inaugural meal

Okay, so we've lived here for over a week now, but things like unpacking and a circulating cold have gotten in the way of making a real meal. Last night, we made our first real meal here. We ate seriously later than I would have liked, but we had to take a walk down to the store to pick up a few needed ingredients. Then, y'know, I did part of the cooking, so, of course, the process took forever. Overall, though, I am very happy with this first meal in the new-to-us La Casa B.

On a whim, we picked up snow crab at the market. Otherwise, we'd have "only" had soup and bread. (When I told Cardo that we were having soup for dinner, he looked at me like, "Seriously, this is all you're offering?!" I get this look a lot.* Dinner, for Cardo, is to include a meat element.) The bread is also from the store. I need to get back to bread baking. I already knew I wanted to make Catherine Newman's corn chowder. I also actually made dessert. This doesn't happen often (and my body thanks me for this -- yes, she does). Long, long ago, I bought the ingredients for an older Cooking Light recipe for pumpkin cake and I finally decided to make it tonight.

Dinner was pretty good. On my first taste of the chowder, I thought, "Oh no, it's bland. I killed it." I added more salt, just as Catherine suggests in her recipe. Also, after the first couple of bites, I began to taste the flavor. Mmm, it was good. I subbed turkey bacon for pork. The crab definitely needed more salt. Rather, the water in which Cardo boiled the crab needed more salt. Next time. The cake was good, but I ate too much. Thanks be, some friends came over for a bit and we sent them home with half the cake. Still, we ate gargantuan pieces. I didn't frost the cake. I sifted confectioner's sugar over the top. Also, I folded six ounces of dark chocolate chips (coated in a bit of flour) in the batter just before pouring it into the baking dish. The recipe calls for box mix, which isn't thrilling, but I really needed to use the ingredients I had bought. I see they have an updated recipe and I'll try that next time.


[No, that's not all my bread.]


[No, that's not one serving of cake. That's all we have left. Last night, we were gluttonous indeed.]

So, here's to many, many more homecooked meals in our new kitchen. Oh, and for more food inspiration, check out Coach J's menu-planning post.

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* A few nights ago, this is what I served for dinner:



Cardo was sick and fell asleep on the couch before dinner was ready. I was making dinner late into the night. I was reading Pic some pre-bed books as my food was finishing up and it was pretty cold by the time I got to it. I'll be roasting veggies again soon, though. (Hello, Easy Meal, welcome to my table.) Cardo ate his the next night, along with something else, because, well, refer my above imitation of his reaction to my food. Oh, and the potatoes. They were from a packet. Sorry. We bought them about a decade or so ago and they needed to be eaten. I've eaten so much old food lately that I'm constantly amazed I'm still drawing breath. Also, the potatoes are shaped like that because I was using my measuring cup to dole out a serving.