Hi Everyone:

On Friday night my friend Katherine and I made a fantastic pasta fagioli. Katherine has Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything and that is where we found the recipe. It was fantastic – and I will definitely be making the recipe again soon. I think it is one of the most perfect foods for fall and winter.

I was in charge of dicing up a lot of garlic (because I do it so well):

I love lots of garlic!

In this pot most of the ingredients have been added, sans the vegetable broth and pasta…

Soon after we added the broth and pasta. My bowl looked like this when we sat down to eat:

We also enjoyed a couple of pieces of Iggy’s bread with our soup. I definitely had seconds on the soup, and I will be making it again soon because it was amazing.

On Saturday I decided to have my friends Tim and Nicole over for dinner. They are always feeding me, so I decided it was about time I had them over for dinner 🙂 I enjoyed hanging out with Henri during the evening. I cannot believe he is six weeks old already. Wow!

Saturday I decided to make another version of cassoulet. I found the recipe I used on the Food Network. I really love watching The Next Food Network Star and a couple of seasons ago I really liked Lisa Garza. I remember the episode when she made her cassoulet and all of the judges on the show loved it.

Here is the recipe:

White Bean Cassoulet

Unfortunately while I was making this dish, I could not find my camera (what!?) and it took me a while to put all of this together. I even made the spinach pesto! My cassoulet turned out a little bit strange because I accidently put 1/2 a cup of the spinach pesto in my le creuset where I was cooking the rest of the ingredients together… I was supposed to be using it as a garnish. I still had plenty of the spinach pesto left, so I did use it as a garnish as well…. and I do not think it ruined the taste of the cassoulet (at least that is what my dinner guests told me). Oops.
Here is what my cassoulet looked like when we sat down to dinner:
I apologize for the low grade photograph… it was taken via my iPhone! 🙂 Tim and Nicole brought over a baguette from Seven Stars (my favorite!) and they also brought dessert. A fantastic apricot clafoutis. This dessert is a masterpiece!

Here is the recipe:

Jacques Pepin’s Apricot Clafoutis

OK, that about wraps up my last couple of days in the kitchen! 🙂 I’m off to get some exercise…. it is a perfect day outside, so I am off for a run. See you soon!