Cooking Up a Storm

The last few days have been filled with food, food, and more food. I have been cooking and I've been having a blast. I've been cooking for a variety of reasons but the best part of it is I've been cooking for others. I love experimenting in the kitchen and trying out different foods but once I've run through a recipe a couple of times, I want to try it out and see if it is a success for others too. 

Let me acknowledge once again in all of my cooking now how much of a debt of gratitude I owe to my favorite food blogger, Elana, at elanaspantry.com. Nearly 90% of these recipes come from her site with a few modifications here and there by me. She got me excited again about cooking and eating because she taught me through her blog that I could make food that was delicious and appetizing even with my food sensitivities. I owe her much for sharing all of her scrumptious recipes. She's got a great gluten-free cookbook coming out this summer that you can pre-order if you like, so check it out. I can't wait to get my copy. 

Monday I cooked because my sweet, multi-talented brother Adam came and put up three curtain rods and a towel rod for me. He keeps telling me that if I get a great drill I could do it myself. I keep telling him I would miss seeing his face. :) So, Adam and Michelle brought their little girl and Michelle's sister and we did dinner and FHE together. Of course, we girls chatted up a storm while Adam did the work but I think everyone had a good evening and we got to pull my table out from the wall and put it to good use. 

Menu for Monday night was 

• BBQ chicken
  
• crash hot potatoes
  
• spring salad with chopped almonds and apples and Elana's awesome ranch dressing
• asparagus sauteed in olive oil
• fresh strawberries and pineapple
• vanilla cupcakes

Tuesday was our monthly supper club with a group of friends where we each cook a dish around a theme and bring it to supper club and then eat and chat the night away. I was hosting for the month of May and since it was gluten-free night and most people are not gluten-free, I did a little extra cooking just so everyone could try out a variety of dishes. We had a great turn out, several people brought some excellent recipes and my favorite patio was put to good use. 

Menu for Tuesday night

• Rosemary apple chicken
• roasted veggies
• fresh strawberries
• Elana's chocolate chip cookies
• vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting
• blueberry muffins

Then last night I had to use some ground turkey I had had in the fridge for a few days and I made spinach turkey burgers. In all of my cooking, my mom and my sister are my ad hoc test kitchen so I will run food over to them to taste and try together. Despite all of that testing, I had not ever made my spinach turkey burgers or my special sauce for Meg, so I wanted her to try them both. She's a very receptive audience to all of my cooking attempts so I wanted to get her reaction to them. Then she had been asking for smoked paprika almonds again, so I whipped up a batch of those too. 

While I was cooking, Mom stopped by to try the leftovers from supper club. I love talking food with both of them because Mom had a few ideas for tweaking the blueberry muffins a bit and I had figured out a way I wanted to modify the cookies a bit and Meg had made the ranch dressing herself twice and we could compare notes. Cooking is always a collaborative effort whether it is over the stove or at the table and it is fun to experiment and try things together. 

Katy came by one night when I was knee-deep in cupcake batter and loving every second of it. She tasted and tried and even ran to the store for a last-minute item that I needed. In the midst of the hustle bustle she stopped and said, "Isn't cooking fun? It feels like an art to me some days like here is my oil painting or this is my watercolor" and I had to agree. That feeling isn't there every night but on the nights it does descend on me in the kitchen--well, it's pure magic. 

What kind of magic have you created in your kitchen lately?