Another Domestic Saturday

This past Saturday, another baking fire was lit and off I went trying some new recipes for Scott's family birthday barbecue. I planned to bring the S'more Pie but after talking to Scott, decided to try something new. It was a bit too rich for him so my plan was to try two new fruit desserts-no chocolate.

The first: Nectarine and Marscapone Gingersnap Tart
This was painfully simple and got great reviews-even from the birthday boy who can be very anti-dessert. It was my first (but definitely not last) time making a gingersnap crust-a nice change from your generic graham. The spiciness paired nicely with the tart mix of cheese.

I forgot to take a before we cut the tart shot. C'est la vie-it was enjoyed.
There is a good picture of it on the author's recipe site.

The second: Strawberry Summer Pie
Houston, we have an oops. I had made the tart in the pan that I would have preferred to make this cake in and didn't want to use a pie plate or cake round because I wanted to bring it in a cute dish. Image is everything right? I thought I had a brilliant idea to put it in a bundt pan but as I was putting it in the oven, my error glared me in the face. You FLIP bundt cakes-and this cake is meant to be beautiful on the top. Not an end of the word baking fiasco, I would just have an upsidown upsidown (I think?) strawberry cake. But then I couldn't get it out of the pan so it came out it chunks and pieced it together to take to the party. I don't think anyone noticed but it did lack in appearance ratings. Still, tasty cake, super easy. Only modification I made was to use buttermilk instead of regular milk.

Same story as above.

I use the weekends as my time to prepare a more glamorous dinner for Scott and I because he's fabulous, I'm fabulous and we should always be fabulous. (That's be being Ina. Currently we don't have Broadway directors coming over for dinner-just us, and I find us to be fabulous. It's good for the self-esteem.) This Saturday, I decided to try a few Giada recipes I'd seen her make for a DeLaurentiis family dinner: Vegetable Chow Mein and Orange and Pineapple Beef.


The recipe was certainly not hard, but about an hour of prep time. The good news is you can make the beef and put it in the oven and during that time, prepare the sauce and chow mein-so it's a good use of time, albeit too long for a weeknight dinner. It turned out well, I may even try it with chicken next time because the sauce really made the beef stand out. The chow mein was quasi-improvised as Fresh & Easy didn't have chow mein noodles-but Vietnamese noodles, which I think were a find stand in.

Winner winner Chinese dinner!