Strawberries in Paris

Hey look! I’m going to write about food! (Not Thanksgiving food or Spain food yet….) but still delicious food, that we got to eat while sipping on some delicious tea! I had cookbook club at my house in November and because it was so close to thanksgiving, we wanted to do something light and dainty. So I found this cookbook at the Frederick Library. Oh how I love dainty afternoons at my house.

I got out all of the pressed pretty linens, doilies, and Alayne and Julie brought their fine china and tea cups.

But before we got to sit down all happy and ready to chow, we had to cook these delicious things! So go to our Charm City Cookbook Club page to see the post…

Hey Look! We had cookbook club at Maria’s house! And I made butternut squash soup and naan and they were fantastic.

Heart shaped naan. (awwwwwwh said in the way James says this!)

Go check out our CBC site for Maria’s post! And pray that my brain and body get back to normal sometime before the end of this year. I put my biceps out of commission for a week with a renegade lifting class last Thursday and the amount of sh** hitting the fan at work is reaching new levels and is causing my head to spin daily. So boy is that Spain vacation is going to be awesome, but I bet I am going to have to work twice as hard as I usually do when I come back to makeup for lost time… But boo hoo cause thats when I want to be writing my christmas cards and leisurely baking cookies at night. We will see friends. We will see. Anyways, happy friday, hope you have a good weekend! I am gearing up for a wine tasting in PA tomorrow for my dear friend Kendra’s Bachelorette Party!

Well haven’t I been a most delinquent CBC blogger! And everyone can give me smack because I am usually so bossy for everyone elses posts! So we have cookbook club this Sunday! Indian food! But for now, let’s check out some southern food! This was Renee’s last cookbook club gathering as a resident of MD. (Don’t worry folks- she will be back in 2 years from TX! *Fingers crossed!*). And it was very fitting that this cookbook, the one that started it all, is what finished her tenure for now. The Lee Brothers – Simple Fresh Southern.

We started with strawberry wine coolers. Oh yes. They were deeelicious. Sweet and refreshing.

And here was my entree, of which I was super proud. Nice cut of steak from Wegmans… Finn grilled it up on the grill for me (awesome) and the parsley sauce was so flavorful and perfectly complimentary to the rich slices of beef.

Now go hop on over to the Charm City Cookbooking Page to see the remaining dishes!

Cookbook club was a little more than a week ago and held at Julie’s house. There is so much space in Julie’s kitchen, its really a cook’s dream! Somehow all of that space is consumed in about 30 minutes after we get in there! Who woulda thunk!

I got some good shots of everyone’s hands at work so I thought I would share them…

Getting asparagus ready for the salad

Getting the pie crust ready for the savory tart appetizer.

Getting the celery root chopped up for the beef on a string entree. And cutting up that said beef on a string!

and voila! we have dessert!

It was a fun night as always, but we weren’t so impressed by the recipes. Go to our Charm City Cookbooking Club page to see more highlights!

Last Friday night Maria (our resident writer) had us over for her first Cookbook Club at her house! Her house is suuuuuper lovely and so charming. I could totally move in (with Alayne) and we would take full use of that reading nook in Mia’s bedroom and that awesome side porch! The young lady of the house, Mia, made us these adorable placecards for the dining table, with her fancy writing!

Our food was good, as always, maybe not as amazing as French Laundry but most of the recipes were simple and delicious! Go check out Maria’s post at our CBC blog here, and go see some more pictures of my ensalada and fun!

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This month was very fun for me, why?? Cause it was at my house AND we got to look at ourselves in the March edition of Baltimore Magazine!!! Check out the online article right here! So I chose this cookbook because someone I know is obsessed with Claire Robinson… She loves cooking french food, has a funny little french bulldog and spends her Sunday afternoons drinking beer and watching golf. I wonder who has that obsession?? So I was in the bookstore one day and laid my eyes upon this cookbook and Claire’s. I must admit I do enjoy some Food network cookbooks in my collection (Ina & Tyler) so looking at her recipes made me equally happy. And lucky for me, that certain someone bought both books for me for Valentine’s Day!!!

So last Saturday night was a busy one! We had seven of us (six of the crew + 1 special guest!) But wow were these recipes good. Like 90% of them! So on this blog post I’m going to write about my blackened catfish. The post on our Charm City Cookbooking blog was getting too large for my taste to talk about this too, so there we go!

I made the compound butter in the afternoon before everyone arrived. Very fragrant. I think Claire was kinda cheating because for this recipe one of the 5 ingredients was Creole seasoning (which has like 7 ingredients in it). Since I could not find any creole seasoning up in the Frederick, I decided to make my own! And Emeril came through with this piece. So I added that creole seasoning, some lemon zest and juice and two sticks of butter! Hot damn! I didn’t use up all of the butter, so for a serving of 7 you could probably get away with one recipe of this. So now the next time I make fish, that compound butter is coming out of the freezer!

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Hola amigos! So at the end of last month, Alayne hosted cookbook club and chose Jose Andres new cookbook: A Taste of Spain in America!

I would also like to remember that night as “The day we had a photo shoot and the day I took two hours to make croquetas from scratch!”

See? Yum and time consuming croquetas…

And here was our photog (ahem, photographer!) taking pictures of me and everybody else while I was frying up the croquetas!

So hop on over to our Charm City Cookbook Club Blog and see Alayne’s marvelous write up!

and go for the jump and see the croqueta recipe!

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