2nd Question...I feel importantish

I got my second reader question and it is a hard one.  I have conferred with Drew about this, so I think I am offering the most balanced answer for our household.  The question posed: "what are your favorite recipes to date and why?"  The answer can be summed up in the following list with quick reviews/reasons they make the cut.

1.  Beef and Chicken Lettuce Wraps from Cuisine at Home magazine (highly recommended publication, by the way).  Incredibly time consuming preparation, very fast actual cook time - rewarding results.  This recipe sticks out because Drew will not order lettuce wraps anywhere else because he enjoys these so much.  I have made it 4, maybe 5 times and the flavors (Chinese 5 spice for the beef and buffalo with honey for the chicken) are wonderful. FYI, the beef and chicken do not go together. Theoretically, you could make just the beef or just the chicken.  I enjoy having both to have different flavors to play with. 
2.  Granny's macaroni and cheese.  This is a favorite for me from my childhood.  It is not really a recipe so much as a method, but I enjoy it all the same.  It is with great difficulty that I eat any other mac and cheese (ban the box for sure).  Drew has almost become a complete convert.  He would be if I made this a little more often.  As it stands, I make it once or twice a year. 
3.  Buffalo wings done in the Pampered Chef covered baker.  Drew could literally eat Buffalo wings or buffalo flavored dinner every night.  He can't get enough of it!  The Pampered Chef recipe for these is a little different because it includes their BBQ rub, so they have a little smoky flavor with a kick.  I have been waiting to make these because my baker broke, but I just received a new baker a couple of days ago.  Now that Drew knows this, I must make these asap.  I think this weekend for dinner.  I have made these twice, but that is in the last 6 months.  See, I don't make my husband wait too long for the things he loves!
4.  Crown Roast of Pork  (recipe from the Food Network site - I think it is Bobby Flay) - we had this for our first Christmas and it...was...delightful!  We still talk about it.  We are talking about doing it again, but charging a cover charge at the door because it was also the most expensive meal we have ever had at home!
5.  Wingless Buffalo Chicken Rolls (this is a modified Rachael Ray meal, I have tried her other incarnations) this is from her 365: No Repeats cookbook.  This one was a surprise to me.  We had this a couple of years ago and Drew really liked it (but it does have buffalo, so that should not be a surprise to anyone). 

Well, that turned into a top 5 of sorts.  I am sure there are many more, but these stick out to the two of us.  Thanks for the question and the trip down memory lane.

Special Dinner for my Love

I got my first reader question!  Yea! You should get a prize, but I don't know what that would be.  Oh wait, your prize is...the ANSWER.  For those of you not obsessively reading each comment posted on the blog, the question is: are you cooking through the Pampered Chef cookbook or is it just a coincidence that almost of the recipes have come from there (paraphrased)?  The answer is yes, I am cooking through the cookbook more or less.  Because I cook so many new recipes, I am on a constant search for the next great cookbook and, once found, figure the best way to get to know a cookbook is to cook through it.  This helps with my monthly menu planning (I am sure I will fill you in on that at some point in the future) and it helps not to have  a bunch of cookbooks cluttering my kitchen workspace.  I am currently working through the Pampered Chef 29 Minutes to Dinner 2 cookbook.  I highly recommend the first incarnation of this cookbook and look forward to wholeheartedly recommending this installment.  The key to "cooking through" a cookbook for me is to look through it and weed out the things that Drew and I will NEVER eat.  Then I go through and find the appetizing ones and put them on my menu plan.  I just stated that like it is a process, but it really all happens at once.  You will also notice in the future that some of my recipes are from the Fix it and Forget it slow cooker cookbook.  I have been slowly working my way through this one because I challenged myself at the beginning of the year to use my slow cooker once a week.  I have not always made it on that challenge, but that is the reason it is called a challenge. 

Wow, readers, I hope you were ready for that exhaustive answer!  On to tonight,  We had a special dinner, because we are looking to head out of town for the weekend for our 5th anniversary!!!!  I had planned, without knowing we were going to be out of town to make one of Drew's favorites and I left a night open for whatever, so I just moved my special dinner to tonight - now that is flexibility (wink, wink)!  So for dinner tonight I made a new recipe (yes, I know I said it was a favorite of Drew's, but I meant favorite ingredient): Seared Scallops with Creamy Parsley Pesto.  Be warned, I am not a fan of scallops, but because they are one of Drew's favorite ingredients I made them for him.  Here's the review:
Really quick.  I am discovering it is best with this installment's recipes to have everything out and measured before beginning the recipe.  I know this sounds like common sense, but this is not the way I normally operate in my kitchen.  Everything in this one comes together fast.  I did swap out cilantro for the parsley, because I can't handle parsley (I dislike it more than any food item I can think of at the moment), but I love cilantro more than some people love their children.  The resulting cilantro pesto, I cannot say I was a huge fan of.  I have never put half and half in pesto and I don't think I will again (chalk it up to experience).  The cauliflower was good, but I think could use a little more seasoning.  The scallops seared nicely, but I don't think I had my skillet hot enough when I first started.  Drew liked the scallops.  I would also like to mention here, I am in desparate need of a good food processor.  I will not go into the woes that haunt me each time I use mine; but I will say one would think that having 2 food processors of different sizes would result in "good food processing."  Lets just say, I think Drew enjoyed this one more than I did. 

After our "romantic" one candle lit dinner in the dining room, Drew helped me clean up the kitchen in under 15 minutes (quite the accomplishment, at least I think so because I have never clocked it), then we went upstairs to play Guitar Hero before coming downstairs to what I am sure will become our must watch night of television this fall.  So You Think You Can Dance and Glee, how happy can one couple be?