Check my stargazer lilies... my favorite!! 
For apps I made the goat cheese/cream cheese covered grapes with pistachios that I made this time from this recipe at finedinings.com. Only covering half of them and eating them right away made them a thousand times better. a) they were easily identifiable (NYE people were nervous to eat the mystery green mushy nut ball) b) they were fresh and the nuts hadn't had time to mush. John raved. I was happy, and selfishly ate most of them anyway. I also made Ellie's sauteed zucchini roll ups from this recipe with spinach, goat cheese, basil & lemon. Totally messy, and difficult to slice super thin (hello shakes), but worth attempting to perfect. They were easy and umm umm good.Finally the main event was Shrimp Scampi that was to throw health, caution, and hesitation to use tons of butter whilst cooking.. to the wind! We forgot to get Brandy, which meant that the theatrical lighting-of-the-pan-including-shrimpies didn't happen. We improvised by doing nothing (well technically we tried to light the wine just to see..) We served the semi battered, semi crispy, but flavorful shrimp with fresh garlic bread and herbed angel hair pasta.
for dessert............FONDUE! John gave me a cuisinart fondue pot/set several years ago and I've only used it a few times (much to his chagrin) it seemed very appropriate to be using it for our holiday together. I made a dark chocolate fondue (dark chocolate chunks and heavy cream) and dipped in strawberries, blackberries, bananas, and fat free marshmallows. We each had 4-5 bites each and then wondered what the heck we were going to do with an entire pot full of chocolate and tray of dippers (not to mention an entire bag full of marshmallows). Seriously, fondue pot = feeding a crowd. I think for two we'll use the mini crock pot next time.
Yummm!
So I actually cooked all week and all weekend long but haven't been around to post. As to not inundate you at once, I plan to sporadically show you my new cooking conquests (yay!).
for dessert............FONDUE! John gave me a cuisinart fondue pot/set several years ago and I've only used it a few times (much to his chagrin) it seemed very appropriate to be using it for our holiday together. I made a dark chocolate fondue (dark chocolate chunks and heavy cream) and dipped in strawberries, blackberries, bananas, and fat free marshmallows. We each had 4-5 bites each and then wondered what the heck we were going to do with an entire pot full of chocolate and tray of dippers (not to mention an entire bag full of marshmallows). Seriously, fondue pot = feeding a crowd. I think for two we'll use the mini crock pot next time.
Yummm!
So I actually cooked all week and all weekend long but haven't been around to post. As to not inundate you at once, I plan to sporadically show you my new cooking conquests (yay!).I hope everyone had a fabulous chocolate filled health-food hiatus weekend :)
