A weekday at home

What a great day it's been! I realized earlier this week that I had a floating holiday that I needed to use before the end of the month, so I decided to take today off from work. When I told Joe about my plan, he started feeling "sick" and ended up staying home today, too ;) We spent a decent part of the day being completely lazy, but also got very inspired in the kitchen. Joe and I each had little projects we did on our own, and we also worked together to make a fantastic dinner. As I'm writing, Joe's grilling pineapple for dessert, so the feast is not over yet!


First, I took advantage of my time at home to make the Slow Roasted Tomatoes I saw on the Perfect Pantry. Holy cow! What a gorgeous combination of ingredients. The smell was amazing as they slow roasted their way to a caramelized, juicy, sweet treat. I couldn't tell quite how long to cook them, but I think I took them out at the perfect time. Tasting them a few hours later was a treat, and I have a feeling these won't last long in my house!


While I did the tomatoes, Joe had a cooking project of his own. He'd seen Alton Brown make cottage cheese recently, and decided this day at home was the perfect time to try it out. It was a really simple recipe, with very little hands on time. It turned out great! The cottage cheese was more firm than what I would buy at the store, and kind of reminded me of the texture of string cheese. It was moist and satisfying, even though the original recipe was a bit too salty. I think we'll make this again, just with about 1/2 the salt. The recipe is from foodnetwork.com.

We also made a fantastic dinner, with Thomas Keller inspired salmon crisps for an appetizer, Thyme and Potato Focaccia, and Garlic and Mustard pork skewers. I am going to save dinner for a different post, so tune in again for those recipes...