And the beat goes on...

And the beat goes on... the egg beating that is! Whoa! Take a minute to gather yourself after I just dropped that atom bomb of awesome blog opening humor and word play on you.

Okay, have you recovered? Let's continue then...

I continued my quest to cook my way through the MFC last night. For those of you who may not remember my first blog or who didn't read my first blog or who read my first blog and have since gone through great pains to block out my first blog, MFC is just a quicker, more efficient and, let's face it, far hipper way to say (or write, as it were) "Mommsen Family Cookbook."

I had taken a week or so off from cooking as I was out of town, but I'm back and ready to create some culinary delights. Last night, I made three MFC dishes:

Entree: Aunt Marie's Lemon Chicken and Artichoke Hearts
Side dish: Aunt Kay's (AKA my Mom's) Roasted Asparagus
Dessert: Grandma's Molasses Cookies

Not only did I make these three things, but I also made an egg casserole thingy from a recipe I found online. I know! Who am I? I can count on one hand how many times I used my stove or oven in the last two years and here I am cooking up a storm... This is my La Niña year in the kitchen, I can just feel it! Speaking of La Niña, can you guess what the weather was like yesterday? Speaking of La Niña... again... I will admit this to you and only you, because you seem interested and I know you won't judge... I just learned how to do the "ñ" on my computer right now, as I was writing this La Niña bit. Whoever said that we learn something new everyday was sure right! I was doubting this proclamation earlier, because it was 9:00pm and I really hadn't learned anything new yet today (except that this one guy's name is "Jerome", which I guess is something). But then, the gift of ñ was given to me and I'm not going to waste it! But, you must have faith in me that I will not overuse it. Nothing gets me more riled up than ñ overuse and exploitation... Who's with me??

Let's break the dishes down, peeps... (Again, dropping the hip urban lingo into my blog. I'm on the verge of showing off... I said on the VERGE... There may be more nuggets of such colloquialisms scattered throughout the rest of this entry like little islands of desperate attempts to appear youthful through the use of words and phrases that were almost cool about a decade ago in an ocean of "can't pull it off-edness"). But I digress...

AUNT MARIE'S LEMON CHICKEN AND ARTICHOKE HEARTS

Two things attracted me to this recipe:
1. It called for both lemon juice and rosemary and as luck (combined with a favorable climate and thoughtful planning and planting on the part of our house's previous tenants) would have it, we happen to have 2 lemon trees and a rather robust rosemary bush in our back yard. So any recipe that gives me an excuse to make use of the goodness that either of those provide is aces* in my book. (*"Aces" is a term I stole from the 1980s classic, "16 Candles". Thank you Molly Ringwald for that and, well, I guess just for that. J/K, Mols! Girl, you know you were the bees knees in "Pretty in Pink" and "The Breakfast Club" as well. "J/K?" "Girl?" It's no wonder the kid's at work think I'm rad!)

2. It was submitted by Aunt Marie. 'Nuff said.

I admitted that I am not the most seasoned of cooks, but I knew when the recipe kindly asked me to saute the chicken in 3 tablespoons of butter and then add more butter with the mushrooms that we were going to enjoy this dish. How could we not?? Chicken, onion, mushrooms, garlic (I took liberties) and BUTTER?? Plus, the addition of artichoke hearts at the end? Delightful. Really, super delicious. Dan had the leftovers today and he said that it was even better the 2nd day because all the flavors had a chance to get to know each other better. You know what else I loved about this recipe (besides the finished product)? The fact that all of the ingredients were easy and practical to buy. No crazy spices that I'll never use again, just a medley of delicious common flavors that together made my taste buds sing! (Hooray for seeing the music metaphor through to the end!) Will we make this again? Maybe we will and maybe we WILL!

AUNT KAY'S ROASTED ASPARAGUS

My Mom's recipe + another excuse to use some lemons = Ding! Ding! Ding! WINNER! I think you can probably guess how this combo of flavors may taste: asparagus, lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil and feta cheese. You can't guess? I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with "shmout-shmanding!" So good and was the perfect Robin to the Chicken and Artichoke's Batman. Don't hurt your back picking up all the pop culture references I'm dropping!

GRANDMA'S MOLASSES COOKIES

Things had gone pretty smoothly throughout the day o' domesticity until this one... How am I supposed to form the batter into little balls to dip into the sugar if the batter is so runny?? HOW I ASK YOU? Actually, unless you are Grandma, I didn't ask you in reality. But, I did have to seek the advice of the expert to help me through. First, she made me feel a lot better about my impending cookie doom by telling me that she has had trouble with these cookies before. Was she saying that to make me feel better or was it the truth? Matters not-eth. The effect was the same: I felt better. Then she suggested that I put the batter in the refrigerator to firm it up a bit. As she said that, it was like my life was in slo-mo... I ever so slowly (or so it seemed, slo-mo will do that) turned to look toward where our friendly fridge was standing and when I did, I would swear it was glowing... That, friends... That cooling comrade of mine was going to save me from myself. And it DID. These cookies. These cookies. These COOKies! Dare I say they are sugary discs of heaven? I dare say just that because they are! I am taking some to work tomorrow to a) share the goodness and b) get them away from me! They are too good. I am powerless against them. Let's just say that my jeans are not exactly thrilled with my new relationship with molasses. They'll get over it!

Hope to cook more next weekend!! Pics to come...

Mañana, año, piñata, cupleaños... I wish I had kept up with my Spanish if only for this moment!