Friday Faves........

As you can see, I'm trying out a new blog title and design.....one that seems to be more fitting of the vibe I've got going on and also pretty much represents my personality.  If you don't like it, I guess you can Bite Me?!  JK JK   I needed some new inspiration to get me interested in posting again.  We'll see if this works.  Anyhoo, let's start with things that have piqued my interest in the past month or so...

Favorite things from the kitchen....

This Cauliflower Soup.  I've made this no less than three times and I LOVE it.  I double the recipe and add a few teaspoons of smoked hot paprika to the onions and cauliflower right before adding the water but others thought it was great as written.  I think cumin might also be good.  I've topped it with garlic rubbed crostini, homemade croutons, or roasted pieces of cauliflower florets.  So delicious.

Food52.com

Roasted Vegetable Quinoa Salad ... you can make this using whatever veggies you have sitting around.  In my case that was butternut squash, parsnips, fennel, and asparagus but what makes this so amazing is the ginger-scallion dressing.  I've been trying to come up with a hundred more ways to use that!

Chow.com

And since I devoted January to clean healthy eating, there was no dessert making, which meant that hubs was chocolate deprived.  That all changed in February when the Mast Brothers Chocolate cookbook landed on my front porch (I do love my daily Amazon box!).  I've already made the Dark & Stormy Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting and can't wait to make absolutely every single remaining recipe in this book....like red wine bonbons and steak with cocao nibs and peppercorns and chocolate granola and.......

Favorite new app obsession....

Turn any of your photos into watercolor painting!  Here are a few of my favorites, so far!!

Borneo

Bali

Sunset from our back porch

juicing fresh grapefruit

The doglove of my life

Now, if anyone knows of a way to order huge prints of these, I'd love to frame them and hang them on my walls.

Favorite tunes.......

Best viewing....

If you want all the dirty details straight from the horse's (ass) mouth, here they are.

Loved, loved, loved everything about this movie.  We lost one of the best in James Gandolfini.

Favorite reads....

So there you have it.  I promise to be around here more often.