In honor of Jason leaving tonight, I wanted to make something special and since I had fresh peas in the rotter, I decided to attempt a recreation of one of our favorite restaurant meals in London.

( #72 Roasted Chicken Breasts )

( #73 Simple Peas )

I served this with mashed potatoes and was inspired by another recipe to add finely minced garlic to the cream and butter as I warmed them and the result was the best garlic mashed potatoes I've ever made. To be more precise, these were the first that transcended mashed-potatoes-with-some-garlic to actual garlic mash. At last, the secret is mine!

I also whipped up a tarragon-butter sauce according to this recipe, but I've done extremely similar things before, so I won't count it. It was very tasty, however, and pulled the whole plate together beautifully.

Now to figure out what I'll make for Jason's triumphant return!

This was one of my Internet Synthesis Specials. I looked at about a dozen different recipes and finally decided to work from this one, with additions from other recipes and incorporating my crypto-bean strategy. In the end, here's what I came up with:

( #62 Sausage Kale Soup )

This came out very nicely. Reminiscent of my pasta fagioli, but with sausage and potatoes instead of prosciutto and pasta. I think I liked this even better. The crypto-bean strategy results in a very rich broth. It made a wonderful, filling dinner for a cold, rainy night. Jason paired it with a Côtes du Rhone and that worked very nicely. It's not a quick meal--once the prep is all done, the cooking takes about half an hour, but the whole process took nearly two hours.

Today is the halfway point of my year, since I started on December 24th. Since I need to average 8.3/month, that means I'm about six weeks ahead of schedule, which is just about the length of my upcoming rehearsal period. So I'm feeling in pretty good shape.

( #58 Soft Boiled Duck Eggs with Warm Anchovy Vinaigrette )

I'm still planning to bake with the rest of the eggs--there's a cheesecake happening this weekend.

Inspired by our most recent trip to Il Buco, I decided the time had come for me to figure out how to make beef carpaccio at home. I looked at several different recipes online and here's what I ended up doing:

( #46 Beef Carpaccio )

( #47 Arugula Pesto )

Thanks to bookly for all the assistance in shopping and prep and for being a willing test-subject!

One of the motivations for doing this challenge was to actually use some of my many cookbooks that are too often ignored in favor of searching the net for what I want to make.

I started with The New Basics Cookbook:

( #26 - Pork Chops and Scalloped Potato Casserole )

Then I decided to try something from The California Cook. Well, three somethings:

( #27 - Lemon Chicken with Roasted Garlic Sauce )

( #28 - Sautéed Green Beans with Garlic and Basil )

( #29 - Roasted Onions and Baby Potatoes )

Thanks to Drea and heliopsis for being game to try new things with me!

Tonight we had the pleasure of saraheeyore and wellstar's company for dinner. With reference to both this recipe and this one, here's what I came up with:

( #24 Polenta with Mushrooms )

Straight out of Twist of the Wrist, this was my first frittata. Jason is dubious about eggs, but I figured (correctly) that he would scarf down just about anything topped with prosciutto, arugula and shaved parmesan. It was fun to cook and came out just as expected, or a little better. Somehow I'd never shaved parmesan with a vegetable peeler before--what a nice trick! I have plans for more frittata very soon.