What a delight my day was.  Sharing a delicious, Off-White friendly meal with a dear friend and her 7 month old baby.  It’s not that she necessarily tried to do Off-White per se, it’s just that she’s a healthy cook with a creative flair and look what I got to enjoy as a result.  Both recipes are insiprations from the Food Networks success Giadia, but with some lighter twists.  We had an artichoke dish with spices, Parmersan cheese and a little olive oil, and an amazing tomato soup with lemon zest.  Fantastico!

The palate pleasure did not stop there.  No Ma’am.  She topped it off with HOMEMADE berry frozen yogurt and grilled peaches.  And she had the nerve to say that she doesn’t know how busy mom’s have time to cook amazing food and blog about it. As far as I saw, she was 90% there (no blog..YET!)

I guess what I loved the most about day with this dear friend was that she inspired me to get more creative with my cooking.  I’ve never made anything like what we had, and that was fantastic.  I loved the joy I felt when the soup hit my tongue and I sense sweet, sour, spicy and cool flavors all at the same time.  I loved the way the artichokes smelled coming out of the oven and the fact that she even pulled out the cloth place mats to complete our meal.  It was awesome to see her whip out a frozen tub of homemade berry yogurt.  It had that texture which brought me back to childhood when my mom used to make peach ice cream.  Nothing, I mean nothing, is like homemade creameries.
So, now I’m cooking up ideas.  What do I want to make?  There is a challenge going on at the Coop right now where we can enter pics of food made with local ingredients to win tix to a foodie event.  I’m SOO there.  But what to cook?  I tried some carrot muffins but…err…that didn’t turn out so well.  So it’s back to the drawing board but now I have some new inspiration.