Recipes of the Week(s)

These are no biggie, but you know they required preparation so I'm counting them in my final tally once the year is done.

My first mini recipe involved sauteing veggies with olive oil and garlic and using lavender as the fresh herb - this one was all about using your nose while eating not so much about the flavor - I think lavender sort of tastes similar to rosemary so the main point about cooking or baking with it is to inhale deeply and eating whatever it is slooooowly. Heavenly. I love fresh lavender. I've made lemon butter lavender cookies and a tea bread before, but never used it in a savory way. I also liked it because it made me feel French (well I'm am French, it's part of my European Mutt Genetic Mixture - for those who are counting, I'm mostly German Russian Swedish French - or as Grandma would say "we are from Alsace-Lorraine" - with a tiny bit of English/Irish/Spanish)

Okay, now that my bloodwork is out of the way, next on the list is a cold sesame noodles with cucumber type thing from the Bitten Blog that was good - I still have 2 cups of the tahini dressing in my fridge (very tasty on salads or over veggies) but today I saw that this week's Minimalist sounds even better, so I may have to try it next - Soba Salad with Spinach, Edamame, & Miso Dressing.

Lastly, we have a a stir-fry kind of thing with a Spicy Miso Sauce - alas, I don't cook meat at all, but this tasted like fantastic BBQ sauce and I got to imagining that it would have tasted nice on one of my dad's super fat (and PHAT) hamburgers or on grilled chicken or something. I got it from the GOOP site (yes, we all despise her I know, she's just TOO perfect, isn't she? Eh, we're all just jealous) - I'm willing to try the vegetarian recipes she gets since she probably has superduper access to the better Veggie People/Chefs of the world.

I also tried her Burdock & Carrot Kinpira - using a parsnip instead of the burdock though - and I declare it also a Success!

http://goop.com/newsletter/47/

Now as the weather is cooling and it's officially Autumn (as of Tuesday evening - did you feel your life, the world, the Universe, fall into a wonderful harmony as all the elements & vibrations sung together in a blissful balance? Yeah, me neither) I'm going to ramp it up and get very ambitious with the recipes and be MUCH better about doing one a week. There's about 15-16 weeks left in the year - lets see how much damage I can do...