Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Not Planning to Cook Tonight, What Can I Throw Together??

I wasn't planning to cook tonight. It was Holiday Meal night at my Grandmother's nursing home, and we were all meant to go dine with her. Of course, as seems to be the norm around here lately, things didn't work out as planned. Stella was running a fever this afternoon, and was more or less miserable. So, needless to say, I didn't think a nursing home was the best place for a sick toddler to be, for her sake and the sake of it's residents.

Being that Rob works about 2 minutes from her nursing home, he kindly went to have dinner with my grandmother while I stayed home with Stella. Now, as you know, I do my menu planning on the weekend, and hadn't planned to cook tonight. So, what to eat? Well, I had a gander through the fridge and came away with eggs, an avocado that was about to go, some cheddar cheese, a few tortillas, a jar of tomatillo salsa, and some left over beans and greens from Monday night. From that I came up with a scrambled egg burrito with a side of beans for myself and some scrambled eggs and avocado slices for Stella. The burrito is self explanatory and doesn't really need a recipe, so I'll spare you. It sounds really weird, but honestly, it was really really good. If I were single with no one else to cook for, this is the kind of thing I'd eat nearly every night.

This decadent Dark Chocolate Sorbet on the other hand, was planned for tonight. I figured there would be desert served at the holiday dinner. And, well, Stella can't indulge in desserts that aren't homemade. What with the nut allergy, the milk intolerance, the soy allergy, well, it's just not safe to eat commercially made desserts. So, our wonderfully thoughtful Aunt gave us this really nice ice cream maker for Christmas, and tonight was our first batch. This sorbet was incredibly rich, and surprisingly creamy. You almost wouldn't know that there was no dairy in it. I followed the recipe that came with the machine, which called for 2 cups of unsweetened cocoa. As I said, it was rich........really rich. I think next time I'll cut the amount of cocoa in half and see what we come up with. Just for fun, here are Stella and Mairin after they've enjoyed the sorbet!!

As an aside, and un-food related, if any of you are interested in yoga, I started a new blog today, feel free to check it out!!

1 comment:

Susan Chipley said...

Carrie: I don't think the egg-burrito thing is weird at all. As a matter of fact, it looks very much like the huevos rancheros I had at one of my fave local restaurants a couple of weeks ago.

As for the sorbet, it looks so good that it could almost persuade me to run out right now and buy an ice-cream machine!