Two big big weeks of cooking

Who eats better than us? Anneka and Paul turned my Wyoming home into gourmet central. Should I really post all the recipes? They're mostly from Plenty (the official cookbook of #1 Dinner Party School alumni), of course.

DAY ONE:

       Caramelized garlic tart, stuffed zucchini, fresh bread, pear cake.

"First bread"

The caramelized garlic tart goes into the oven. The process of caramelizing the garlic was actually really fun - we boiled it in an herbed balsamic vinegar mixture until all the liquid evaporated and a syrup formed!

DAY TWO:

      Paul and Sam C. arrived from Fort Collins in the midst of bigtime dinner prep. Ratatouille, stuffed onions, more bread, almond torte with whipped cream, sliced pear, and chocolate-covered almonds.

Food design by Sam Cranshaw, who styled each of our cakes uniquely.

The food blog is born! Note the second blogger in the background.

After all this I kind of lost track of the different things we ate each day. There were just so many! Some other highlights from Anneka's residency:

The second loaf of country bread.

Bakery-style oat scones with cranberries. 

Then Anneka left, and Paul and I had to fend for ourselves:

An excited diner.

My camera started taking blurry pictures all of a sudden. I actually don't even remember exactly what this was, but it was good! Mushrooms? Asparagus? Rice?

Ciabatta! These contributed to the best camping dinner I think I've ever had - after getting lost, facing moose (kind of) and fording the same stream twice (it was cold), we prepared roasted vegetables and black bean burgers with white cheddar cheese and ate them on sandwiches, along with a liberal amount of avocado. Chocolate chip cookies warmed by the fire (cookies pictured below), a full moon, Lydia Davis stories and a bottle of whiskey also played a role.

This recipe made some of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had - we added pecans and they were just so great! 

The ganache artist at work - peanut butter brownies that fulfilled Paul's wildest dreams (peanut butter AND ganache) and went on a trip to California in the mail! Also, they were great companions while watching "Girls."

This post could definitely be filled in by the photos and tales of my co-chefs. Recipes will be posted upon request! There's just too many of them, otherwise.

Without friends here I'll certainly starve.