Hey nommy nommy

When my sister was in town last week, I cooked like a FIEND.  On the left is the roasted chicken with dijon a la I Am A Food Blog and risotto with arugula.  To the right are braised Asian short ribs, which I cooked in my Staub instead of a slow cooker.  Both delicious and crowd pleasers.  Couple that with a tub of Blue Bell Cookies and Cream and another tub of Christmas in July and I think I have to buy some new pants.  Can you buy pants with a velcro waistband?  Elastic just isn't cutting it anymore.

I've also been working on my bread baking skills with the help of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes.  This is a no-knead recipe that allows you to store dough in your fridge for up to two weeks and bake fresh bread in five minutes every day!  Sound too good to be true?  Although mixing the ingredients and going through the baking process was not as touchy as I typically experience when baking bread, I still have a lot of work to do with regards to forming the boule.  Like my knife slashes in the dough?  I swear I didn't mean to make it look like a marijuana plant.  The loaf came out a little more compressed in the middle than I typically like.  I've baked a second loaf that's sitting on my kitchen counter; I'm afraid to break into it as I ate the first loaf in two days.  Le sigh.