Gruyere and Prosciutto Baked Omelette

I love to make omelette's, first because I love eggs, second because it gives you a chance to be creative and use things in your fridge and pantry to create a great breakfast or dinner. While I typically cook them over the stove, here is a great way to mix it up and bake it. Feel free to be creative with this, adding or substituting other vegetables and cheeses to make this one your own (although I do have to say, this version will definitely impress you the way it is).

Short Rib Osso Buco with Polenta Crust

I was going to Williams-Sonoma's website to check out some recipes that my Mom found and on the first page of recipes there was this amazing looking Short Rib recipe from Tuscany. I am a sucker for a good picture of food and this one caught me right away. I have to admit it wasn't just the food that looked good though. I saw that it was cooked in a ceramic dutch oven and I've just recently started cooking with them. I have just been cooking my no-knead in them and I really wanted to try some kind of stew in it as well. Since we were having some friends come over for Dinner Sunday night I thought that would be a good time to try it out. This recipe definitely takes some time to cook but there's really not a whole lot of time spent in preparation for the amazing results. After being cooked for over 4 hours the short ribs are completely tender and flavorful and the polenta crust is a perfect combination with the rest of the flavors.

Grape and Almond Bread Pudding

The recipe for the Grape Risotto I made last week had a link to a Grapes from California website that had many different recipes using grapes. It was so interesting to see all the different ways that you can use grapes. My wife and kids all love grapes so they don't usually last long and I don't really usually think to cook with them but I think I might try to confiscate some of them more often.

Roasted Grape Risotto with Hazelnuts and La Tur Cheese

I don't remember ever cooking or really even eating anything with grapes in it other than salads. A few nights ago there was an ad on TV from Food Network for a Roasted Grape Risotto. It looked so interesting  and I checked out the website and loved seeing all the other recipes with grapes in them.

Housewarming Party

We just moved into our new home about a month ago and we hosted a housewarming party this last weekend. I was excited to make some new appetizers I had found and I knew that it was going to take quite a lot of time to get them all baked and put together. My plan was to work on them Friday afternoon and evening and then get it all finished up Saturday morning before the party. However, early Friday morning, a Tornado hit our neighborhood! There was no major damage to our house but it took out a few of our trees and I spent most of the day cleaning all of it up.

Coconut -Piloncillo Ice Cream with Coconut Tortilla Chips and Fruit Salsa

I mentioned last week that while I was shopping in the Thai grocery store that I found some beautiful mangoes. I had seen this recipe for ice cream with the fruit salsa that looked so good but usually mangoes are so expensive. When I saw these I couldn't resist.

Coconut-Vegetable Curry

This last week as I walked through the Minneapolis Farmer's market I decided to pick out some ingredients that I haven't used before or not recently at least. I ended up with leeks, thai eggplant, thai and cayenne peppers, beets, green beans, eggplant and zucchini. I knew it would require some more research to use some of these but I needed some new inspiration.