Butternut Squash Risotto

The other day, I mentioned a delicious dinner I made with my favorite pork tenderloin recipe and some butternut squash risotto.  Seriously, this risotto is amazing.  I set out to find a butternut squash risotto recipe essentially for the clever baby.  One of the first things he enjoyed eating was risotto!  He absolutely refused all pureed foods, so once he was able to eat food with texture, I tried risotto and he devoured it!  I went from rarely making risotto to making it a lot more often!  In addition, one day I roasted some butternut squash for him and he loved it as well.  What is not to love about butternut squash?  It is so delicious!  Thus, I decided to find a butternut squash risotto recipe for us, but also because I thought my little guy would love it.  He did, as did the rest of us.  Honestly, I could have eaten that entire bowl you see.  I didn't, but I did have to move the bowl further from my reach so I couldn't keep getting more!

My Favorite Pork Tenderloin

My friends, what you see here is a truly scrumptious dinner.  Well, ignore the green beans.  They are nothing special, other than the fact that they get the privilege of sharing a plate with my favorite pork tenderloin and some butternut squash risotto.  Wowie.  I could eat this meal every night.  Well, no, I take that back.  If I did, I would probably gain a zillion pounds.  More importantly, that would make this particular dinner nothing special anymore.  And that would be a travesty, because it is yummy.

We will start with the pork tenderloin.  I found this recipe approximately forever ago and have made it ever since.  The recipe is made with a glaze on top, but the first time I made it, I messed up in the glaze amounts and ended up with more of a crust on top, which I found to be spectacular.  So I have changed the recipe to make the top more of a crunchy top than a glaze.  I'll provide you with both methods - which do you prefer?

Giant Italian Bread

I recently offered to bring fresh bread to a dinner party.  I am trying to get better at baking bread, so the more I make, surely the more I'll learn, right?  I hope so, anyway.  They asked for Italian bread, so I found a recipe that got rave reviews and went for it.  And boy, am I glad I did!  I wish I had photographed the bread with a ruler or something nearby, because this loaf of bread was ginormous!  Next time, I will make two loaves and maybe freeze one but for the dinner party, having this one giant loaf was perfect.  I found the recipe at Food Network, and it is from Emeril Lagasse.  I wouldn't necessarily have searched out an Emeril recipe for bread, but obviously his skills extend way beyond my imaginings.  This bread was a great success!

Tart Apple, Ginger and Basil Granita

Just before Valentine's Day, we held a dinner party at our house.  Hence, the rose petals on the buffet above.  Between dinner and dessert, we served a Tart Apple, Ginger and Basil Granita.  And man, was it good!  The perfect palate cleanser!  Now, I made mine with my fabulous new juicer, however I think I know of a way to make it without a juicer too, if you are interested!  I'll provide both methods for you!

TWD: Baking with Julia - Buttermilk Scones

Buttermilk Scones!  What a fantastic way to start a day, by eating a delicious scone.  And delicious is definitely the word to describe these scones.  This recipe is a real winner, which I will foresee making many return visits to my kitchen.  Yum.  This was our recipe for Tuesday's with Dorie this week and it is a total success!

This recipe has you make scones two ways.  The first is the triangular one you see above.  The second is a rolled scone, filled with some sort of jam, fruit or nuts.  The recipe makes enough dough for two batches of scones, so I made a batch of each style, triangular and rolled.  Why not?

Here is the rolled one:

I rolled mine with homemade apple butter on the inside.  Mmm.

Peanut Butter Blossoms

In my opinion, chocolate and peanut butter just go together.  And Peanut Butter Blossoms are those perfect cookies that make the best of this beautiful union.  They have been around forever and they will continue to be around forever.  My mom made them for my sister and I, I made them for the clever girl, and she'll probably make them for someone in the future too.  They are eternal.  There are about a zillion renditions of this recipe out there, but I chose to make the one from Joy of Baking.  I liked the ratios better (some had equal amounts of butter, peanut butter and sugar) and this one had vanilla extract which is always a winner.  However, according to the recipe, you should yield about 4 dozen cookies.... but I ended up with 75!  Total, not 75 dozen.  I must have made mine a lot smaller than suggested, which gave me a higher chocolate to peanut butter ratio.  That works for me.  Plus, it so happens that a bag of Hershey's kisses had 75 kisses inside, so it was perfect.  Meant to be, I say.

You have to have a bit of patience to make these cookies, only because the peanut butter part has to chill for about an hour.  But it is only an hour and that is totally doable.  It was longer in my case, as I ended up taking the clever baby to the ER that night...when he gets croup he can't breathe, which is so scary!  Many hours later, including a breathing treatment and steroid dose, his airways were open and we came home.  Thus the cookies had to wait until the next day.  This mom needed sleep!  These cookies were a lovely reward after a scary night.

Strawberry Nutella Pop-tarts/Pastries

Mmm, Strawberry Nutella Pop-tarts!  Yes, this was actually a Valentine's Day treat a couple of weeks ago, so I am very behind in posting.  I apologize.  I had a crashed computer and sick baby to deal with in the mean time and very little free time!  But I do think you can give your family a little extra loving at breakfast pretty much any time, don't you?  Plus, this recipe is a great starter to get your mind going with other options...  While I agree that strawberry and Nutella are a beautiful combination, you could really put just about anything in these little pastry pockets and have bliss.  And they would certainly be better (and better for you) than the pop-tarts you get in the store!  Anyway, I found this idea when browsing Pinterest one day (woah, can that take me in crazy creative ventures) and decided to do it for the clever girl's breakfast.  It is totally simple - you can do it, too!