Alice in Regularland |

Its my moms birthday today. Happy Birthday mom! So I thought it would be sweet to cook her dinner and desert since I have the day off. Plus I have been looking for an excuse to try making this desert I saw on Giada.  I was craving something southwest so I decided to layer a roasted poblano pepper, with pan fried polenta topped with pinto beans, pea shoots, roasted corn and fresh salsa and a side of anjo chilli green beans and wild rice. And for desert chocolate purses. Sounds good right?

No. No. No. No.

Dont get me wrong it wasn't awful but, it wasn't great either. The pinto beans were bland, the poblanos were too small, the polenta didnt crisp and the pea shoots were too bitter to use at all. Unless I served a plated dinner, there was really no way to stack the ingredients so I put them into a casserole dish and tried to layer it there but then it looked like a casserole so I decided to just make it a casserole so I threw it in the oven for 20 mins, and threw some cheese on top. The green beans shrunk up so much it was barely enough for one person so I went back to the store (at this point I had already been to two), and picked up a bag of brocolli. The rice was sub-par really nothing special.

                                        (a real chocolate purse. and the source of my inspiration)

The chocolate purses were the only thing that turned out good. Even those were almost too rich too eat a whole serving. But I was proud none the less since I had no recipe to work with just a list of ingredients with no amounts. If your wondering they are not a purse made of chocolate they are infact some flourless chocolate cake layered nutella and hazelnuts all wrapped up in a beautiful phyllo dough package. My biggest mistake there was that I accidently picked up puff pastry instead of phyllo dough therefore making a ginormous hazelnut chocolate turnover than a purse.

Here's the capper... my dad and I are standing around hungry and waiting for my mom to come home, who was now 2 hours late when she finally walks in she declares "I cant eat that, its my alkaline day."

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!?

What is an akaline day you ask? Apparently you can only eat fruits and vegetables. Why? because shes on some crazy diet for doctor for a week.
So all that work was for nothing.
My dad and I served ourselves a plate, slopped on a bunch of sour-cream which made the casserole thing pretty good and then gorged ourselves on too-rich-chocolate-purses.

Fantastic.

Spent the weekend doing nothing. Worked on my moms scarf. I hate that thing. Bobbles are driving me crazy. Cant wait till its done.