Hello everyone- my name is Grace and I'm here to welcome you to my new foodie blog.  I come from a big foodie family and am passionate about eating the best food out there.  I'm learning as I go and wanted to share my food journey with all of you.  This journey will include my cooking adventures, my experiences with local cuisine, my favorite kitchen appliances and gadgets and many other things that involve food.  I feel like I'm always in the kitchen making up something and wanted to share it with someone, so why not use a blog to do that, right?

Just a little bit about me- I am from St. Louis, MO.  I currently live here as well.  I moved back home after graduating from college and met my husband, who came out here for medical school.  Now we have been married for 2 and a half years and have an adorable little 10 month old son, Flint.  He is also a little baby foodie and loves watching me cook and eating all of my creations.  I have yet to find something he won't eat! The best part about cooking is sharing it with my family and friends. 

So without further ado, I present to you my first blog post, featuring my Valentine's weekend dinner party this past Friday evening.  There ended up being 3 couples in attendance with little Flint tagging along.  Each recipe was a new one for me and I feel they all turned out great.  

Our first course was a wedge salad.  For wedge salads, I prefer using boston lettuce or big lettuce.  It's the perfect size for a starting salad and the lettuce is fresh and not too hard in the middle, like iceberg usually is.  For the dressing I made a homemade ranch dressing (just according to the directions on the back a ranch packet) in a blender and then added about half a cup-3/4 cup of blue cheese crumbles.  The blue cheese adds a zip that is really delicious.  After adding the dressing to the wedge, I drizzled on some balsamic glaze- which you can find in your local grocery store by the balsamic vinegar and olive oils. This is the key ingredient, let me tell you.  I've had many wedge salads before, usually with the same ingredients.  But it's the balsamic glaze trick that takes this wedge salad to the next level and makes it better than the average one.  I learned this trick from my dad- the guy who raised me to be such a foodie :) Then you top with some sliced grape tomatoes, salt and pepper, bacon crumbles (fried yourself), and blue cheese crumbles.  Delish.  

I try to always have a green veggie at all of my dinner parties and this meal was no different.  My absolute favorite vegetable is brussel sprouts.  At least for now it is.  I feel like it's the only green veggie I eat, but no one at my house is complaining, because they are just that good! And they are so simple to make.  Just put your oven at 400, lay the brussels out on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Then you just roast for 20 minutes.  The leaves will be a little charred- which I really like.  You can always take them out a little sooner if that isn't your thing.  

I saw these heart shaped pastas at my favorite grocery store- Aldi and had to buy them.  They were actually the inspiration behind my dinner party in the first place.  After much deliberation, I decided to use them for a gourmet mac and cheese.  I found this recipe on pinterest and it featured aged white cheddar, gruyere cheese, and bacon.  So I knew it was going to be a winner.  Anything with gruyere cheese is going to be good.  Like seriously. If you are interested in the recipe (and I definitely recommend it), you can find it here. I will say, I ended up using a lot more pasta than the recipe called for.  I'm not sure if it's because I didn't use the shape they asked for, but I probably doubled the amount they called for.  Other than that, I didn't change a thing and it was perfect.  I might try a baked version in the future, but this was definitely good.  

For the main course, I decided to go with chicken cordon bleu.  I wanted to do a comfort food to go along with mac and cheese.  And this recipe (found here) had gruyere cheese inside of the cordon bleu, which I felt would add cohesion since it was also in the mac and cheese.  Prosciutto was also inside which made it extra yummy.  The outside was panko bread crumbs with thyme and melted butter.  The thyme was the perfect addition.  

And finally for dessert, I couldn't decide between two things, so I figured why not do two? My husband got me a mini blow torch for creme brulee a year or so ago and I have been waiting for the right opportunity to make it since then.  And I finally had my chance.  And it turned out great! I was also pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make.  I got the recipe from one of those tasty videos on facebook, which I'm a huge fan of by the way.  You can see the video here.  I think the video called for too much sugar on top of the creme brulee, so in the future, I would probably half it to make the torching easier and take less time.  

The other dessert I chose was a dense chocolate loaf cake from a cook book I got for Christmas.  And it was soooo good.  I was definitely a fan.  You can find the recipe here.  The recipe says to make it a day or so in advance and just let it sit as it gets better with time.  I did that and it is definitely true.  It was so extremely moist and dense.  I couldn't get enough of it.  

So that wrapped up my dinner party.  Thanks for reading and I'll be posting again soon with restaurant recommendations.  

Love,

Grace