FFwD: Asparagus with Bits of Bacon

Asparagus + bacon = awesome! I love asparagus, love bacon, so this was a great side dish for me! It was super easy, whipped it up in about 10 minutes this afternoon. I used walnut oil and cooked the onions a little bit, just a soften and then proceeded to stand at my counter and eat half of it. Yeah, turned out to be a great mid afternoon snack (I believe it balanced out the three handfuls of Cadbury Mini-Eggs that I ate for the other snack)!

TwD:BwJ: Pizza Rustica

Wow! This was so good, probably my husband's favorite so far and one of my top 3! I loved the dough (so many ideas for it), the sweetness really complimented the saltiness of the prosciutto. I also added artichoke hearts which really was yummy! Pretty quick to make (totally used a 9 inch cake pan by mistake!), I really embraced the rustic part with the lattice, not the prettiest, but worked well. We paired the pizza rustica with a simple spinach salad and called it dinner.

Almost ready!

My awesome lattice!

Beautifully golden and ready to eat!

Thanks to our hosts for this week: Emily and Raelynn!

FFwD: Crab and Grapefruit Salad

Crab and grapefruit... not the first combination that comes to mind, but surprisingly good! Instead of an appetizer, I turned this into a dinner salad for hubbie and me. Added some spinach and avocado and served with some bread and butter! Turned out to be a very enjoyable light dinner. I believe that it will definitely be in the summer dinner rotation with different variations (maybe shrimp, because the crab was kinda expensive!).

Before crab

With crab and dressing!

FFwD: Cocoa Sables

After a wonderful vacation week where someone else cooked, I am back to cooking and baking! The Irish Soda Bread earlier this week was a huge hit, so much so that my hubbie requested it again! This time I made two loaves, one regular and one with an additional 1 1/2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, oh my gosh, it is amazing!!! I have to post a picture!

Yummy!!!

I love cheese bread, so I am super excited to be able to make it!! 

Anyway, back to the wonderful cookies we made this week. This is the first time I made sables or any kind of shortbread, it was surprisingly easy. The dough was really crumbly, but I was able to roll it nicely in the plastic wrap into logs.

Chocolaty goodness!

After putting them in the freezer for awhile, they were ready to cut! I did some pretty uneven rolling in sugar and started cutting. The only issue I had was that my knife kept catching on the big (didn't quite cut them small enough) pieces of chocolate and breaking the cookies!

Ready for oven

End result, not the prettiest cookies I have made, but so yummy! Not too sweet, super chocolaty, perfect for a decadent snack!

TwD:BwJ: Irish Soda Bread

Since we were on vaca for St. Patty's Day, I decided to make our Irish feast today! This wonderfully easy bread came in real handy and delicious with the corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and of course some Guinness! The Irish Soda Bread was so easy and quick, I thought I had missed something! I just made it plain today, but since reading about some of the additions, I am definitely going to put some cherries or cranberries and maybe some chocolate in next time!

Before baking

After baking!

Thanks to Cathy and Carla for hosting this week!

FFwD: Saint-Jermain-Des- Pres Onion Biscuits

Yummm....onion and biscuits.... These were very yummy and relatively easy to make, I had a little trouble with the dough (a bit sticky) and my biscuits did not puff up very much, but they tasted awesome! We used them for breakfast this morning, and they were really great with scrambled eggs and cheese!  

TwD:BwJ: Rugelach

These cookies were not as hard to make as I thought they would be! I made the levkar the first day, that was so easy!



After simmering



All mixed up!

 A bit later I made the dough, it was really sticky, but came together nicely. It looked so good with all that butter and cream cheese! The next day, I rolled out the dough (I only used half), and filled one side with Nutella, cherries, and walnuts, and the other side with levkar, cinnamon sugar mix, and walnuts. Rolled them up and into the fridge they went.

Instead of making dinner, we ordered Chinese and I baked the cookies! I am not too sure what happened to them. I baked the Nutella batch a bit too long and I don't think I put anywhere near enough Nutella on it, I could hardly taste it! The more traditional ones, I didn't bake as long and I liked better. These are definitely interesting cookies, and I have tons of ideas to use the dough in!

Thanks to our hosts this week, Jessica and Margaret!