What to do..? Cook!

I am quite all right with being snowed in. Im definitely a homebody when Im not out exploring the campus and surrounding neighborhoods or going out somewhere with friends. The snow storm provided a good opportunity for me to get settled in and crank out some recipes Ive been meaning to create for several days now. Laura and Erin came over for the evening and we decided to make some dinner with all the fresh stuff I brought home the other night. Here is what we ended up with.

Guacamole!

I adore guacamole. Chips, salsa and guac are all I need to live on.. We made this delicious guac with:

3 organic avocados

diced red onion

diced tomato

cumin

garlic

lime juice

cilantro

s+p

This is the recipe I got from my friend's mother who is from Texas, so its pretty tasty. You can put corn and other stuff in it, depending on what you like.

Potato Cauliflower Souffle

potatoes

cauliflower 

salt

pepper

butter

evaporated milk

ground cloves

grated baby swiss cheese

egg replacer

For the topping we used:

toasted sliced almonds

butter

brown sugar 

grated baby swiss cheese

a little flour, I think.. 

This lovely creation was inspired by my mothers delicious sweet potato souffle, which made the cut in to her cook book, and also due to Laura's suggestion to turn what started as a potato-cauliflower mash in to a souffle. I didnt have any eggs so I used a powdered egg replacer instead, which worked better than I thought it would. It rose nicely, was not too dense like mashed potatoes and was delicious when hot out of the oven! I  was pretty impressed with ourselves this time; this recipe, once refined and reproducible, will get its own card in my recipe box.. This means a lot, because I hate using recipes! A dish must be very tasty for me to go through the trouble of recording how it was made to taste a particular way.. I prefer to throw tasty things together and assume it will have a tasty result than follow the rules of a recipe! I keep telling everyone that this is why I won't make a good chemist.. 

The third thing we came up with was supposed to be a Thai curried butternut squash soup.. I just baked the squash with some butter, black truffle oil, salt and pepper till it was soft, mashed it with evaporated milk and more butter and added some basil, curry powder, grated fresh ginger, garlic and a couple other spices that seemed good at the time. I dont have a blender, so I used the hand mixer to make it more like a puree. It turned out more like a thick sauce or paste, but it was delicious served over the saffron rice we cooked with it! I think it would have been much better with a fresher squash and if I had a blender..

The last thing we made is not something we made up, but its a personal discovery. Snow + flavored coffee creamer = ice cream! This was made with a large bottle of English toffee international delight coffee creamer, but most of it ended up melting because we were all so full.