It’s been a busy week. John’s birthday was Thursday, and while it took a bit of effort to not photograph our dinner together, I managed to walk away with an image of blackened salmon engraved in my brain and a taste I’ll never forget. Thank you, Jazz Kitchen!
Birthday’s are always fun. It’s your special day, right? Here’s a photo of me and John grabbin a few brews at The Mousetrap last night.
As a continuation of budget meals, we enjoyed a nice dinner of pork chops with brussel sprouts, costing approximately $2.37 for the brussel sprouts and $6.10 for 5 pork chops, 2 of which we cooked and 3 we froze for a later date. That’s $1.22 a pork chop, making this meal equal to $4.81, or $2.40 per person. That, is success.
As part of the Great Annual Food Blogger Cookie Swap, I’ve received 2 out of 3 cookie shipments. I mailed out my peanut butter thumbprints with homemade strawberry vanilla jam last week and will be sharing THAT recipe and photos on December 12. Here’s a lovely box of Chocolate Marshmallow cookies from Wendy at TheMondayBox.com.
These suckers are over an inch tall. Here’s a photo of a half-eaten, delicious cookie.
And then, there was the pie. Yes, THE pie. The pie that I made the crust for, all from scratch, to the super easy filling and ingredients that I had on hand. Yes, this pie was delicious.
I experimented with an apple pie a few weeks ago, but really struggled with the crust. As I rolled it out, it just kept falling apart. It was too dry, then too wet from me putting water in it, to too dry again. I found a recipe that used half cake flour and half all-purpose flour. I should also mention that I made this dough in my KitchenAid stand mixer instead of by hand, which helped. It was super flaky and delicious.
The pie was fairly straightforward, and the recipe came straight off the package of Hershey Special Dark chocolate chips I purchased.
This weekend I’ll be checking out Blu Moon cafe in Carmel, Indiana, and possibly offering a few surprises to go along with my review. Next week is super busy – three holiday parties at work (yes, AT WORK), Yelp’s Totally Bazaar on Thursday (holiday shopping spree with Indianapolis-only vendors), a Banfi Wine Dinner at Osteria Pronto, and John DJ’s at the Mousetrap on Friday. Whew. I could barely type that. So many exciting things to be happy about!
My name is Sara - welcome to Solid Gold Eats, a place where I share my passion of food, wellness and community with you. Here you'll find a little bit of everything because I love food and its versatility. Let food empower you to try new things, whether it be a canning project, baking, entrees, side dishes, grilling or ice cream. These recipes are about my life, and I can't wait to share it all with you!
