my first moosewood

A couple weeks ago, Andrew and I went to Ithaca for a getaway. While there, we dined at the famous vegetarian restaurant, Moosewood, and I instantly fell in love. Not surprisingly, I can’t say the same for Andrew.

As tonight was ‘Meatless Monday’ and I knew I had more white beans in the freezer to use, I thought I’d check what the good ‘ole Moosewood cookbook could recommend.

I found their Texas BBQ Bean Soup and found I had all the ingredients, minus the celery. It was fate.

I whipped up a giant pot of it tonight, along with Pioneer Woman’s Skillet Cornbread. A word of advice: go easy on those chipotles in adobo! They are HOT!

Andrew’s first comment was: “It’s getting increasingly harder to pick around the beans.” Yes, sweetie, it sure is.

valentine’s day breakfast

In my continued effort to make something from each one of Pioneer Woman’s book of holidays, I decided to add ‘make special breakfast’ to my already busy day.

You’re shocked, I know.

Of course, there was a card for Andrew and I grabbed the cute Valentines Day cups, plates and bowls that we use exactly once a year (if I get my act together).

I made her ‘heuvos in a heart’ tortillas, which is a play on the better-known ‘egg in a hole.’

I also made chocolate cherry smoothies:

Andrew was a bit surprised after his first sip, as he assumed it was blueberry or something. In his defense, I think I accidentally erred on the side of more chocolate rather than more cherry…or was it an accident!?

Anyway, it was a festive morning at our place. I might even have some special Pioneer Woman treats for tonight as a surprise…

White chocolate-covered graham cracker s’mores! (Made with Nutella instead of chocolate and I cooked the marshmallows on the stove!)

Chinese New Year

Last night, we celebrated Chinese New Year with the Nyes. We held a CNY party last year with them, too, and I think this has already become a yearly ‘must-do.’

Mrs. Nye and I grab all our Asian cookbooks, our hot beverages of choice (coffee for me, tea for her) and we sit at her kitchen table and plan the menu. This year, I joined them on a trip up to Amherst to visit an Asian grocer to pick up fortune cookies and lucky money envelopes.

This year, we had: white and fried rice, chicken lo-mein, beef and broccoli, egg rolls, shrimp with snow peas, beets with chili garlic sauce and scallops over tropical fruit.