While whipping up a “quick” venison pot-pie for dinner this evening, (side note: it was supposed to be fast, but actually wasn’t) I chatted with an old friend from college about some of our recent culinary adventures. The conversation was peppered with comments like “I read that food blog, too!” “A what-squash?” and “I think I have some of those in the freezer!” Aaron never really knows what to make out of my half of these sorts of conversations. It probably doesn’t sound much different from when I talk to myself in the kitchen. He likes eating, so I don’t let him complain about my domestic eccentricities. This friendly conversation made me realize we have tried LOTS of new foods in the past year or so, and I thought I’d share a list of our favorites.
Breakfast:
* Smitten Kitchen’s Jacked-Up Banana Bread and
*  SK’s Perfect Blueberry Muffins.
* Our current sunday brunch favorite: Eggs Benedict with ham. I also owe all my success with this dish to SK’s poached egg tutorial. Let’s just say that lady speaks my food-love language.

Lunch:
* Tuna salad – a can of tuna with cottage cheese and black beans. Mixed together between two slices of bread or over a plate of greens. I didn’t like tuna until I tried it this way!
* And my regular bagged-salad lunches at work become divine with Trader Joe’s Champagne Pear Gorgonzola Vinaigrette Dressing. For the first time in my life, I had to ask myself: Am I eating salad or dessert? It’s great with dried apricots and nuts over baby spring greens.

Dinner:
*Bon Appetit’s Salmon and Asparagus
* Something like these meatballs with BBQ sauce in the crockpot. They are almost shamefully home-style comfort food. I always bake them in little foil cupcake liners instead of browning them in oil on the stove. They still taste delicious and are awesome with steamed green beans and steak fries.
* Smitten Kitchen’s Roasted Mushrooms. I don’t use nearly that much butter and they are still delish! Sometimes I go very minimalist with a touch of butter and a little splash of lemon juice.

Totally unhealthy snacks and desserts:
* A new favorite snack is Sausage Dip in the crockpot. Sometimes something is really delicious without being nutritious or healthy in any way, and this dish is one of them.
* We’ve been very into Baked Brie lately and it seems to be on sale at a local grocery store quite a bit. Love it!
* We’ve made 3 or 4 of Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Guinness Cake in the past few weeks and I’m not gonna lie… I kind of want another one.  Yes, I said “we” made these, because Aaron baked the first one on his own. Mostly.
* These Pumpkin Muffins from my friends Hannah and Bethany are sinfully easy (2 ingredients! I’m not joking!) and we mayhaveeatenawholepanbyourselvesonmorethanoneoccasion.

So those are some of the new foods we’ve been enjoying lately. I’m excited to see what fun new discoveries are ahead of us, too. For instance, what will I do with the 200 venison brats in our freezer? Certainly we won’t be having that many cookouts this summer. And which of our soon-to-be-planned-out garden veggies will grow well and make their way into our meals on a regular basis? We will have to wait and see…