A Feast!

We're having friends over for dinner tonight! I love hosting dinner parties, probably because I love food, and I think it's the perfect connector between people. I also love when my house is perfectly clean and everything is in its place :)  My only problem is that I tend to go too big and end up over-doing it. But I guess that's an ok problem to have. Tonight I'm keeping it simple enough and getting as much as possible done ahead of time. The menu includes Goat Cheese Cashew Encrusted Chicken, Emerald City Salad, Thai-Spiced Pumpkin Soup, a dinner salad from fresh CSA produce I'll be picking up this afternoon, and Vegan Cocoa-Coco-Nut-Nut Cookies. These are some of my favorite recipes, and I'm excited to share them with you!

Goat Cheese Cashew Encrusted Chicken
However many chicken breast you want
Salt and Pepper
Dijon mustard
Goat Cheese
Crushed cashews (original recipe calls for macadamia nuts, but two stores were out of them so I subbed cashews)

• Preheat oven to 400. Lightly oil shallow baking dish and season chicken all over with salt and pepper. Place in baking dish and brush Dijon mustard on top. Cover with a generous portion of heavenly goat cheese. Crush cashews and sprinkle over goat cheese. Cover and bake 20 minutes. Uncover and bake 5-10 more minuted, until cheese is golden brown and chicken is cooked through.

Emerald City Salad is from my favorite cookbook I talk about all the time. It's a warm salad that involves wild rice and kale. What more could anyone want?

Here is the Thai-spiced Pumpkin Soup recipe. I'm using my heirloom Long Island Cheese pumpkin and saving the seeds! It's going to be extra good. (I'm glad Clint doesn't like pumpkin - more soup for me!)


Vegan Cocoa-Coco-Nut-Nut Cookies (adapted from this recipe by Sketch-free Vegan Eating)
2 cups gluten free flour blend (recipe immediately below)

• 2 cups brown rice flour
• 2 cups oat flour (I didn't have this so I used whole wheat flour, making mine non gluten free)
• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup ground flax

2 teaspoons non-aluminum baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder (buy fair trade!)
1 cup sucanat
3/4 cup coconut oil, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water
Two handfuls chopped walnuts
1/2 cup shredded coconut
About 6 ounces vegan chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and wet in another. Gradually add dry mixture into wet mixture. Stir in nuts, chips, and coconut. Scoop heaping tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheet and flatten a bit. Bake for 5 minutes, rotate cookie sheet, and bake 5 more minutes. Makes 24 cookies if you don't sample any of the dough!

Oh, and here is a photo from my trip to Maggy's! It was taken right before I hopped in the car to head home, and we were both trying not to boo-hoo. I miss those two girls like mad! And I'm totally jealous that they have another guest right now :)

One last piece of news - we are at the 30 week mark! Yup, I'm 30 weeks pregnant and think I'm starting the whole nesting thing. (Clint thinks I'm always nesting, but he hasn't seen anything yet!) I have such a strong desire to get everything perfect before the baby arrives. I have somewhere around 10 weeks to achieve it!