Try This Tuesday: Thursday Edition

One thing I've been known to do is open up approximately four million tabs in firefox with every righteous intention of "getting back" to whatever it is: articles, new blogs, amazon links, and, particularly, recipes. There's a chance this drives Sam batty. I've been trying to cut back-- deal with tabs within the same computer session in which they were opened. I've noticed a big difference; Sam has not. Truth be told, I have six tabs of recipes open right now, all waiting to be scheduled into our weekly menu plan. This is, apparently, a good way to use Pinterest-- to keep track of all these things without having to actually deal with them right away. But I'll admit I'm just not that into Pinterest. I get the appeal, and I have pinned a dozen or so things, but I just find the whole thing overwhelming. Plus my world is too small, in that I see the same thing pinned over and over and over (and not even just within the same social circle). So, I'm still figuring this out. How do you keep track of recipes and things you want to try?

I have tried some new things lately (though none from any tabs left open for days or weeks on end). Nothing in my dinner repertoire was sounding tasty last week, and among the several things I tried, this pasta with hashed brussels sprouts and pine nuts became the ultimate fighting champion. I read some recipe recently that bemoaned the now-outdated trend of hashed brussels sprouts, and I felt a bit silly, having never even tried it. But this recipe changed all that! It's a very simple and easy recipe, and Sam immediately declared it a necessary staple in the dinner rotation (Bria also ate three heaping helpings). I've made it multiple times in the last 10 days, and will continue to do so until the very last sprout disappears (I'm surprised to still be finding them at Trader Joe's). Do take note, the recipe says to hash them in a food processor, but I did mine by hand, which just takes a little extra time, but is nonetheless effective.

For pie day, I decided a banoffee pie would be the best piedea, but it came to late. After boiling the cans of sweetened condensed milk the requisite 3+ hours, it was already 8pm. Sam had a Irish-themed potluck at work the next day, and I ran out of time to make my original idea, so I sent the pie with him. Luckily I had a bit of filling and crust leftover, so I made a couple mini pies in our muffin tin for me and Bria. They didn't turn out as beautiful as the big pie, but they were just as tasty. It's so worth the work of boiling those cans.

I sampled Trader Joe's Dubliner cheese last week and was smitten. Nestled into a warm slice of their take-and-bake baguettes, it's just the perfect afternoon snack.

We babysat Sam's niece and nephews this weekend, which is always an adventure. They love the food I make for them, but their youngest is an especially picky eater, so I have to rack my brains for things that are either simple or easily adapted. Quesadillas fit the bill for both, and cooking them on the panini grill just made it a little more exciting. The picky kids ate plain cheese, and the rest of us ate ones filled with sauteed peppers and onions, shredded rotisserie chicken, and the cowboy caviar from costco. Served next to avocado with lime squeezed on top and a heaping pile of cilantro, I hardly think you can call this dressed up thing a quesadilla. I foresee this being a recurring cast member this summer.