Adventures in Cooking

I've been craving pancakes for a while now, and actually bought blueberries to make blueberry pancakes a few weeks ago. Except I didn't have any flour. This weekend I remember to get flour, but the blueberries had since been eaten. So instead of making blueberry pancakes we went with plain pancakes, which are still really good. I used to recipe The Breakfast Book which is the recipe my mom used to make pancakes when I was growing up. We actually halved the amount, because normally when I make them for the two of us we have far too many leftovers. By making only half we had 8 pancakes which was the perfect amount. (It actually made 8 plus 2 more that I flipped too soon and weren't really good all the way.)

Then for dinner I decided to be the devoted girlfriend I sometimes am and cook dinner as well. I was planning on making green beans, but Fresh Market didn't seem to have any. Since none of the vegetables really looked amazing I just decided to make a salad instead.
This is my go-to salad. I buy one of the pre-made mixes (this is fresh herb mix), I cut up some fruit (this has white nectarines), and I include a little cheese although the only cheese I'll use is feta or parmesan (this one had feta). Also this time I threw in some chopped pecans for fun. Then I'll just drizzle some olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top. (I wasn't actually too big with the nectarine feta mix, I did make it with parmesan for lunch today and like it a lot better.)

For a side I made Garlic Roasted New Potatoes which comes from The Little Black Apron. These were really simple to make, except we don't really have a roasting pan so I made them on a cookie sheet. Although they pan was supposed to be wrapped in aluminum foil to keep the heat in, but we didn't have any of that either. The potatoes still turned out pretty good, I had to cook it a little extra, and you can tell some potatoes were more cooked than other, but it still worked.

For the main course I went with salmon. The recipe I used was also from The Little Black Apron. It was Maple-Dijon Salmon, which called for dijon mustard and maple syrup for the glaze. (Good think I already had maple syrup from the pancakes!) Except we had honey-dijon mustard, so I didn't use all the maple syrup suggested, mainly for the boy's benefit since he's not a big fan of sweet things. I would have been ok if it was a tiny bit sweeter. As it was he didn't eat much of the sauce since it was too sweet for him.
This was actually my first time ever cooking any sort of fish. I do like fish, but always felt a little too intimidated to try to make it. I normally stick to chicken and pasta. I was really surprised at how easy it was to cook, and how much I enjoyed what I did cook. I would totally make this again. Although to be honest the boy says his piece was a little undercooked, but mine was fine. They were different sizes, and I told him to put it back in the oven since I hadn't even had the chance to turn it off yet. Clearly, it wasn't undercooked enough for him to do that, and he still ate the whole thing. I think it all came together pretty, what do you think?

And for dessert? I had my first ever Larabar! I was really surprised at the consistency of it. I assumed it would be more grainy like a granola bar, but the major consistency was actually dates. And the flavor? Also a surprise, I had a lemon bar (see?)
and I was really surprised at how lemon-y it tasted. I've been hearing they taste just like what they say they are and its true, it tasted just like a normal lemon bar (and I love normal lemon bars). I would easily try more of them, anyone have a favorite flavor I should try next?

~Shoshanah

P.S. If anyone is really curious to see the recipes for anything above let me know. I figured this entries long enough already, but would be more than happy to post them if you really want to see.