I am BACK!!! (Sort of...)

I know it's been a post-free zone as of late... don't blame me, though. My little computer has been hanging out at the Mac store getting all fixed up.

Right now I am trying to get ready for our vacation (YIPPIEEE!!!) so I am not certain that I will be able to get any posting done before I go... in case I don't... have a GREAT rest of your February and check back in March...

Diet food.

Every time G or I make a good meal that falls in our diet, we both have a hearty laugh after I exclaim, "THIS is DIET food?!!!" Ha ha ha ha... ha.

No really, G's made some very tasty food over the course of the last couple of weeks. See for yourself...


First up, Basque Chicken from the GI Diet Cookbook. I didn't add the rice that the recipe calls for, but we did have the rest of it. Yum! It was a delightful chicken with tomato, white beans, smoked paprika, and sausage... it was truly wonderful and I highly recommend the cookbook.

G made a steak involtini that was filled with ricotta and spinach...


G served this with cooked tomatoes and some sauteed zucchini. Really really nice. I don't know how she made it, but since it was a weeknight, it really seemed to go quickly.

She also made a stroganoff a bit ago in our new pressure cooker. G rules in this department. She said she was in the mood for something like a stroganoff, and she just made one. Because we are off the carbs, we had it on top of steamed green beans, which sounds weird but was totally delicious...


May I just say that while I have not used our pressure cooker, she really enjoys it. It makes stews and soups taste like they have been cooking for hours while in fact they have been on for only about thirty minutes. It's quite amazing...

And G's hits just keep on coming...


I had been craving something macaroni cheese-like, which is strictly not allowed on our diet. So imagine my delight when coming home from work to find that G had roasted chicken and made a leek and mushroom gratin! The gratin was cheesey and mustardy and absolutely delightful. It really fit the bill for the cheesey delight I was craving, and it went really well with the chicken and asparagus.

And further proof that the internet is an amazing thing...


Chocolate mousse-y pudding. G found this sugar-free recipe online, which meant we were able to make pudding for dinner on Friday (G's parents came over for dinner, and not having dessert is just not on). Anyway... they were absolutely delightful, and I just finished mine about two seconds ago since I couldn't eat the whole thing on Friday!

So as you can see, we have not been going hungry in our home as of late...

Raclette Times Two.

I don't know about you, but when I really like something, I tend to want to have it again and again. And I want to share it. And I usually want to share it with friends.

So of course, when our friends P and M from Ottawa said they were coming over, I knew the only appropriate dinner was going to be raclette... and so we borrowed the set from G's friend, and we had a spread of our own...

Up first... the table...

We decided to have shrimp, chicken and beef, with red peppers, zukes, spicy green olives, G's amazing homemade bruschetta mix, and lots of cheese... It was great...


Our friends brought a lovely Prosecco, so we tapped into that and started cooking.


To be honest, I didn't take photos of the cooking process because I figured it would be pretty similar to the last one. But let me tell you, having raclette is really really fun. It's very sociable, you just chat and eat and chat some more. We had a great conversation about the music of our youth and the state of the world. It was really too fun. If we had a bigger kitchen, we would totally own a raclette apparatus of our own.