Saturday, March 24, 2012

Tastes From Home

I'm enjoying a relaxing weekend at home.  As usual, the meals have been nothing short of delicious.  Thursday night, Mom prepared a great vegan dinner featuring Lemon Pappardelle Pasta with Kale Pesto and Roasted Artichokes.  The pasta roughly followed Daily Garnish's version, with a few additions to enhance the lemon flavor of the pesto sauce.  The flavors in the pasta combined perfectly and really popped in my mouth.  I could eat meal after meal just like this one!



Friday morning started with a solid swim with 200m intervals followed by a short run.  That afternoon we watched Contagion.  I was initially really skeptical of the pandemic story line the potential that it would be a sci-fi gone wrong film, but I've heard again and again that it was a great movie with excellent film-making.  The verdict - I'd give it a grade of a B.  The story started out a little on the slow side, but it definitely caught my attention as it progressed and even had some suspenseful sections.  I may have been a little disappointed had I spent $10+ to view it in the theaters, but it was a perfect Redbox/Blockbuster Express rental.

We were quite the indifferent bunch when dinner time arrived.  Dining out sounded like a good plan, but Woodstock just doesn't have the quality restaurants that we were craving (Candle 79, I wish you were closer!).  Since it was 6:30pm, we were hungry, and we didn't have reservations anywhere, I volunteered to whip up a meal with some refrigerator and freezer ingredients. 

After about 30 minutes, the end result was a Asian Chicken Chopped Salad.  The base was a mix of spinach and butter lettuce, carrots, golden beets, and cucumber tossed with a citrus soy vinaigrette.  Seared shrimp with a sesame soy reduction and homemade spinach croutons put the finishing touches on the meal.


Do you every venture away from recipes and simply get creative with a random mix of refrigerator ingredients?  What unique dishes have you concocted?

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