Pantry Purge 2011, Weekend Edition

This weekend I was able to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. It was nice because it wasn't for Realize Gourmet and I remembered what it felt like to cook without so much pressure. It was much needed!

It started Friday night. I baked my very first loaf of bread. And it was perfect. I seriously couldn't have hoped for it to come out any better. It smelled heavenly and get this: It tasted like BREAD. Not that stuff you buy on the shelves at the grocery store that acts as a vehicle for whatever goodness you have stacked between two pieces. That was a great kickoff to the weekend.

Saturday morning we got up and made homemade Peanut Butter Waffles with HOMEMADE Blueberry syrup. I used a different waffle recipe and really wasn't happy with it, so I'll spare sharing it with you. The syrup on the other hand was so delicious. Brennan was a huge fan! Drew thought it was alright! And Brent and I are looking forward to making more soon. Here is the RECIPE FOR THE BLUEBERRY SYRUP. SUPER YUMMY!

For lunch we were all anxious to have some of the delicious bread that had been taunting us all morning. Since we have long been out of lunch meat, we opted for good old fashioned grilled cheese sandwiches. They were FANTASTIC!!! I believe Drew said that it tasted like restaurant bread on the sandwiches! SCORE!! We had some American cheese slices and I also found a wheel of the laughing cow cheese (Sun dried tomato flavor). I buttered one slice of bread, added two slices of American cheese, spread one wedge of laughing cow cheese on the other slice. I sprinkled some Italian seasoning and garlic powder, put them together, buttered the other piece of bread and grilled them up! One of the best grilled cheese sammiches that I've made in a long time!!

For dinner, we decided to keep with the Super bowl theme and decided on pizza. I decided that since I'd had such great success on the bread to try to make the dough myself. I didn't have as much success. I piled the dough up with a half of jar of leftover pizza sauce, some fresh garlic, fresh basil, onions, red and green peppers, and jalapenos. Covered that with mozzarella and threw it in the oven . It wasn't bad, but as you can see from the picture the crust isn't quite right. I was disappointed, but with all the success I'd had all day... I couldn't complain.

Our cabinets are starting to look bare and we are running pretty low on meat. I know we have 3 pork roasts left so we may be living on pork for a while. I'm pretty sure that Brent is ok with that! :)