Creativity.

What a very satisfying meal today! For our Soup Monday I made a soup I've made before... Pepper Jack Soup. I got it from my "old" friend Christine (who I've known since elementary school!). The soup is seriously amazing. It's so polished, and yet so easy to make. I won't post the recipe up on here, but go over to this entry of Christine's to make some for yourself. You won't be sorry!

This morning before my doctor's appointment I decided we needed to have a caesar salad with dinner. Typically we buy Annie's Naturals caesar dressing, but I really don't care much for it. I also noticed on their website that it contains anchovies?!! Is this a new thing? Because last time I checked I thought it was fish-free? At any rate - I wanted a caesar salad dressing that didn't have anchovies OR eggs. I browsed online and in cookbooks and didn't really like what I was finding. Most of them were lacking the "creamy" aspect I was looking for. So, I decided to go ahead and throw some ingredients into my food processor and see how it turned out. I tweaked and added and finally came up with something that I thought "would do". As it turns out, it was perfect once mixed in with the romaine, croutons and parmesan cheese. Yum yum! Then I figured I was on a roll, so why not try to come up with a new bun recipe. I wanted a garlicky bread (apparently there wasn't enough garlic in my soup and dressing?! haha! Garlic lover, much?) and they turned out not bad. I may play around with them a bit more, but all in all... yum!

Caesar Salad Dressing

3 cloves of garlic

1/4 cup tahini

5 tbsp olive oil

juice of 1 lemon

1 tsp vegetarian worcestershire sauce

1 tsp Dijon mustard

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp agave nectar

freshly ground black pepper

Throw all the ingredients in a food processor and whir until well blended and smooth. Chill until ready to use.

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Garlicky Buns

Dough:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup warm water

1 tbsp dry active yeast

1 tsp salt

1/2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tbsp olive oil

Garlic Butter:

5 tbsp margarine

2 tsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp oregano

salt and pepper, to taste

Mix warm water, and yeast in a bowl until it dissolves and gets a bit foamy. Add the salt and sugar and dissolve. Add the flours and knead until it makes a soft dough.

Cover with a wet towel and place in a warm area. Let it sit for at least an hour.

While it's sitting, mix up the garlic butter (all ingredients into one bowl), and put in the fridge until later.

After the hour is up, add the olive oil and knead it into the dough. Roll the dough out into a rectangle on a clean surface. Spread the garlic butter you have refrigerated onto the dough. Save a small portion of it for the top of the buns.

Roll the long end of the dough into a spiral, and slice into 6 even pieces. Spray a square pan with some Pam and lay the spirals on the pan. Top with remaining garlic butter. Let the pan sit on the stove while you heat it up to 325. This should help the buns rise a bit more.

Cook for 25 minutes in the 325 oven.

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We finished dinner off with a slice of the Maple Sugar Pie we bought on Saturday at Maple in the County and a dollop of freshly whipped cream. It was incredibly sweet, and I was only able to eat half of my slice before my sugar coma kicked in... Kyle finished off my slice (since he hadn't taken any pie for himself)...



... He completely agreed that it was sickly sweet. ;)

Tiernan never finishes his crusts... but as you can see, a certain someone was VERY happy about that!

Now I'm off to take Tiernan to Tap! Just in time.