eat your greens!

even though i haven't done much shopping in quite a while (*tear*), i still get a shitton of catalogs in the mail almost every freaking day. i guess it's a good thing we live in a place the size of a thimble, with no room to put shit away in, because i shouldn't be buying anything anyway.

in the last williams-sonoma catalog i got, i flipped through the pages, oohing and aahing at all the fun kitchen stuff in there. and then i turned a page and saw this:
i'm totally drooling all over myself again just at the sight of it. cute little puffy pancakes, filled with chocolate, drizzled with even more chocolate, and served with a dollop of sweet whipped cream. and this is breakfast. niiiiice. i tossed that catalog in the recycle bin and forgot all about it until i was browsing on amazon, and found a cheaper version of the puff pancake pan. um, with free shipping. sold!

yesterday, i decided to give it a shot. i googled for recipes and learned that they're actually called æbleskivers, a dutch treat typically served at christmas breakfast. they can be sweet - filled with chocolate, jam, cream cheese, or savory - stuffed with cheese, veggies, bacon. i picked a simple recipe from the williams-sonoma website and busted out the nutella to use as my filling.

i put little dabs of butter in each well:

filled them with batter, and then dropped in a tablespoonful of nutella:

flipping them over was a little tricky, but with the nonstick surface (and that lovely coating of butter), i got the hang of it after the first couple of tries.

when they were a nice shade of golden brown, i put them on a plate and sprinkled some powdered sugar on top.

these are so much fun, and really yummy. hopefully, my next attempts won't be as misshapen. i can't wait till the teen gets home so i can try out a lemon mascarpone-stuffed version! well, and maybe one with bacon bits too. gotta have the right balance of sweet and salty, right? heh.

i'd gone to costco and picked up a 2-pound bag of asparagus. inexplicably, i LOVE asparagus. i don't know what it is about it, but it's my very favorite vegetable. and corner bakery used to serve a really delicious cream of asparagus soup, but they haven't offered it in a couple of years. so i decided to make my own, and went with this recipe.

it was surprisingly easy, and with a few tweaks here and there, i ended up with a pot simmering on the stove that was chock-full of creamy asparagus-y goodness.

i served it with my favorite spinach salad, and it made for a really yummy dinner. i guess i could've saved it for st. patty's day, since everything's such a lovely shade of green, but i refuse to serve anything but corned beef and cabbage on this holiday.

ah, how i love to cook.