Sock Puppets and Cooking

Charlie has been astronomically busy this week with work and is working all weekend.  As a result, I've been on my own for Fall Break.  So far, this has resulted in schoolwork, a lot of cooking and baking, and an hour-long trip to Target for shower stuff, during which I picked up these little babies.

The left one is Minkus, the right one is Indy.  

On the cooking and baking front, I have been trying out a bunch of recipes from Cooking Light.  I stumbled upon this magazine/website a few weeks ago and I think that I like it.  It had a great section about packed lunches, all of which looked really good.  So, I've been making a lot of the recipes to see if it's worth getting the magazine.  Here's the recipes I've made so far:


- Roasted Red Pepper Spread Sandwiches: Charlie and I both really liked this (it's particularly tasty on half a whole wheat bagel)
- Chicken Pitas with Sun-Dried Tomato Vinaigrette: This was really really good -- I think it would be great as a pasta salad as well
- Fresh Tomato Soup: It's best to let this sit overnight for the flavors to meld -- it was much better the second time around
- Strawberry-Orange Parfaits with Greek Yogurt: This was good, not my favorite, but it did have the great suggestion of adding orange zest to the yogurt, which was amazing.  I think this might be better with berries (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries)
- Sirloin Steak with Mushroom Sauce and Mashed Potatoes: The steak was good, but that was because Charlie cooked it really well.  The mushroom sauce was just eh.  
 
Here are the next things I intend to try:
- Spicy Sweet & Sour Pork with Coconut Basmati Rice
- Salted Caramel Ice Cream
- Loaded Potato Soup

These might be the most promising.  In addition, I made some chocolate chunk cookies at Charlie's request for his co-workers and banana-nut muffins from some ripe bananas.  Tonight, however, is vichysoisse from James Peterson and multigran bread (Mom style -- she makes really good toast in the mornings with this Publix multigrain bread and I've found a pretty tasty one from Trader Joe's).  Charlie probably won't be home for dinner, so I'll save the stir fry for tomorrow night maybe.

Happy Saturday!