Dinner at Matt and Batya's: five courses of CSA awesomeness. First up are homemade jalapeno poppers. Like a moron, I sliced the jalapenos with bare hands and promptly rubbed my lips. Whoa, homemade collagen injection! The rest of the meal was eaten through my newly puffy Olsen-twins-style lips.


We stuffed the CSA jalapenos with a mixture of cream cheese and super-sharp cheddar cheese, dipped them in egg wash, rolled them in breadcrumbs and fried 'em up.


Soup course next: Batya's spectacular vegetarian red pepper soup. I had absolutely nothing to do with this so I don't know the recipe, but I've definitely got to get it out of her ASAP. That evening, we ate it with a slice of sourdough bread, but she says she usually serves it with grilled Gruyere sandwiches, which sounds like heaven in a bowl.


Fresh corn, tomato and herb salad. Super simple, super fresh, super tasty.


Eggplant and caramelized onion pizza with mozzarella and pizza dough from Monty's. We cooked these on Matt and Batya's pizza stone.


And finally, Batya's famous chocolate chip blondies. I could eat these every day for the next five hundred years and still want more.

Now for some picture-less menu bragging! A few days ago, my friend Adam and I hosted a farmer's market-focused dinner for a few of our coworkers, to rave reviews all around. Adam suggested that we just go to the farmer's market on our lunch break, pick up whatever random stuff looked tasty and figure out what to make out of it. This is what we came up with:

Heirloom tomato, peach, pancetta and basil salad with bacon-balsamic viniagrette
Corn, wild mushroom and cilantro salad with seared scallops
Grilled eggplant and fresh mozzarella stacks with homemade pesto
Potato, onion and red pepper frittata with garlic aioli and chorizo
Apple upside down cake and fresh whipped cream

It wound up being a totally lovely meal, served slowly and in courses and with lots of wine and laughter and compliments to the chefs. Cooking for friends is so nice - we not only get to be creative with the menus and flex our culinary skillz for an audience, but we also get to enjoy a fancy-pants meal with our friends for a fraction of what it would cost in a restaurant. We can't wait to do it again! But next time, we'll be sure to take pictures.