Lately, I’ve been a bit of a mad scientist in the kitchen (working on new recipes, messing with old ones, and sometimes making things up on the fly).  Here’s a few tidbits to nibble on (heh heh)

A special chicken pasta dish that was such a huge hit I will be posting the recipe here soon (as well as whipping up a vegetarian version so that I can eat it!):

Rice balls – based on the recipe from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious, but with slight modifications. Instead of just brown rice, I used a mixture of brown, red, and barley; the recipe also calls for chicken or turkey, which I left out, and I used crushed whole wheat garlic croutons instead of wheat breadcrumbs.

SO FLIPPING GOOD. Basically arancini, but healthier. It contains sweet potato and broccoli purees, which give an awesome flavor to the cheese.

For Valentine’s Day, I made Rice Krispy treats dipped in vanilla candy coating for my coworkers; I used food coloring to make it pink. Then I shook some candy sprinkles to make them cute. They disappeared very quickly from the break room!

I made the Rice Krispy treats with a jar Marshmallow Creme, instead of regular marshmallows, as there is no gelatin included (making it vegetarian-friendly). The texture of the bars was perfect, and even the next day were perfectly chewy. I also recently found a recipe on Pinterest for homemade marshmallow fluff, which I can’t wait to try!

I had plenty of candy dip left over, so I dipped a basket full of strawberries for Tim. We had these as our special Valentine’s dessert

We’d been hoarding a block of Bellavitano Espresso cheese, and I finally experimented with it by making a quick panini. Baguette with genovese pesto, Robusto gouda and the Bellavitano, grilled. OMG DELICIOUS. Also had mixed greens tossed with gorgonzola, tomatoes, garlic EVOO and my favorite Olivier barrel aged Balsamic Vinegar.