Sunday, November 19, 2017

November Recap! "Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking" By, Dana Shultz



The Book: 


The Sisters: 
Desiree, Gemma, Sabina and Andrea


Thank you Desiree for hosting! It was Thanksgiving week and she had family in town and she still hosted! We were lucky enough to be joined by her Mother and our first male attendee, her cousin. They were both such a pleasure!  

The Minimalist Baker is a vegetarian cookbook. Not all books warrant me wanting to purchase it but this one, I need this one. We all agreed that meat was not missed at all. Desiree introduced us to Jackfruit which has the consistency of meat and it was delicious! I would make every dish again for sure. Everything was full of flavor and just delicious. 




"No Tuna" Salad 

Chickpea Shawarma Dip 

Cauliflower Rice Stir Fry 

BBQ Jackfruit 




Monster glass, fit for a queen! 



Recipes: 

BBQ Jackfruit 


"No Tuna" Salad 


Cauliflower Rice Stir Fry 


Chickpea Shawarma Dip 



Thanks again ladies. I look forward to creating many memories with all of you and bonding over the love of cooking, food and girl time.








Sunday, October 8, 2017

November meeting! "Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking" By, Dana Shultz

The next meeting will take place November 19th at 2:00pm. Thank you Desiree for offering to host!

We will cook from "Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking" By, Dana Shultz



Desiree owns this book and loves it. It's all vegan! Dana Shultz started off as a blogger so many of her recipies are online. Check Pinterest. 


All of the details will be included in the Evite which will be sent out soon. Please RSVP when you receive it so we have 
an accurate headcount and as we get closer please update the Evite with your recipe choice. Thank you! 

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

October meeting! "How to Cook Indian" by, Sanjeev Kapoor

The next meeting will take place October 8th at 2:00pm. Thank you Sabina for offering to host!

We will cook from "How to Cook Indian" by, Sanjeev Kapoor.


Bonus! This book is available as an eBook from the Charlotte Mecklenburg library. https://cmlibrary.org/

All of the details are included in the Evite. Please RSVP and as we get closer please update the Evite with your recipe choice. Thank you! 

http://evite.me/vg2Z1M6Hhm

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

September Recap! Ina Garten's "Barefoot in Paris" Take 2



The Book:
Ina Garten’s Barefoot in Paris




The Sisters:
Megan, Desiree, Sabina, Andrea 




The Dishes lovingly prepared:

Salad with Warm Goat Cheese



Zucchini Gratin



Coconut Madeleines



Spinach in Puff Pastry
                                        
                                




The Details:

Thank you Megan for welcoming us into your beautiful home. It was warmly and perfectly decorated for fall and smelled delicious like pumpkin spice. It was the perfect space to spend the afternoon together enjoying great conversation and delicious food. The strawberry basil margaritas were perfect for our fall meeting on a 90 degree day! 

We enjoyed a completely vegetarian meal for the second time in a row and it was delicious. Each meeting we manage to choose things that complement each other perfectly. It is fun to choose the favorite dish which is really just the dish most likely to be made again. This time we couldn’t decide! We all agreed that we would make each dish again.

The salad was a simple salad but what made it unique was the homemade dressing and the toast with goat cheese. The dressing had an egg in the recipe that really added a richness that we all really enjoyed. The zucchini gratin was great. It had a tons of onions which we all loved. “What’s not to love!?” It could definitely stand on its own with a salad and be the main dish. The spinach in puff pastry really had a nice presentation for something so simple. Using puff pastry in this dish was a nice variation verses phyllo dough which is used in spanakopita, a very similar Greek dish. The Madeleines are a very simple but very impressive dessert. Investing in the Madeleine pan is definitely worth it. 

Megan waited to bake these so that we could enjoy them warm, straight from the oven. Delicious!




Looking ahead…
We discussed the topic of attendees and members. This month we had 4 members for the third meeting in a row. We all decided that we enjoy the intimacy! We are getting to know each other and it's very easy to keep the conversation flowing. We have a total of 13 members now, with 3 new ladies recently invited to join the group, so the potential for a large meeting every so often is still a possibility. But the consensus is that the meetings of 4 are equally enjoyable as the larger meetings. So we'll keep it like it is! We all will make some and miss some. 

Spice Sister’s Society’s First Annual “Husbands Too Holiday Party”
Megan had the great idea to include the husbands once a year. We thought what better time than for a holiday party. It will be held on November 19th to avoid December holiday madness. We will also take December off. We can thank them all for  the past months of helping to clean for a party they are not invited to, mixing delicious cocktails they do not get to enjoy and getting lost with the kids! We’ll make this kid free and later in the day so we can all have a relaxing evening. Thank you Desiree for offering to host this one! We’ll decide on a book at the meeting on October 8th.


Recipes: 















Thanks again ladies. I look forward to creating many memories with all of you and bonding over the love of cooking, food and girl time.

Sunday, June 11, 2017

June Recap! Ina Garten's "Barefoot in Paris" Take 1



The Sisters: 
Desiree, Megan, Andrea and Gemma

The Book: 


Although this was almost a year ago I remember it vividly. We were all really chatty that day and stayed well past the end time.  Always such great company with this bunch! It was a very light but fulfilling meal and just happened to be a vegetarian meal.  The funny thing about this book choice is that we all searched for recipes from the Ina and I don't think even one of these recipes was actually from this particular book. Which is why we decided to repeat this one in September at Megan's house! 

Desiree was doing "Mom things" all weekend and ran out of time to make her dish. We all know that feeling too well. But instead of canceling she improvised and set out a cheese plate and it was the perfect accompaniment to the other dishes! Thank you again Desiree for hosting. 





Desiree - Cheese Plate


Andrea - Watermelon, Arugula and Feta Salad


Megan - Tapenade 


Gemma - Vegetable Tian 





Recipes: 

Vegetable Tian

                                                   Watermelon, Arugula and Feta Salad

Tapenade




Thanks again ladies. I look forward to creating many memories with all of you and bonding over the love of cooking, food and girl-time.



Sunday, May 21, 2017

May Meeting Recap! Jaime's America

Spice Sisters Society
    
 
       

The Sisters in attendance:
Shauna, Gemma, Andrea, Alexis 



The Book:
Jaime's America 

 

The dishes that were lovingly prepared and enjoyed:

Gemma- Southern Red Beans and Pork 

                                              Andrea- Green Chili 

                                 Shauna-Southern Pecan & Apple Salad 
                      

            Alexis- Peach Cobbler       



                   

How it all played out:


Our June meeting was our last meeting before taking a summer break. I was lucky enough to host this meeting and I am looking forward to doing it again. I have always been a Jaime Oliver fan so I picked up this cookbook a few years ago on clearance from Barnes and Noble. I have never cooked anything from it. It was filled with so much variety and so many creative options. We may need to have it make a reappearance when we have more of our regulars back so we can experience more  

My green chili wasn't actually green. Nor was it actually chili as most people know it. This was Jaime's variation of a Nava  Not sure what happened but it was really flavorful and using pork was a nice change. Alexis' peach cobbler failed to rise o but it tasted just fine. That is a recipe that will take some playing around with to figure out what happened. Gemma's 

It is becoming harder and harder to choose a favorite dish.  I always think of the "favorite" as the dish most likely to be made by the rest of the group. I think the Arugula salad wins! Thanks Shauna! It's classic, easy to prepare and delicious. 






Thanks again ladies. I look forward to creating many memories with all of you and bonding over the love of cooking, food and girl time.

Recipes: