Merima Visits Chicago

Yay, my friend Merima left cold Minnesota by bus to cold and windy Chicago to visit and keep me company while I get my feet on the ground. Currently, I do not work often, so it does get lonely. Tomorrow Merima leaves and I will once again have to entertain myself developing new recipes. Our first night of extravagant eating was mussels over spinach linguine with a Meuniere sauce and a side of garlicky green beans.

Mussels over Spinach Linguine in Meuniere Sauce

We attempted to make thumbprint cookies, but were not pleased with the results. The recipe, I thought, was full-proof and tested from the Joy of Baking. Even after the cookies came out of the oven, they were too flat and tasted like a stick of butter. However, I managed to form them back into their intend shape and refrigerated them. A day later we tasted again, not wanting to trash our lovely cookies of apricot and almond delights. To our surprise, they tasted much better. Still buttery, but decent.

The picture on the left depicts me pulsing the roasted almonds in the food processor. Almonds were used to coat the cookies just before baking.

My apartment is quite small as you can see with only enough room for one body to manage the stove, sink and preparation area. I am actually standing in front of the island prep station with my oven and sink hiding behind.

Do you see all my canned/preserved goodies in the top of the picture? That is from my stock of 80 something jars. Neat eh?

This is the thumbprint batter. Nice and buttery. It definitely needed to be refrigerated; I believe it was for 45 minutes, not the suggested 30 minutes. It was far too soft to work at 30 minutes.