Catching Up...

We haven't been around and haven't been cooking very much over the past week due to:

* Business Trips (San Francisco and Louisville), and
* Jury Duty (Murder Trial)

Looking forward to get back into the swing of things in the kitchen, and on the porch now that nice weather is trying so hard to come to New England...

Did some cooking this past weekend, though - including a yummy, thrown-together Shrimp Alfredo pasta on Good Friday: while boiling some penne, we defrosted and deshelled some shrimp out of our emergency frozen shrimp bag, sauteed garlic, onions, peppers, mushrooms... threw in a can of tomatoes and canned alfredo sauce. Pasta draining, we threw the shrimp in for the last few minutes and served that mixture over the pasta. Was really delicious and made great leftovers, too!

Saturday was the first really warm (70+) day in Boston and we enjoyed it on our new back deck by finally planting some herbs (thyme, rosemary, and basil) as well as some flowers in planter boxes around the porch. We kept the summer thing going by taking out the old camping grill - a little propane-powered Sunbeam - and grilling some big slices of green pepper and red and yellow onion that had been tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper. With that, we threw on some big 1/2 lb. burgers that we seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, worcestershire and a splash of cold water and formed into large patties (the water keeps everything nice and juicy - my new trick!)...

Sunday was Easter dinner - made (heated up) a 3lb ham (from which we're still enjoying leftovers). Is "ham" the term for a specific prepared/cured pork? We are trying to figure out exactly what "ham" is... can you buy raw ham? Moving on...

With the ham we had our old favorite, roasted sweet potatoes, and a new favorite, roasted asparagus with artichoke hearts. We cut the ends off of the asparagus and tossed them with olive oil and salt and pepper and put them in a roasting pan with some canned artichoke hearts. Roasted that in the same 400-degree oven as the ham and sweet potatoes for about 20 minutes... came out great, although maybe needed another 5-10 minutes.

Before cooking:


After:


Lots more cooking and blogging to come, looking for fun new recipes! See you soon...