kitchen redemption

I feel like the Rocky theme song should be playing right now. I redeemed myself in the kitchen today, twice. Whew. I was worried after last weekend's cookie debacle and my mid-week "I'm off food" phase that this holiday season was going to be a complete bust in the enjoyable eats department.

I made some really good banana bread this morning, from a recipe a Starbuck's employee gave me a few months ago. Supposedly this is Starbuck's new banana bread recipe, from when they decided to start baking with real ingredients. So, that's all ready to go to Iowa for Kane Christmas 2009.

Tonight I roasted some vegetables. Among them, parsnips. To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time I've had parsnips. I like them - at least I do roasted with yellow onion and golden beets, sea salt, pepper and olive oil. I combined the veggies with these very tasty tiny ravioli I found at Trader Joe's. It just might be the perfect pasta in my book. I made a lovely cold pasta salad with them and lots of fresh veggies and TJ's Italian Balsamic dressing this summer. Boy, that was good. That dressing is now my favorite, along with their orange vinegar mixed with a little olive oil.

I must stop. I'm making myself hungry and it's 11:40p.