DesertCulinary

A few days ago, I used our "American-style" waffle iron to make some Chocolate Waffle Cookies...

Double ginger cookies tonight!

Thanks! Pretty much - it is 4 ounces of cream cheese, 3/4 cup confectioners' sugar and just a bit of lemon zest (you can kind of see the wisps of yellow streaking through the first cupcakes)

We had some Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting tonight...

We had a good ol' meat and potatoes night tonight! Vermont Cheddar Mashed Yukon Golds Sesame-Crusted Beef Tenderloin Steaks with Pineapple, Mango, and Red Pepper Relish

This is their 3rd (I believe) issue of the magazine - I was a little disappoint in the first couple that I got as there were quite a few repeats of recipes from their books.

I made a Hearty Peasant Soup tonight filled with garbanzo beans, fire-roasted tomatoes and broccoli rabe.

We finished up the last of these Anise-Scented Fig and Date Swirls I made earlier...

Penzey's will be opening 2 stores in the DC area coming this spring!

Busy day today, so we made it a fairly quick dinner tonight... we had this Carrot-Pineapple Slaw And some Salt and Pepper Shrimp...

I made the Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins today - layers of bright lemon flavor (love the rubbing of sugar and zest together with your fingers) and enjoyed how the thick icing doesn't "disappear" into the muffin. I also added a dollop of raspberry jam in the middle before baking - will have to try these again with blueberry!

I made the black-and-white loaf yesterday - high rising, dense and extremely moist without being gummy. I couldn't wait to crack open the loaf to see how the marbling did! The pieces held up well after slicing, though I did cut it into 12 rather than 8 and they were still quite large!

I made the chocolate version of the peanut butter crisscrosses - I used Dutch process cocoa and chopped bittersweet chocolate. Very good cookies - you can control the texture a bit by how long you bake them. We opted to take them a little more crispy than chewy. I wanted a little different texture on top, so I used a potato masher instead of a fork to make the indents.

Here are some layered oatmeal brownies we had the other night...

Tonight we had a Barley "Risotto" with Roasted Winter Vegetables

I made this last night for dessert tonight - just a very basic Chocolate Chocolate-Mint Cheesecake Bar

Tonight I made some Black-Eyed Peas and Rice with Buffalo Chicken Sausage.

I made a pretty simple lasagna for dinner - great dish to warm up with on this chilly night! Which reminded me of this Lasagna soup I've been making a lot lately...

Bruce, I've been going to that Asian market for a couple of months now - they sure do pack a lot of stuff in that small store! There is a Hispanic market down past home depot on Patrick that is even smaller, but did have some fun stuff the last time we stopped in. I noticed the Penzey bottles - did you see they will be finally opening up 2 stores fairly close to us? One will be in Rockville and the other in Falls Church.

Coming out of lurkdom.... I had to comment - we actually saw Mrs C taking these pictures! We were doing our weekly stop in the Common Market and noticed a woman taking pictures in the produce department. The produce guys were giving her funny looks - it looked like they were going to say something to her, but I hope they left her alone! It made Jeff feel a little better as we often stop for food pictures too! It is nice to see someone from our area posting! We currently live out in the Jefferson area.