Food I made in December

Tarte à la Tomate

Jamie asked me to make this for dinner one night. He was fondly remembering us making this (plus one with apples) for his 8th grade end of year French banquet.

This photo is before baking. God help me I used boxed puff pastry. I make an amazing puff pastry from scratch but not on a school night.

I completely forgot to take an after photo of the whole thing, but this was my piece. So good.

French pastries

To be fair, I didn’t make these, but they were SO GOOD I wanted to include them here anyway. Jamie practiced driving and took us up to Paris Baguette in Plano for an afternoon snack. We called Brittney at the very last minute and she was free to meet us there.

This is a mini croissant with vanilla cream and strawberries, plus an almond cream croissant that I got like two bites of before Jamie hoovered up the rest.

Snickerdoodles

Snickerdoodles are, hands down, my favorite cookie. I made way too many and took some to Rachel who declared them amazing.

Taco plate

Again, I didn’t make this myself but I wanted to include it anyway. Assuming I manage to leave Texas at some point, a big ol’ plate of really good Tex Mex food is something I am going to miss. I keep thinking I could always make from scratch wherever I end up but I don’t think it would be the same.

Christmas

Bacon and cinnamon rolls — the holiday breakfast of champions! It’s our annual tradition.

It felt really wrong for frozen pizza to be the only thing coming out of my kitchen on a holiday, but since we had an early flight the next morning, I agreed cooking a big meal was not the best idea. I am trying to learn to A) relax a little and B) give up some control. I am not good at those things.

Poké

Trying raw fish was one thing on my “bucket list.” It turns out I do like it after all. I have a feeling I’m going to be making up for lost time…

This poké bowl was great — salmon and spicy tuna. Next time I’ll go lighter on the mayo sauce and rice, and heavier on the greens, seaweed, and ginger.