What's in Our Bellys

Yes, it's another installment of Kelley's Food Photography because it seems that we've had a lot of parties to go to lately at other peoples houses, or we are just cooking at home. I've been doing some spring cleaning since the weather has been so beautiful and I even saw some flowers out today and new bulbs coming up. Yay for spring!


Avgolemono soup I made from Food and Wine Magazine. It's very easy and one of Lee's favorite soups. Also, there is no cream, milk or oil in here, yet it's a creamy looking soup because I pureed the brown rice I put into it. Interesting way to thicken soups or not use milk.


This is a pasta I made based on one we had at Sitka and Spruce. It's one of my favorite I've ever made or had out--it's got red cabbage, shitake mushrooms and goat cheese. This isn't the best picture, but the combo is really excellent.

This is the box of chocolates Lee got me for Valentine's, along with a very sweet love letter in the Stranger. I think it's the prettiest box of chocolates I've ever seen!

Nutella tart I made for April's Valentine's Day party. It was an organ meat party with lots of pate and foie gras. So good!

A huge platter of chocolate covered strawberries--I think eating these says Valentine's Day to me. Even if strawberries aren't in season.Jello shots that Lee made in strawberry, rasberry and mixed berry--made with Vampire Vodka.

This perfectly crusty, chewy and soft bread is not from France or from a local bakery--it's from April's oven. I was shocked, but I gues if you bake the bread in a dutch oven and do it correctly, it really can turn out like this.
Foie Gras on a rosemary waffle with Calvados ice cream. Yum.

Super Bowl Munchies

I had the glorious goal of making a fabulous goat cheese cheesecake with a cherry balsamic glaze for our Super Bowl party, but the best part of that ended up being the lovely picture. Yes, it looks good, but don't be decieved--it tasted like cardboard. Very dry, overcooked and pretty awful. The cherry balsamic glaze was very good, but without the cheesecake to go with it, I got frustrated and ended up throwing it out this morning. I WILL try again!! I also never received the cheese curds from Wisconsin. I failed to read the shipping rules and apparently it only takes 2 days to get them if you live in Wisconsin. So we are still waiting on them and I've prepped for poutine, possibly the worst thing you can ingest, but definitely one of the tastiest. And you can only get the good stuff in Canada, unless you are willing to make it yourself, so that's what I do. Sounds illegal, but it's not.

We had other excellent hits, like pigs in a blanket, Lee's guacamole, old family recipe of artichoke dip and April's famous pulled pork mini sliders. I had a good time watching the commercials and I'm fairly sure that was the highlight for most people, although it was a good game. We also had a great salad the other night with roasted chili chicken, granny smith apples, some really stinky blue cheese, lemon and arugula. I really love warm chicken fresh out of the oven on a cold salad.

Tonight I'm going to work and then a party at Culinary Communion that showcases their trips to France, Italy and Germany, plus they will be serving local foods from those regions. I'm going as 'one that has already been on the France trip' with CC, so I guess I'll tell people how much I loved it. Should I leave out the fact that you can meet the love of your life through these sorts of adventures?? That would be quite the pitch and I'm not sure Gabe and Katie want to travel with ten single women looking for love. Could make an interesting reality TV show though.