My Baking Adventures

This months theme for the Weekend Cookbook Challenge was salad. We eat a lot of salad in our house - with the favorite being Caesar. However, the kids have recently discovered the joys of arugula, and we enjoy it in panini, in soup and our new favorite - arugula salad. Our entry for the WCC is arugula salad, with shaved parmesan and lemon / olive oil dressing.

I have found that regular arugula has more flavor than the baby arugula the markets are selling these days. We’ve tried growing it in the backyard, but really, that’s a picture you don’t want to see.

Next up - the dressing: fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh ground pepper. Don’t forget the parmesan cheese!

Just drizzle olive oil over the leaves, then squeeze about 1/4 of the lemon over, then add pepper. Shave off small pieces of parmesan cheese and toss together. Viola!

Thanks to Mel’s Diner for hosting this month’s challenge.

Lately, I have found that as I am cruising through cyberspace, each blog takes to me to another blog, and before I know it, my eyes have dried up from lack of blinking and I can’t remember what I saw where. This, however, caught my attention enough to bookmark it and ask my trusty assistant if she wanted to give it a go.

I’m talking about the Weekend Cookbook Challenge, which you can read about here - and this months challenge is Food TV - how awesome is that? Easy enough - we decided on an Ina Garten recipe right away! We had a huge tray of strawberries from a field trip to Costco on Saturday, so she asked if we could do chocolate covered strawberries. Oh yeah! I gave her the sticks, helped her setup the double boiler, and she was off and running!

First step - wash and dry the strawberries:

Then, she put lollipop sticks into the strawberries to make the dipping part easier. That was a messy picture so I decided against putting it up.

Now for the fun part - let the games begin!

Ahh, a chocolate covered strawberry is a thing of beauty. The hardest part was keeping her from eating them as she was making them.

Don’t mind the pretzel sticks in the background - she wanted to dip everything she could! I made sure the dogs were locked up while this was going on - they were liable to get it too!

Freshly bathed and ready for decoration:

And for the grand finale,

I had a tough time getting a good photograph of these - not because I wanted to eat them -ok, so I ate one - but because it was difficult to find the proper background. I think this looks good, though.

Here’s the recipe, should you be inspired to make these yourself:

Chocolate Covered Strawberries - Ina Garten

12 large strawberries - washed and patted dry

1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
6 tbs. cream

¼ cup white chocolate

Melt together chocolate and cream. Dip strawberries, allowing excess to drip off. Place on foil lined pan and allow to set. Once they are set, decorate with white chocolate.