Birds of a Feather

About a month ago, I got an email from Christina who writes the fantastic blog Dinner at Christina’s about having a Chicagoland blogger potluck sometime in September, and I of course jumped at the chance! I love meeting other bloggers, and I also love cooking for other people, so it was the kind of event that just appeals to me.

We agreed on the date, and set out arranging carpools and what we were bringing. I decided to bring a crockpot full of my Chicken Chili Blanco as well as buffalo chicken dip. I packed up the car with my hot crockpot and ingredients for the dip, and set out to pick up Michelle from Lucky Taste Buds. We then hit the road to Christina’s house where we met up with her and Biz from Biggest Diabetic Loser.

We of course immediately started setting up our dishes…and the spread was AMAZING!! I put together my dip, which does not photograph well:

DSCN4740Christina had made a pitcher of delicious sangria, as well as a pitcher of water with fresh lemon. I had plenty of both!

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She also made some of the Pioneer Woman’s jalapeno poppers with bacon, and a croissant wrapped baked brie… again, i had plenty of both :)

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There was a gorgeous veggie tray:

DSCN4745Michelle made a delicious Asian-inspired whole wheat pasta salad with a sesame-miso dressing, a recipe I’ll be stealing very soon!

DSCN4746Biz made a delicious pizza with homemade crust, red peppers, pepperoni, her amazing homemade sauce, and a mixture of goat cheese and mozzarella, and then a topping of fresh basil:

DSCN4748Then, Christina brought out the zucchini pie, a recipe that’s apparently so secret, she had to delete the email that included it!

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I was so full at this point that I didn’t even have a bowl of my chili! In case you forgot what it looked like, here’s a recycled picture:

dscn2457I feel terrible that I didn’t bring anything for the other women because I left with so many foodie goodies! Michelle had made us all goodie bags, Biz gave us each a jar of her tomato sauce, and Christina not only opened her house to us, but gave us a huge store of the homemade sausage she made with her dad. I can’t wait to try it all!

Thank you SO much for an amazingly fun day ladies! We’ll have to do something again soon!

Oh… I’m forgetting something, aren’t I? The winner of the HUGE cheese giveaway! I used random.org to determine a winner, using only the comments on the post. There were a whopping 191 entries to win the cheese tasting party!! I’m so thrilled that there was so much interest for my little contest, and a HUGE thank you to Alouette Cheese for the opportunity.

What, you want to know who won? Funny thing: the first number that came up was my own pingback to my post…and since I can’t win my own contest, the winner is:

KRISTIN FROM IOWA GIRL EATS!!! Ill send you an email to get your information and I’ll forward it to the company. Congratulations!!!

I’m off to enjoy some of Michelle’s banana cashew bread with some Turtle Mountain coconut milk ice cream…

Have a great Monday!

 

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Super Sunday = Super Eats!

Happy Sunday! One thing that stinks about posting my Sunday dinner is that it means that tomorrow is already Monday… at least I get a 3 day weekend soon!!

Adam and I aren’t big into football, or the Super Bowl, so we decided to head out to the grocery store as soon as the game began! We came home to watch a bit of the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet, and have spent much of the evening watching Ghost Hunters. I won’t even know who won the Super Bowl until tomorrow morning, most likely!

We did decide to do some sort of “Super Bowl Snacks” this afternoon: I made a bowl of Buffalo Chicken Dip! Last time I made it, on New Years, Adam made the observation that I never make buffalo chicken dip for us, so we decided tonight was a good night to have some.

On a baked Scoops chip... ignore the shoddy nails

On a baked Scoops chip... ignore the shoddy nails

And on celery... SO GOOD!

And on celery... SO GOOD!

Dinner was a couple hours after our dip snack (which also included hummus and carrots!) and it was so very simple and delicious, but still a twist on a classic. We had grilled cheese and tomato soup! BUT of course, this wasn’t just any tomato soup, it was Pacific Foods’ organic roasted red pepper and tomato soup

Image from Pacific Foods

Image from Pacific Foods

I fell in love with this soup about 2 years ago when I got a free sample of it at a baby fair with my friend. We were there towards the end of the day, and the Pacific foods rep gave me a whole carton of it to try at home, and it was love at first taste. This soup tastes super decadent, but only has 110 calories per serving, which is quite diet-friendly.

My grilled cheese featured Arnold’s wheat bread, low fat sharp cheddar and a sliced tomato. It came out just the way that my dad’s grilled cheese used to when I was little, and I swear that it has something to do with the amazing thing that is a cast-iron skillet!

Just like Dad used to make!

Just like Dad used to make!

I of course, have a funny grilled cheese story. In college, when I had just started to really cook for myself, I decided I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. I got out the bread, buttered both sides like my dad used to, heated a pan, assembled my sandwich in the pan and flipped it once. The first side was great and toasty brown. The second side though, decided to burn really bad. So I threw away the sandwich and made another one. Same thing happened. Finally, I called my dad and said “Dad, I’m trying to make grilled cheese and its just burning! What am I doing wrong?” He said “Did you cover the pan?” I blushed and giggled… nope, hadn’t covered the pan, which is why it was burning before the cheese melted!

Enough rambling… on to chilling for the last few hours of the weekend! OH! And I stole Jenn‘s idea of having a cute signature!

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