Among the countless possibilities for how we could spend our time stuck inside together as Jonas traveled along the East Coast leaving piles of frosted treasure, cooking together was high on the list. Knowing how many hours we would most likely be snowed in with nowhere to go, I decided we needed more than one simple cook together dinner to make it through.
To combat Lance’s decision to make complicated croissants for dessert*, I chose a handful of appetizers that I might not ordinarily make.
*Which really ended up being for what I can only call brunch on Sunday afternoon.
For the majority of the storm our kitchen table looked something like this:
And our kitchen window looked something like this…*
*I’m sorry, I know I promised you last post there would be no pictures of the snow. I’ll try to control myself.
After a late breakfast of homemade waffles, then prepping and realizing we had eight hours until we could work with our croissant dough, we tossed together our first appetizer:
Spinach Dip, Pioneer Woman
This was a literal toss together appetizer, but it is one I never, ever make. It has only been in recent years that I’ve started to become a dip person…and now my thighs hate me.
But my mouth loves me. And my mouth is the one who speaks up the most, so she’s the natural winner.
We also made a creamy chipotle dip which was mostly for Lance who loves chipotle anything.
It was about this point in the evening that I realized we were dessert-less since the croissants wouldn’t be finished until the following day.
Being dessert-less is something I never want to be. So as Lance started the next appetizer, I dug through my recipe books for a blizzard worthy dessert.
Whiskey-Mustard Meatballs
The creamy whiskey-mustard sauce would have been delicious spooned over egg noodles! Think Swedish meatballs, with a twist.
Chocolate Chip Cake with Classic Chocolate Buttercream, Back in the Day Bakery
Please do not be deceived. This is no ordinary cake. This is a Back in the Bakery recipe, meaning it was nothing short of incredible! It was dense, sweet, crisp, sugary, and full of so many layers of flavor a boring box mix could never produce.
After dessert, we curled up on the couch with a glass of warm spiced wine that my pal Amy got for me when she was in PA. It’s made with all the right stuff for a snowy, wintery, blizzardy night.
Sunday brought us more snow followed by mountains of snow to wade through in order to bring my car back to full use. Our town has this thing where they don’t want you to park on the street during a snow storm, but also don’t really provide other parking options. We left Lance’s car at my brother’s house and drove my car over the curb into an abandoned parking lot next to my house.*
*That sounds so much more worse than it is in reality.**
**But that is another story for another time.
I am blessed to have a husband who takes care of things like shoveling for me. So instead of shoveling, I made a new appetizer for our lunch.
Grilled Sweet Corn, Zucchini, and Goat Cheese Quesadillas with Fresh Tomato-Basil Salsa aka Vegetarian Quesadillas, Bobby Flay
In planning our appetizers, I searched for things that were a little out of the ordinary for me. If you know me, vegetarian is not in my language. It’s nothing against the vegetarians out there. I’m super proud of the willpower you have.
Me, I could never avoid meat.
However, these veggie quesadillas were so jam packed with flavor from three different cheeses and so many veggies that we hardly missed the meat. In fact, Lance’s response was, “Those were pretty good for vegetarian quesadillas, actually, for quesadillas in general.”
After our quesadillas, we decided to venture out into the world. We needed to get Lance’s car from my brother’s house and that meant getting my car out of the snow covered lot it was parked in.
We figured, we have a Hummer…it will fly above the snow, right?
Wrong.
Perhaps if it had been only a mere twelve inches of snow. But, twenty-four?
Thankfully one of our neighbors helped Lance dig around and inch his way towards the tracks of the two pickups we were parked between.
After somewhere around quadruple the time we expected it to take us, we were finally free and on the road.
After freeing Lance’s car from the snow, a much easier task due to the fortunate plowing my brother’s driveway received, we ventured to the only place worth venturing to in the aftermath of a snowstorm: Starbucks.
That was about all the fun we could handle outside of our home. We rushed back to end the night with two more apps.
Beef Skewers with Cherry Tomatoes and Parsley Sauce, Giada
Know how sometimes when you are trying to make a recipe and you read medium high and think it only says medium? Yeah, that happened to me with these beef skewers. It ended up taking me double the time to cook them because of this little error.
But they were worth it. I let them marinate extra long in the parsley sauce simply because I forgot about them and I think it ended up being a glorious mistake. The sauce had a slight kick to it that made those heavenly meat squares pop. The grilled tomatoes were delicious on their own, but when eaten with the meat they created a nice cooling factor.
Classic Hot Wings, Pioneer Woman
I’m a real hot wing snob. My family used to deep fry wings every weekend and there weren’t many options around that could compare. These did the job, but the final step of baking them for fifteen minutes (after deep frying them and coating them with the hot sauce) ruined them. If the skin of my hot wings isn’t crisp, then it keeps me from wanting to eat it. And I don’t think you need me to point out that the skin is where all the flavor lies.
I know many found themselves in a rough spot during this blizzard. Piles of snow, though beautiful, often wreak havoc. I am blessed to have been able to spend the entire duration of the storm safe, warm, and with my favorite person.
Leave a Reply