Smoked Salmon lasagna? Yeah!

Of course, Matt requested cornmeal ebelskivers as usual.

 Smoked Salmon Lasagna?  That's what I said.  Make a bechamel sauce, boil the noodles...

Mix together a million cheeses, saute some mushrooms and tomatoes...

 Layer, layer...

Noodles, cheese, sauce, vegetables, salmon...It worked!  Try it out!

Kandinsky

Leona thoughtfully bought me a present for my first art show - a book on Kandinsky.  I had never heard of this painter, but looking through the book, his abstract, whimsical work reminded me a lot of my own.

I'm really taken by his work.  I love how colorful it is.

Love it!  So different...

READ ABOUT HIM HERE

Throw me a bone here.

My first time cooking chicken on the bone - stuffed with mushrooms and swiss cheese!

A little french onion soup on the stove...

Of course with huge croutons on top!

Baked macaroni and cheese...

 And of course, this is Matt's meal!

 For a healthy dessert, what do you do with a cup of wild rice and a cup of quinoa?

Make a muffin of course!

Shockingly, they were delicious!  A bit of flour to bind it, an egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, golden raisins, vanilla, baking powder, orange zest, sugar - you can make a muffin out of anything!

More snow? More cooking, more baking, more painting of course!

It's another snowy day (will this ever end?) so I decided to play with my new toy - EBELSKIVER TIME!!!

I couldn't get over how easy they were to make!  Once you make the pancake-esque batter, you put a tablespoon of it n the greased holes, top it with a teaspoon of whatever filling you prefer, and top it off with another tablespoon of batter.

After four minutes or so you turn them in the pan - i flipped them over with a butter knife.  Then next thing you know, you got ebelskivers!

They were a hit as you can see.  My next venture - savory ebelskivers - the recipes I found include smoked salmon and dill, italian cheese, fig and prosciutto, cornmeal, coconut... - YUM!

 **********************************************************************************
For dinner, I played with another toy - a WOK!  I did a cashew chicken stir fry - here's the recipe - and it tasted better than take out!

You puree the spices and scallions into a paste and then stir-fry them.

Brown the chicken.

Add the colorful rainbow of veggies...

Toss in some shitake mushrooms and bok choy...

Add all of the wonder chinese sauces...

Stir fry it all!

Finish it off with bean sprouts, sesame seeds, and cashews - yum - I wish I could eat vegetables!

I was really on a cooking spree - I made shrimp dumplings with a chili oil dipping sauce.

 They are a copycat recipe from P.F. Chang's - from this great book Top Secret Recipes 2 - which gives great knockoffs of popular restaurant recipes!

And for dessert - a light fruit compote - very winter-appropriate.

 **********************************************************************************
I did a little painting too - some abstract backgrounds.

The yellow is actually from "textured paint."  Go figure!