local candy making supply store called Sweet Celebrations. Now, my real homework of visiting all these places begins!

Thanks, sis. Wish you coulda come with!