it's not all about the 'za

It appears that my last post caused confusion in the minds of many of Pete’s devotees, who, prior to this post, were under the impression that his cooking repertoire usually involved an oven and a box of frozen Stouffer’s pizza (and FYI, Stouffer’s is in some serious danger of being replaced in Pete’s heart by California Pizza Kitchen). To further confuse, I will now tell a story.

Last Saturday night, after I spent a few hours in the kitchen with the pudding, Pete offered to cook dinner. Working from a recipe from my fave Food Network gal Ina Garten, he added his own little twists and whipped up some penne pasta with grilled chicken, sun dried tomatoes, basil and a parmesan lemon cream sauce that was creamy and tangy and all sorts of delicious.

And to prove that Pete can throw down in the kitchen with the best of them, and that he is worthy of donning the Jules apron, I offer this photographic evidence:

See that plating? We had to buy special white plates at Target last year, because Pete said it made the food "pop" better and regarding the basil, I taught Pete how to chiffonade, and now everything gets chiffonaded (is that a word?)

Then Sunday morning and the apple pancakes rolled around, and we all know how that turned out. Obviously impressed by his culinary abilities he must have decided to go for a hat trick, because when I came home from the bookstore that night, I found him standing in the kitchen, open cookbook in front of him, mise en place (I love using that phrase!) set out on the counter. It was truly a beautiful sight. On the menu? Chicken with red peppers, onions and carrots in a black bean sauce over rice with cherry tomatoes and basil. I didn’t take a picture because I was too hungry, but it was of course, delectable.

So, to wrap this up, it is only sometimes about the 'za.

thirty one-derful

I learned quickly when we first started dating that the quickest way to Pete’s heart was most definitely through his stomach. In fact, he once told me that a certain thai sih I make would be his final meal. Nothing says love like saying “Honey, if I were on death row I would want the last thing I ate to be something cooked by you”.

To celebrate we went to Pizzeria Mozza, Mario Batali and Nancy Silverton’s new pizza restaurant. Since it was a special occasion, we went crazy and ordered everything that sounded good (I’m not going to lie, we actually always do this, it’s a problem we both have, that problem being very little self control. We enable each other). It was all excellent, the pizza crust was nice and crispy and the toppings were all top quality. But the thing I really want to talk to you about is the butterscotch budino. You know a dessert is great when you lick the bowl clean and immediately contemplate ordering another one (we didn’t, I said we have little self control, not none at all), or when, the next day, you can’t stop thinking about it and stare longingly at pictures of it online and google it until you find the recipe. Needless to say, I will be attempting to recreate this masterpiece sometime this weekend although I am sure mine won’t come even close.

To cap off the day of gluttony, I made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Seriously scrumptious and decadent, but yet, you still feel okay about eating them because there’s carrot in there! And carrots are vegetables. And vegetables are healthy right?? Pete took some to work on Monday and one of his coworkers stated that she doesn’t believe that vegetables and cake should ever be mixed together. I just have no words for that statement.