Tonight I was making Roasted tomato and black bean soup and it did not go well. I put too much soup into the blender and even though I was holding the lid down it came open and went everywhere. The worst part? The soup wasn’t even very good. So now we have a vat of soup that no one wants to eat, and we’re still finding soup on things.

I think it’s time to invest in an immersion blender.

We baked green tea cookies, peppermint (candy cane) cookies, and biscotti. A lot of biscotti.

We had a bit of a crisis because our Kitchenaid wasn’t big enough to make the enormous amount of dough that the recipe makes. However, I didn’t realize it until I had already put the eggs, sugar and milk in so there was no turning back. We managed to take out half and make it in two batches at that point. We made a bunch of biscotti, but we also used the dough to make some circular cookies that we then frosted.

We’ve already eaten/given away all the biscotti, so we are going to make another batch before Christmas Eve.

You can see all our baking photos at our Flickr.

When Josh and I bake cupcakes, we won’t settle for lame cookie cutters. Instead, we create a plethora of awesome cookies.

As you can see from this photo we had the U.S.A., triceratops, lobsters, squirrels, sharks, snails and ice cream cones. And let me tell you, those cookies were good. We used Martha Stewart’s Ideal Sugar Cookies recipe.

I am a big fan of Martha Stewart’s recipes. I get Everyday Food magazine and Martha Stewart Living, as well as daily recipe emails. I have never made a recipe of hers that I didn’t like. However, this recipe goes above and beyond the call of duty – Slow-Cooked Tex-Mex Chicken and Bean.

However, I’ve made some adjustments which I would like to share with you guys, so this is my version. I don’t have a slow-cooker big enough, so I always just cook it in the oven. It’s really, really easy.

2 cans (15 oz.) pinto beans – drained and rinsed
1 jar (11 ounces) salsa
2 tablespoons chopped canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
Coarse salt and ground pepper
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a 5-quart Dutch oven or large pot, stir together beans, salsa, chiles, garlic, flour and 2 cups water. Season chicken with salt and pepper and arrange on top.

Cover pot and bring to a simmer on top of the stove. Transfer to oven and cook until chicken is tender, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Remove chicken from stew; shred into large pieces and return to stew. Serve over rice topped with sour cream and pepper jack cheese.

From the liner notes:

“When you want food that is prepared perfectly for your own special tastes, it’s best to order “A La Carte”. And, when you dream of a new kitchen for yourself, the “À La Carte” approach is the best way to go about planning it. Just as Caloric offers the very finest in gas ranges to ensure complete flexibility in kitchen design, so the “À La Carte” music on this record has been carefully selected to bring you the utmost in easy listening enjoyment.”

Enjoy Bossa Nova Prelude:

However, when my mom came to visit with a Crate and Barrel gift card and said she’d get me one, I jumped at the chance. And I am having a blast trying out recipes.  So far I’ve only had one mishap with green tea ice cream, and that was because I overheated the milk.  But everything else has been great and I love making flavors that you can’t buy in stores.

So far I’ve made root beer sorbet, green tea ice cream, watermelon sorbet, blueberry lemon verbena ice cream and my latest endeavor, apple sorbet. But believe me, there is much, much more to come!

I took some more photos during the process which you can check out on Flickr.

I picked up an ice cream cookbook, and I am going to be making a lot more sorbet and ice cream in the coming weeks.
You can see more sorbet photos on our Flickr page.

Yesterday was the first time this summer that we’ve grilled, which is kind of funny that we waited for a night that it rained. While I was waiting for the food on the grill, I also took pictures of my herbs.

Josh’s aunt and uncle watered them for us while we were in Washington DC and they grew a ton while we were away!  I tried to grow basil last year but killed it pretty quickly.  This year I went really overboard and bought a ton of different herbs, determined to keep them alive and they are flourishing!  The peppermint and oregano are both in their own containers because they are spreading so much.  I’ve got: Lemon Verbena, Parsley, Globe Basil, Sweet Basil, Curry, Arugula, Dill, Peppermint, and Golden Oregano.

I’ve used most of the herbs while cooking, but I haven’t yet used the peppermint or lemon verbena. However, I did recently get an ice cream maker so I might whip up a batch of mint ice cream and I might try out this recipe for blueberry lemon verbena ice cream.

You can see more herbtastic photos on our Flickr page.