The Husband Cooks

I just need to tell you how much I love having a husband who cooks for me on occasion. I would say throughout the week that we split the cooking about evenly, although frequently he will take over the main dish and I still have to worry about the sides or making sure everything gets cleaned up. Every so often, however, like the other night he tells me to sit down with a glass of wine and banishes me from the kitchen.



The other night was one of those nights. We had this menu planned and put it off a couple nights because we didn't have time, but finally Sunday we decided we were going to have it, and he kept to his desire to fix this meal almost entirely unaided.

What he made was the Mushroom Crepe Cannelloni out of the Complete Cooking Light Cookbook. I know that there have been some issues with posting Cooking Light recipes in blogs so I'm not going to post it here, but it was an excellent meal.

I would absolutely make this meal again, although next time I think we would make the crepes ahead of time so it's not quite as time consuming, over all I think it took him close to 2 hours including the crepes. I also have to brag that I seem to be able to get Philip to eat foods that he pretends to dislike, such as mushrooms. When we picked this meal, I had looked at at in the cookbook but hadn't suggested it because I know that he's not big on mushrooms and had already agreed to one mushroom dish, but then he suggested it and I figured we might as well go for it.

It has a wonderful flavor combination with tomato, parmesan, and mushroom all balancing each other quite well. One thing that did stand out to me while we were eating is that the mushroom filling incorporates a dry white wine, we got a Barefoot Sauvignon Blanc and we decided to each have a glass with dinner, assuming it would go quite well with dinner. It was a good wine and I'd had several sips of it before I started eating, however when I had a sip after taking a couple bites of food it actually made me shiver. The wine did not pair with the food at all, it's possible that with a different wine it would be different, but this one just didn't work.

Muffin Frittata

We've been trying to make our menus for the week on either Saturday or Sunday so we can get our grocery shopping done for the week on the weekends when we have the most time, so we sat down on Sunday afternoon and wrote out our menu, unfortunately without leaving time for shopping. Somehow yesterday afternoon came around and I realized somehow we had skipped Monday night, Monday nights are difficult to begin with because we have limited time for dinner with choir rehearsal and added to this was our unusually bare pantry and fridge. I remembered that we had discussed having eggs but needed to figure out how to make it a little more exciting than just plain eggs.

I did hesitate a bit on posting this recipe because I didn't measure anything, so it's a little haphazard. I'll give it my best shot, but I can't quite guarantee results. I'm slowly becoming more adventurous in the kitchen, just a few months ago I was obsessive about following recipes to a t, now I've gotten into the habit of guessing amounts and am starting to venture into my own creations.

Spinach Muffin Frittata

1/4 Large onion

Handfull fresh spinach, chopped

A couple sprigs parsley, chopped

6 Eggs

1 Scallion, finely diced

1/2-3/4 cup Part skim ricotta

3/4 cup Shredded parmesan

1/4 cup Goat milk feta cheese

Preheat the oven (and muffin pan) to 375*

Heat some olive oil in a skillet over medium heat, when oil is hot add onions and cook until starting to brown. Add spinach and parsley, saute until wilted and moisture dissipates some. Set aside to cool some.

In a medium size bowl beat eggs then add scallion and the cheeses. Once those are mixed together add the spinach/onion mixture.

Take the muffin pan out and spoon mixture into the muffin tin, each to about 3/4 full. I got 11 out of it, putting about 1/4 cup in each.

Bake at 375* 20-30 minutes until set and browned.

They came out really well even though I realized after I put them in the oven that I had completely forgotten to put any salt or other spices in. I will definitely be making them again, altering them to whatever veggies and cheeses we have on hand or are in the mood for. I also estimate that 2 "muffins" makes a serving.