Raviolis!

Basil? Basil?! I don't tend to buy decoration for my food....but somehow I had this Mrs. Dash stuff and look- there's BASIL in it!

Insalata Caprese

This is the way Lisa makes her Caprese salad, a simple roma tomato-fresh mozzarella-fresh basil salad that we make for dinner around here about three nights a week. Yeah, it's indulgent. Yeah, fresh mozz is expensive (as is fresh basil, really), but we can't get enough. Lisa puts whole basil leaves on top of a bottom layer of the cheese, followed by the romas, then green onions, followed by garlic salt, fresh cracked black pepper, and dill. Me, I like it a bit more simple.



My caprese is a simple three layers--the cheese, the tomatoes, and a quick chiffonade of basil, which is just a fancy way of saying "ribbon-cut." It isn't pictured here, but I top this all off with a balsamic vinegar reduction, which you can get bottled in grocery stores (I prefer the "Gia Russa" brand). Black pepper doesn't hurt either.

We're pretty sure we've made this for all of you before, but, well, it has basil in it, so we thought we'd post it. More to come!

Basil!

This is Alex sitting in for Lisa, who insists I am her spokesperson. She kept asking me what the ingredient should be, but I told her to choose. Tonight she finally decided on basil as this month's ingredient. She instructed me to relay the following message: "I challenge you to not use basil merely as a garnish!" I would just add that pesto seems a little obvious. But, then, it's so tasty! I've also told Lisa that we should make multiple dishes to make up for our absence of late. We'll see about that. Okay--go!

(Irish) Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Jamie beat me to it! And I'll bet hers are tastier too! These are healthy-ish in that the recipe (find it here) calls for agave nectar (I used honey) instead of sugar or brown sugar. I also cut the butter amount in half and used applesauce as a replacement. All of these changes led to a tasty but weirdly textured cookie. I like my peanut butter cookies crisp and these are not!!!

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Tortellini Stir-Fry (with peanut stir-fry sauce)

I make this a lot, kinda like Kim stands by her Lemon Pasta. It's always good and it's a nice variation when you want pasta but have had enough marinara. You're supposed to make it with stir-fry veggies and cashews but i sub'd a little and it still turned out good. It is much better with the cashews though.

Peanut!

Kim says that today is National Peanut Butter lovers day and March is National Peanut Month! So Peanut is the secret ingredient this month!!
Owen is up there because I called him a little peanut when he was born :) not sure if Kim still has that card that says so...
And here is a picture of the peanut butter I had on my english muffin this morning, which was actually around noonish.