Super Bowl Funday

Cooking for other people terrifies me. For Thanksgiving my parents came to visit me (the way to do it, by the way) and I cooked a bunch of snacky type of foods before they got here. I had stuffing balls, mini-sweetpotato and meat pies in phyllo dough, apple phyllo things, and cranberry bread. I decided to cook a whole bunch of food and do a round of testing before making the real stuff for my parents. And who better to be my taste testers than friends and coworkers. When it came down to it, I literally couldn't be in the room when my coworkers tried it and I couldn't even talk to them about it. My heart started racing, I was sweating, and I fled the room. So, the thought of cooking for other people always sounds fun in the beginning, but when the time comes I get really nervous and wonder why I signed up to do it in the first place.

I chose to make 2 tasty, healthy recipes, especially after the hostess mentioned that she's avoiding processed foods this month. I made Bobby Flay's lentil and split pea dip, pretty much following the dip recipe as written, but without actually measuring things. You can't have dip without something to dip with, so I dug out the package of whole wheat multi-grain tortillas with flax seeds, used a pizza cutter (how do I have one?) to cut them into triangles, sprayed them with olive oil fake Pam, and put them on a cookie sheet in a 400ish degree oven until toasty.

I also made Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches from a recipe on Susan V's FatFree Vegan Kitchen blog. I made these quiches once before but didn't have the majority of the ingredients. But they were so tasty I decided to try again. This time I made them with onions, garlic, green and yellow bell pepper, and spinach. I also added more dried rosemary than the recipe calls for. The first time I made them, I had a tiny bit of trouble getting them out of the pan, but this time I just dumped the muffin pan over and beat the bottoms of the cups- it worked flawlessly. Luckily I was busy messing with the lentil and split pea dip that I didn't hover over them and scarf them all down the minute they came out of the oven. I guess I forgot to mention that when I dumped the quiches out of the pan, one fell on the floor. Yeah, I picked it up and ate around the part that touched the ground. It was 10 times better than the first time I made them.

How'd they work out? No one mentioned much about the dip, but I wasn't feeling it anyway. The quiche reaction was mixed- some people had some texture problems. And I didn't eat that bad, probably because I was stuffed from my Cauliflower Faux Gratin from earlier. However, when I got home I got in a competitive eating contest...with myself.