As much as I love to cook for myself, I obviously enjoy tasting other people’s kitchen creations quite a bit! Last Thursday night, I walked down from my office to my friend Diana’s apartment so we could catch up and work on turning the contents of her fridge into a meal. Diana was well-stocked with salsa, grape tomatoes, mushrooms, cheese, and more:
She quickly set to work throwing together a sauce with the salsa, tomatoes, mushrooms, and black beans:
While I worked some cheddar cheese polenta magic:
Diana’s sauce went on top of a couple tilapia filets:
Which went into the oven for a bake and then a meaningful broil:
Once you go black … nothing beats the char 😛
We layered the fish on top of the polenta and added more sauce and salsa for extra flair. Diana and I know how to dine in style:
For dessert, we split a Peppermint Patty, quite possibly my favorite candy of all time (ok, second only to Cadbury Creme Eggs):
Thanks for sharing your kitchen, Diana!
Fast-forward to Friday at work. As you may recall, Friday is the farm delivery day at my office: the day that all of the local farm produce arrives for our food pantry. The Advocacy department has started arranging once per month cooking demonstrations with the in-season produce that is delivered because the food that grows here is often completely new to our clients. Friday’s lesson was on spaghetti squash:
The demonstrator showed how to bake and extract the “noodles” from the squash and then top it with home-enhanced marinara:
The families all sampled the finished produce, and so did Pura and I!
Seriously, how did I end up in an agency where I can play with babies, eat to my heart’s content, and practice Spanish until I am blue in the face? I am wayyyyyy too lucky 😀
Who has been cooking for you lately?
Tales of Expansion: Baby Butternut Edition 
I rrrreeeeaalllly like cooking for myself and other people. Like love it. But, the occasional boy who decides to chef up is always lovely 🙂
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How neat!! I’d love to have someone come in and cook such great meals for me! No one has cooked for me lately 😦 Boo hoo. But lately I’ve been enjoying cooking for myself even more, so it’s not so bad.
Oh, and Cadbury Creme Eggs ARE the best candy, I agree.
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“once you go black…” hee hee. Agreed. Nothing beats the char.
You basically have my dream job.
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I’m been enjoy my mom’s cooking lately! So convenient not having to wash and chop!
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I love the boyfriend’s cooking. He’s way better than me.
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Those are my two favorite candies too! Up here I’ve been seeing some knock off Cadbury Eggs (they are calling them Buzzards Eggs for Halloween) that I’m going to have to check out soon.
http://eatventures.wordpress.com
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That dish looks great!
I don’t really like peppermint patties but I love Cadbury Cream Eggs. Always a fav easter treat.
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ahhh my boyfriend and my brother both cook for me, so i’m a lucky one! I guess you’re super lucky too to have a friend make something so tasty looking for your belly! 🙂
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Haha, obviously the beginning of this post threw me for a loop! I’m like, I didn’t cook for Sarah and forget about it, did I…? LOL
But hey that would be fun. Next time we’re down for a Brooklyn blogger date and want to go frugal style we could potluck it even!
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