Pink Simplicity

I've mentioned several times that we are foodies, and love cooking, so I thought I'd share a bit more of what goes on in our kitchen ;).

During the week, the cooking falls mostly to me, and I've made a list of easy, tasty recipes from several cookbooks for what we call our "Simple Meals." My husband got me this cookbook on our Valentine's Date, and I can't wait to add several of these recipes to the list.

But, on Saturday, well –that's what we call "Gourmet Night"! On Saturdays, we pull out the fancy cookbooks (mostly French),

hang out for a few hours in the kitchen, listen to old music, dance, laugh, chop, cook, taste, season, and eventually sit down to a really fun, relaxed dinner.

We are not expert chefs by any means. But, we laugh a lot and have a really good time

I mean come on – how cute are these tiny little hens ;)?

And, here my husband is

skillfully creating a nice golden brown skin on our Cornish hens with his blow torch (and, um, in case you were wondering – no – this was not part of the recipe ;). But, perfect cooking isn't really our goal – it's the joy of the process, the excitement and challenge of cooking something new, and the fun of being together that we are really after. And, mostly, we think our food is really tasty.

And, this past Saturday, a fun surprise we hadn't anticipated:

Three teeny, tiny wishbones ;)! Our son got one wish, and I got the other 2, but I gave one of my wishes to my husband (you can do that right?) – so we all got a wish.

And, we've added another special cooking night to the mix for the next several weeks! Did you all watch the first series of Planet Earth? I can't believe that was 10 years ago already. If you haven't watched it, really you should. It's an amazing glimpse at nature and wildlife from around the globe. Back then, we made it a special occasion every Sunday night for the family!

Well, Planet Earth II has just been released, so we are making a special Sunday night of it each week. And, this time, we decided to try recipes from a different country each week – so that we can taste the food from other places on the same night we get to see the nature and wildlife from other places around the world.

This past Sunday we did Indian food

Chicken Curry – very spicy, and really good! Plus, the first episode of Planet Earth II was amazing.

So, there's a little peek behind the scenes in our kitchen – definitely not always perfect, mostly very tasty, and always super fun!

TTFN,

Kelly

We love the movies, and we love to cook! So, every year, we celebrate Oscar Night, foodie style ;). 

We love going to restaurants, trying new things, and then trying to replicate them at home! So, this year, we decided to try making Escargot (guessing as best we could from the flavors we tasted at Le Fou Frog on our Valentine's Date)

They used tomato instead of lemon, and we loved it – ours turned out, well, almost as good! And we were super excited for our son to get to try them (he's a bit of a foodie, too).

My husband worked on the Steak Au Poirvre with a Brandy Sauce, while I worked on the rest

And, his steak truly was a little taste of heaven.   As was the Souffle Au Chocolat I baked us for dessert

We watched the Red Carpet special while we cleaned up the kitchen

and finished just in time to sit down, relax, and enjoy the Oscars

(and a bit of tracing Dresden petals and centers for me ;)!

We were really rooting for Viggo Mortenson – we thought he did an incredible job in the movie "Captain Fantastic" – which was our favorite of all of the Oscar Nominees this year (though we still haven't had the chance to see La La Land)!

Great food, great show – it was a night to remember ;).

TTFN,

Kelly

PS  To keep it simple, we choose a few of the more complicated French recipes (the escargot, steak au proivre, and soufflé in this case, and then add in some simple things we cook all the time (roasted asparagus, baked potatoes, bread)!  It also helps to keep the dishes down to a minimum ;)