Tony’s family was over yesterday.  They came over a bit earlier than expected so it was a mad dash to the store for Tony to pick up some stuff for apps, and me doing a quick 15 minute house clean.  Luckily the house wasn’t too bad to begin with – just wish I had had Hannah’s help, but she was at work. 🙁

My camera was charging most of the day yesterday, so I don’t have a whole lot of pics, but I have a great recipe.  The second baked bean recipe is a work in progress.  It was out of Bon Appetit’s magazine:

Tony brought me home the root beer:

These were good, but something was missing.  I ended up having to add about 1 cup of bbq sauce to bring it around.  I’ll have to go back to the drawing board on this one, or just stick with the one I know is delicious – my crock pot baked beans with Italians sausage.

I did have snacks:  cheese and crackers, sesame sticks (i.e. crack sticks) and a fruit tray with pudding dip.

I never even fixed breakfast, so my brunch ended up being 4 cheese and crackers – I loves the pepperjack cheese! 😀

For my side dish I decided to use what I had on hand.  I ended up with a giant cauliflower and a small head of broccoli.  This recipe is based on one by Ina Gartin, but I reduced the amount of cheese and butter.

Broccoli Cauliflower Gratin (printer friendly version here)
Makes 8 servings  (198 calories, 10.2 fat, 17.2 carbs, 4.6 fiber and 11.7 protein)

Ingredients

2 pounds cauliflower
1 pound broccoli
3 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups skim milk
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
3/4 cup cheddar cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup bread crumbs

Directions

  1. Cut broccoli and cauliflower into florets. Boil water and blanch until fork tender, about 6 minutes.
  2. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Add flour and make a paste. Slowly add the milk to make a roux. This will take about 8 – 10 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat. Add pepper, nutmeg, and both cheeses.
  4. Melt remaining 1 tablespon of butter in sauce pan. Add panko bread crumbs and cook over medium heat until browned.
  5. Put broccoli mixture in casserole dish sprayed with Pam. Top with browned bread crumbs and bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

This was delicious – almost like a veggie mac n cheese 😀

I also had a baked potato bar – all the fixins were on the dining room table – sour cream, cheddar cheese, bacon bits, and yes, there were chives in my house!  I think Hannah had at least two heaping tablespoons on her baked potato!

We did a boneless pork roast on the grill.  I seared it on all sides, then cooked it on top of a cast iron skillet.  Once it reached 160 degrees I pulled it and let it rest for 15 minutes.

My plate:

And I made giant smores for half of the group – turns out not everyone likes marshmallows!

By 6:30 everyone was gone and Tony and I just snuggled – we could not find a movie to watch, but we did manage to get through all our shows on the DVR.  Did you hear about Gordon Ramsey’s new cooking show?  I told Tony “another food show to DVR!”  Pretty soon all the shows on our DVR will be food related!  The new show airs after Hell’s Kitchen on Tuesday night.

Later in the evening though, since we ate dinner around 3:00 – I made us potato and bacon pita pizzas using 1/2 a leftover baked potato, the rest of the bacon bits on my homemade pitas.   I baked them for 15 minutes at 400 degrees on my baking stone.

As I am typing this, I totally want to go to caloriecount and see exactly how much I ate, but I am not.  I think I did pretty good – probably could have used a lot more fruit and vegetables though!

I am off to update the 101 Days of Summer challenge – week 8 already!  Enjoy your Sunday!

Oh, and I found a way to do the BSI – Onions this week – Hannah is going to make one of her favorite dishes and will be posting the BSI for me this week- thanks Hannah!

And last day to enter my cheezy giveaway!  I’ll pick a winner and post it tomorrow morning 😀