On Monday I decided to use a couple of Butternut Squash that we had received in our weekly vegetable box.

I started out by sautéing some chopped onion, potato and carrot in a few tablespoons of butter…..

I read about cooking the squash in the microwave and found it super easy to do.  I placed the cut squash in about 1/2 inch of water and microwaved them for about 12 minutes…..

The squash was hot but the flesh was SO easy to remove from the hard shell….

I added the Squash to the vegetable pot, covered with it Chicken Stock and seasoned with Cayenne Pepper, Salt and Black Pepper, and Simmered for about 40 minutes…..

After blending, the soup was dipped into a bowl and served with a dollop of sour cream……

 

SOOOO yummy!!!!   We REALLY need to make more soups!!!!

 

Last week we re-started our weekly vegetable box service.  The first box contained gorgeous, soft lettuces, beautiful tomatoes, ripe red Strawberries, sweet carrots, huge leeks and Broccoli Rabe.

Our first veggie meal was steamed carrots and Broccoli Rabe stir-fried with thin sliced, caramelized leeks……

 

The meat was a left-over Chicken Scaloppine that Michael had cooked the day before.

It was all YUMMMMMMYYYYY!!!

When my husband, Michael, was working in Glasgow in December he found a night to attend a cooking class.  Since Indian Curry is a specialty in the UK, he expected to come back with great ideas for cooking Curry…..he was not disappointed.

Last weekend he ran to a local specialty market and came home with all of the ingredients, including Cardamom seeds, Cumin seeds, Star Anise, Garam Masala, Ginger, peppers, Stick Cinnamon and lots of goodies…..

 

First step was to grind all of the spices using the Granite Mortar and Pestle that we brought back from Australia……

Aren’t these beautiful…..and aromatic…..

The vegetables were chopped……

Spices added……

…..and blended into a wonderful curry paste…..

The curry was heated, chicken added and then cooked….

After cooking, the garnish made of Coconut milk, tomatoes and onions was added…

The finished curry was magnificent…..

The Basmati Rice was cooked with Cardamom pods, Star Anise and Stick Cinnamon…..

 

The resulting meal was terrific……

….so, are you hungry yet?????

We are getting our weekly vegetable boxes again and are having such fun trying out different things. 

This meal featured left over sausages, stir fried beans and carrots and “potato packets” (foil wrapped potato slices, onion slices, salt, pepper, red pepper and olive oil)

YUMMMMMMMMYYYYYYY!!!!!!

On Friday, we drove to Atlanta to take my son (Brian) and his wife (Amber) out to dinner.  Much to our delight, they picked the food court at “Super H-Mart”

 

With their encouragement, we ordered from the Korean diner and enjoyed a spicy soup that was filled with strips of beef, leeks and wonderful mushrooms…..

Brian was determined to not let a single bite go to waste….. ….and ended up making “a happy bowl”  (at least that is what we called it when the kids were little)…..

Afterwards, we walked thru the store which specializes in Asian food….mostly Korean.   It reminded us so much of our shopping trips to Carrefour in Kunming, except that there was a LOT more English!!!

There was the typical aisle of rice…..

…..HUGE bags of red pepper…….

….and who knew that they made SPAM “Lite”!!!!

We bought several items that we don’t normally find at home, including a bag of “Sweet Rice” which is used to make one of the desserts that we loved in Thailand.

I did some “googling” and came up with a recipe for “Sticky Rice With Mango” and we had a fun time preparing the rice and the coconut milk based sauce.  It was great with Mango…..

….and even better the next day served with sliced bananas!!!

A fun weekend revolving around food!!!!

Oh, there was a bit of sewing going on as well, but I cant share that yet!!