another food post! hurray!

I had so much fun last year writing about food, I thought I would do a post on some of our favorite things we've made this year. I highly recommend any of the following items to everybody and anybody.

Homemade Tortillas: My world brightened a little bit when these came into my life. Sure, they take more time than buying a bag at the store, but they are totally worth the extra effort.

Roasted Butternut Baked Penne: After making butternut soup last year and not loving it, I was hesitant to make this, but I’m so glad I did. The butternut flavor was not overpowering, but the combination of flavors absolutely rocked my world.

Roasted Red Pepper and Fontina Pizza: Pizza dough + olive oil + roasted red peppers + carmelized shallots + bacon + fontina cheese+balsamic reduction=perhaps the best pizza we’ve made so far, imho.

Pretzel Rolls: Basically pretzels in a form that you can eat for dinner. Win.

Sesame Chicken: Easy, sesamey, not too sweet and still feels like Chinese take out.

Glazed Carrots with Orange and Cranberries: I would even decrease or omit the sugar in this, as the OJ gave plenty of sweetness. It was a delicious, easy, healthy, and rather fancy dish.

Chocolate Macarons: I was so excited to make these, and they turned out amazingly. I have to admit, this is something I was pretty dang proud of, and if you have a kitchen scale, they really aren’t too difficult.

Cheesy Penne with Tomatoes and Spinach: Here’s the thing. I never liked the Kraft macaroni and cheese growing up. I still don’t. So, seeing homemade macaroni and cheese recipes never looked appealing to me, until I realized you didn’t have to use macaroni, and you are making a cheese sauce. Hello. I have to say, this meal was off the charts. Seriously, truly fantastic.

Fudgy Chocolate Chip Toffee Bars: I jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon in February, and this is the first thing that I made from the site. Imagine: Graham cracker toffee crust, fudgey chocolate middle, chocolate cookie dough top, sprinkled with toffee bits. Delish. Oh, the thing is that it is a pillsbury recipe, so they tell you to use a roll of refrigerated Pillsbury dough--I just used my favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake: I made this for my half-birthday. Imagine a brownie-ish cake layer on bottom, a chocolate mousse layer in the middle and a white chocolate mousse layer on top. So good.

Quinoa Chicken Salad: This one was one of Matthew's favorites. It was healthy, and had a lot of flavor. And came from Pinterest. ha.

Meditteranean Grilled Vegetable Tartine: A tartine is an open-faced sandwich, and I think the marinade on this, combined with the hummus flavor was what made it unforgettable. 

Sourdough Bread: Very good. Nothing more to say.

Homemade Yogurt: This is so easy, and so fun. I will say, I have deviated from the directions in the link quite a bit in order to get it to work better and more consistently, but now that we have a good method down, it works like a charm. 

Sausage, Apple, and Cranberry Stuffing: I got this recipe from my sister-in-law, and I think we ate it 3 times that month. 

Strawberry Butter: This is simply pureed, simmered strawberries beaten with butter and honey. And all I'm saying is that it is definitely not disgusting.

Chiang Mai Noodles: I like expanding my Asian cooking repertoire. This one is definitely in the long term rotation

Veggie Fried Rice: Again, expanding Asian repertoire. This turned out very similar to our favorite take-out place.

Roasted Red Pepper Cream Sauce Chicken: Probably in my top two favorite meals this year. Our old bishop's wife made this for a get together thing. The flavor is absolutely amazing.

Whelp, that is it! I'm super hungry now thinking about all this stuff. A couple of these thingers don't have links--I know I should either write in the recipe or not include them here, but I don't really feel like typing it in right now, plus it will make this post even that much longer, so maybe I'll just say if you are interested in any of the three or four things that don't have links, let me know and I'll either send it to you or just do a separate post later.