Monday: It’s What’s For Dinner

Despite failing to create a Saturday Splurge this week (many thanks go to my mom and grandmother for feeding our sick, pitiful little family on Saturday night), the interest in food rages on.  I’ve brought food back into the realm of creative outlet and have been working hard to create new, interesting things for dinner.  Matt and I are also both trying to do a better job of eating better (for me that means eating less, eating whole where possible, and replacing as many crackers and bread products as possible with fruits and veggies — for Matt I think it means limiting his fast food and beer, though he may beg to differ…).  I find that I work harder to make things look nice when I’m taking pictures and recording results (as has been the case with the Saturday Splurge meals) and that things that look nice create a better dinner experience for me so I thought I’d bring it to the blog.

Behold, my first non-Saturday-Splurge meal worthy of pictures and written word:  It’s called Chicken, Mushroom, and Polenta Lasagna, the recipe for which can be found here.  It was awesome.  I think that anything that starts with organic tomatoes grown with love by my Mama and fresh herbs from DFM could hardly be anything but.  Throw in pesto, mushrooms, and polenta, and we’ve got a winner!

Here’s a shot of the freshly pureed tomatoes (although no camera that we could afford could really capture the beauty of the reds):

Here’s what the tomato and herb mixture looked like (if only there were smell-a-vision, because folks, it was pure heaven in here) before I stirred and began simmering:

Here’s what the whole thing looked like in process:

Here’s the final product:

Top that off with one of our favorite spinach salads and we’re in business, baby!