Remember the amazing ravioli I had on our honeymoon?

Yum.

I decided that I needed to try and make it at home.  After all, ravioli is pretty easy right?

I got up early one morning and went to our local farmers market.  It was pretty small and everyone was selling the same vegetables, but I picked up a basil plant for $3.  The seller assured me that it wouldn't be too easy to kill, and I figured I would spend $3 for fresh basil in the store anyway so it wouldn't hurt to try it. 

I found some organic spinach and cheese ravioli at Costco, along with some traditional pasta sauce.
I also used these recipes for the cream sauce and pesto from allrecipes.

I normally don't like cream sauce, so I figured tomato cream would be a safer bet for me.  Everything was really easy to make and didn't take too long at all.  It was probably more time consuming simply because I was making two sauces instead of just one.  However, as the tomato cream sauce was coming together I noticed that it called for a lot of onion.  A LOT.  I thought about taking some out, but figured it was safer to follow the recipe and hope they would cook down.  They didn't.

If you click on the picture you may be able to see all the onions.  It was like creamy onion sauce.  This sauce is actually the very first thing I have ever had Cody taste that he has gagged and spit out.  Seriously.  As he was coughing into the sink I was standing there going "well,  I think we have a frozen pizza".  Luckily, he just didn't realize how hot it was and had spit it out because it burned his mouth.  So he says.  It didn't have an overly onion flavor, it was just really chunky.  Mixed with everything else it was fine too.  Next time I think I'll just go with a plain cream sauce.

The pesto wasn't bad either.  A little thicker than I remembered the hotel's being but not bad for my first try at pesto.

Dessert!
Our grocery store has had strawberries like crazy, and for a really good price, so I've been picking them up every trip.  I was going to get some strawberry shortcake cakes, but they only had huge packages or angel food.  We certainly don't need dozens of cakes, and I don't like angel food.  So I found a Betty Crocker box mix of pound cake, whipped that up  and topped with sliced strawberries.  It was delicious.  I've made it about twice now, and the second time I added almond extract to the batter which was amazing.  Now I just need to try to make an icing glaze and it will be perfect!

Mexican Barbecue

Shortly after I moved in, Cody mentioned that he had seen Barbacoa at the donut shop and we should try it.  I had never heard of it before, and he told me that it was a type of mexican meat.  

Uh, at a bakery? Why are they selling meat at a bakery?

Apparently, it's a mexican thing.  I don't know.

I had to google it to figure out how to serve it!  Wikipedia told me that it was a barbecue or steamed meat served in tortillas with avocado and salsa.   I also learned that it was normally made in Mexico or the Caribbean with the head of a cow.  The head.of a.cow.   Well, that's....unique.  Luckily a quick scroll down revealed that here in the good ol' USA they make it with cow cheeks.  That's better right? Just the cheeks?   

Riiiight.  Well, I tried the pig snoot in Illinois, so might as well give cow cheeks a try. 

(P.S. I did not like the pig snoot!)

This is how the meat came from the store.  All cooked and seasoned.  I popped it in the microwave and served it up like tacos.

The verdict?  It was good!  Not barbecue like you would think of.  More like sauce less barbecue. It kind of ended up being a taco with fancy meat.  I'm sure we will make it again, especially since it was so quick to prepare.

Cody waited until I was all finished to tell me it was cheek meat.  He didn't know I googled it, and thought that if I knew what it was I wouldn't try it. At least that's what he claims.  I think he was trying to see how I would react to finding out I had eaten cow cheeks!