My little obsession

For someone who hated to cook, it's weird that I am obsessed with the Food Network, but it's true. I love that channel, and I can't get enough of it.

My favorites are The Barefoot Contessa and Everyday Italian- these women cook stuff that are right up my alley.

Oh, Ina. I love your house and kitchen. (so much so, that I patterned a lot of our current house on her house in the hamptons)

She's the Italian Goddess as they say. She is.

My favorites this week were the:

1. Roasted Potato/Leek Soup:

All you have to do is chop up some leeks, potato (and I added broccoli), roast it on a pan with olive oil and salt, once they are brown, put it in the blender with chicken broth, add garlic to your taste... and you've got a delicious and very healthy meal. [the roasting is great and adds a lot more flavor to the soup]

2. Orange Fennel Salad:

This was the oddest thing I've seen in a while because I had no idea what a fennel bulb was... well, I went to the store and bought it and made this, and we have had it 3 nights in the past two weeks. It's delicious, easy, unusual, and really healthy.

Basically, you cut up some oranges (cut them in wedges... it's kind of hard to describe- like they look when you buy mandarin wedges from a can? Cut the skin off around the whole orange so there is no white part, and then you go around the orange cutting the little pieces out of the chaff? Is that how you spell it?)

Cut the fennel bulb into strips. Put them with the oranges. A little bit of olive oil, salt...

Hmmm.

And- finally our big discovery: Kosher Salt. I've heard about it, but never used it. It makes everything taste SO much better? Who knew? What is in the stuff?

If you put Kosher Salt on fresh green beans with olive oil and roast them in a pan for 5 minutes, they are DELICIOUS. So delicious, that even MADDIE loves them!!

Probably watching all this TV is not good for me, but I like to think that I'm learning a lot? I have to say that Maddie eats like a champ. She no longer shy's away from vegetables. She ate the soup, salad, and everything inbetween. She even likes Pecorino Romano (pretty strong cheese)... so I think if you make it tasty, they will come around.