Mmmm...

Tonight I finally got back in the real cooking mode after being sick the past two weeks (feeling much better now). As many of you know I watch the Food Network a lot and have started to enjoy trying out the recipes from Everyday Italian in search of healthier fare. One of the recent episodes featured vegetarian dishes and one caught my eye, baked penne with roasted vegetables by Giada De Laurentis. I made it tonight and it turned out to be pretty good and not to hard to make. The recipe says it feeds six and that's probably about right, I have way too much food leftover. I may freeze some of it now that I think about it. I highly recommend this recipe.

A great desert/snack I saw her make the other day on the Sandwich episode is a Nutella sandwich. Instead of breaking out the grill pan I've just put a couple of slices of ciabatta bread in the toaster and then smeared the Nutella (wondering what Nutella is? Click here) on one side of each piece. The only downside is trying not to break my veneers on the tough bread. Boy is it good though. I also want to try to the strawberry bruschetta which looked great on the show as well. Just need to get some fresh strawberries at the roadside stand tomorrow (a coworker brought some to work on Wednesday and man they were the best strawberries I have had in a good minute, they were actually red all the way through!).

My dinner on the ottoman:


Way too much pasta!


Edited to add: I like Fridays at work because beginning in May we can wear shorts! From June 1 - August 31 we can also work half day Fridays if we make up the time elsewhere in the week. Yes you government job people can do that type of thing all the time but it's nice to be able to do it during the summer. I'm not sure how often I'll take advantage of it but it should come in handy some.