Lazy Sunday

I thought about going to lab, then decided against it. While there are definitely things I could work on, there's nothing that I *have* to work on, so I decided to just have a nice carefree day. Of course, that included cooking! For lunch I whipped up two more recipes from Appetite for Reduction that I've been meaning to make: Butternut Apple Soup and Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits. I actually had the pleasure of trying the biscuits yesterday at Isa's demo at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market (she made Roasted Vegetable Thai Green Curry Stew and these biscuits). So, I already knew they were good. The soup had been on the schedule to make for weeks with said butternut squash hanging out on the counter, but it's just been so warm here lately that it didn't sound good. I just sucked it up and made the apartment ridiculously warm by having the oven and stove going--sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

Anyway, the soup was fabulous. While the process of peeling and cutting the butternut squash can be a little daunting, on this lovely, relaxing day it went smoothly--and Isa's instructions helped too! I used Fuji apples here because that's what I had in the fruit bowl and once all the prep is done this comes together quite easily. The pairing of the soup and the biscuits is quite nice too. The soup is sweet and spicy and the biscuits are a very different sweet and they blend beautifully. This makes a TON of soup, so be prepared for lots of leftovers or halve the recipe.

I also decided to make some sweet treats for people at school. I had originally decided on chocolate-covered strawberries, then I thought those might be difficult to transport without melting and sticking together, so I searched around for something using those ingredients that might be more carry-to-school friendly. I found these cookies from Messy Vegetarian Cook and decided to give them a try. They looked adorable, like little chocolate strawberry love letters. Here's how mine turned out:

I think I was a little too generous with my filling. While they're not all going to win awards for beauty they do taste good--had to do something with those ones that completely fell apart. I did have some that turned out really good though, like this one:

Some lucky soul will get that beauty tomorrow! Lesson of the day: less can be more when it comes to filling chocolate fruit cookies (or just cut larger squares). I followed the directions except I needed to add a little soymilk to my batter in order to get it to hold together, maybe 1 tablespoon total.

Hope everyone has a fabulous remainder of the weekend and a Happy Valentine's Day!