I got my domestic on today!

Today I got my domestic on! Along with much laundry and adventurous raw-grocery shopping, I went to Mad Potter with Jen and Katherine and painted this awesome plate! We get to pick up our pottery next week once it's glazed and fired. It's going to be microwave and dishwasher safe, so I can use it to serve some of my new delicious cooking!

Now, Shane and I are sitting on the couch watching a House marathon on TV, happily full from our HOMEMADE supper. (I know, lame for a Saturday night! But Shane worked a 12 hour shift today and he's working another one tomorrow starting at 7 am.) Today I made two of my three planned recipes: the Spinach-Strawberry Salad and the Strawberry Shortcakes.

I surprised myself with the salad! I usually hate salads that I make, but this salad (at least the dressing) will be a repeat recipe! The salad had spinach, strawberry, kiwis, and jicama. I tasted the jicama plain and thought "ew!" but it actually tasted really good with the dressing on it. I have to share this recipe!

Just pour this all in to a bottle and shake it up:

2 tbsp vegatable oil

2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp orange joice

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1 tsp poppy seed (my favorite!)

2 tsp Dijon mustard

For desert, we had strawberry shortcakes. The shortbread is OMG good! I don't think we'll have enough strawberries to cover all six shortcakes that I made, but the shortbread will be good on its own or with honey for breakfast tomorrow :). I am planning to make some Jell-o to enjoy with the remaining whipped-cream. By the way, shortbread dough is delicious raw. I love raw dough in general (cookie, bread, cake batter). Shortbread dough is even better because there's not even anything in it that you're not supposed to eat raw. Although technically I'm not sure you're ever supposed to eat shortening, raw or cooked.

It's really fun to cook for Shane, because one he's so hungry when he comes home from work, and two he thinks all my food is really good, even when it's not! He hates salad dressing, and will usually choke down raw spinach and carrots with no dressing just to eat his veggies (blech!) but today he ate my dressing and he liked it! Great success. Also, I hate raw spinach, and the aforementioned dressing almost made the raw spinach taste good. Along with the strawberries and kiwis.

So, the recipes for tonight were successful! I have homemade bleu cheese dressing and cut up celery in the fridge now to eat with our buffalo wings tomorrow. I found chicken wing drummetes and I'm going to prepare those tomorrow morning and let them marinate to cook for dinner. Then we can have strawberry shortcakes again for dessert. Yay!

Cooking today was really fun, and easier than I thought it would be! Maybe I'm not as incompetent as I though (knock on wood). I did have to spend a lot of money though. The raw ingredients cost less than we usually spend on groceries, but the supplies I had to buy cost about $90. I think that won't happen again though, because I was buying really basic stuff that I'll use again (a good knife, measuring cups, a salad spinner, meat thermometers). Yay cooking!