Rainy Day Dinner...

So Thursday nights dinner prep turned it this: Ina Garten's Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Curry Condiments....
I was a little leery about the "curry condiments"...but was willing to give it a shot if Ina said it was good:) It consisted of scallions, cashews, bananas and...

...was I really going to give up an excuse to have toasted coconut as part of my dinner?? No...

So I tried them all and all of the flavors played off of each other nicely! The salty cashews and scallions vs. the sweet coconut and banana...I thought it was yum, although Scott skipped the coconut and banana;) A little too much for him;)

And I was even MORE excited, because I had a light bulb moment in my early prep and thought the soup might need a side dish....and the side dish came from my buddy over at Fifty Two Thousand Words: Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread!

And deciding to make this at 7:30pm the evening before was JUST IN TIME...as this bread needs nothing but TIME! You work with it for a total of 3 minutes and the rest is just riding on patients:) And let me tell ya, nothin was better than the smell of this wafting out of the kitchen while the rain poured outside and I knew that dinner only required heating up the soup:) That a good Friday makes;)

Does life get any better than this? Seriously??

Dessert that night was a mish-mosh. I knew what I wanted, but when I saw the recipe for Hungry Girls Shamrock Shake sitting on the counter...I figured I'd try it out. I love to be festive, after all...

But I took one sip and was shocked...it tasted like mint water!!! I normally LOVE all the Hungry Girl recipes I ever try, and maybe I added to much mint and ice....but it was undrinkable!

So I went back to my ORIGINAL plan (that I should have stuck with all along:)...that since I was feeling so "FALL-Y" and craving apple picking and caramel apples...what would be better on a cold night than hot caramel apple tea??

Ahhhh....way better;) So the tea rounded out my perfect rainy night dinner! I LOVE a rainy Friday night when we have ZERO plans...it is THE BEST! The jury is still out though on rainy...any other nights of the week;) hahahahahahhahaha....