Friday, September 2, 2011

Lunch date....

Matt's Uncle Rich was in this week visiting from Florida, so we invited him for lunch today to meet Luke.  Coincidentally, a friend of his, Sr. Christine, was also in town, so we invited her, too.  It was nice to see them both, and Luke was an angel.  I wanted to make something light but delicious, so I searched through some old cookbooks and blogs and came up with the following menu...




I added some shaved parmesan to this and it was FANTASTIC.  My sister-in-law topped pizza with a similar recipe a few months back, and it was amazing.  Try it.  Immediately.



In an effort to make this a little healthier, I swapped out the sugar for Splenda.  Also, the mangos at the market didn't look quite ripe, so I found a bag of frozen mangos at Trader Joe's.  It actually cut out a lot of time with cutting the mangos myself, and I don't think it affected the flavor at all.  This was sweet and perfect.  In fact, Matt polished off the leftovers as soon as our guests left!  I tried to be fancy and swirl in a cream heart....


This may be one of my favorite recipes.  I LOVE cucumber sandwhiches and stumbled upon this recipe a few years ago.  It is simple and delicious, and if it weren't for the fact that cream cheese and mayo are not the healthiest things in the world, I'd make this every day for lunch! 

Start by scoring a cucumber with a fork.


Then slice them into thin rounds and soak them in water and apple cider vinegar.


Then mix cream cheese, mayo, worcestershire sauce, onion salt, and garlic powder together and spread on whatever bread you like best.  I used a Canadian white bread from Trader Joe's.   The recipe doesn't call for this but I like to add a few shakes of dill weed, then layer on the cucumbers. 



Cut off the crusts then sprinkle with paprika, and you are ready to go.  Yum!



For dessert, I wanted to put out some fruit and cookies to just keep it simple.  I flipped through my Martha Stewart Cookies Cookbook and found these little jems.  They sounded light and summery, and since its the unofficial last weekend of summer, I went for it.   These were suprisingly easy to make.


Something about fresh lime zest that screams summer to me!


No eggs in this recipe, so I felt free to try out the dough :)


Martha had the suggestion of using a roller to help roll out a log from the dough.  I thought she was nuts, but it did work...



After baking for about 13 minutes, you let them cool slightly then toss in confectioners sugar. 


These cookies are named perfectly.  They melt in your mouth! 


Something about a nicely set table that just makes me smile :)








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