Spring Strawberries

More than 30 strawberries in the pot.

Mermaids: Mardi Gras King Cake with a Twist

My friend Rebecca went to college in New Orleans and suggested we mark Mardi Gras with a New Orleans King Cake for dessert following our Sunday dinner party. The traditional version of the cake has a plastic baby doll hidden inside, but I suggested a small plastic mermaid (the kind you find on the side of a cocktail glass; we keep a few in our garden). Our friend Maya was the lucky one who found the mermaid in her piece of cake.

Leftover Meat Mondays: Pasta with Sausage and Baby Broccoli

Mr. MVP and I talked about being part of the "Meatless Monday" movement. We didn't have to be convinced that going meatless at least one day a week can be good--for the environment, for your health, for your wallet. So we enjoyed a few consecutive meatless Mondays. But then we had extra chicken from a Sunday barbecue and wanted to make tacos with the leftovers on Monday. And then we had some remaining steak from another Sunday dinner and decided to make bolognese sauce the next day with the leftovers. We grill a lot on the weekends and don't like to let leftovers go to waste, so now we're going to try for Meatless Tuesdays or Wednesdays and we're going to make sure we compose leftover meals that don't feel like leftover meals--making them good enough to be prepared and enjoyed any day, even if you aren't trying to use what you don't want to waste.

Yesterday: 
Italian sausage on the grill, part of a mixed grill and pizza dinner

Leftovers: 
Sausage

Today: 
Pasta with baby broccoli and sausage. While pasta of your choice is cooking, cut the leftover sausage into bite-size pieces. In a saucepan, saute several cloves of garlic in olive oil until garlic is soft but not browned. Add 1/2 cup vegetable stock and baby broccoli and cover until broccoli is tender but still firm. Remove broccoli and add sausage bites to the saucepan with a splash of some more vegetable stock and cook on medium until heated. Toss pasta with sausage, broccoli, and parmesan cheese. Enjoy.

Blood and Chocolate: Valentine's Day Dinner

For our "Blood and Chocolate" dinner, we served steak for dinner and chocolate fondue for dessert. Guest brought the steaks: rib eye, New York strip, filet mignon, chuck roast. We added buffalo tri-tip to the mix. (It wasn't all meat; we also had roasted root vegetables and a salad of mixed greens with pears, Pecorino Romano and crispy prosciutto). Dessert was chocolate fondue (recipe from Eric Ripert via Food & Wine), with pound cake, toasted croissant, banana, raspberries, caramel, and sugar shortbread cookies for dipping.