Happy Eat Year!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!
Happy Dragon Year!
Like any good Chinese gal, I spent the weekend eating, cooking, eating, cooking and eating some more and ending the weekend with more eating. It was hard work but somebody's got to do it :P

The cooking part was a bit easier, if not more enjoyable now that I have my new double oven stove!

Sexy Beast

I used the money I made from selling handmade yarn at Craft Fair to pay for this baby. The months of working through my weekends to dye up endless batches of yarn and the weeks walking around with purple and green hands was totally worth it now that I have this lean, mean cooking machine in my kitchen.
I LOVE this range. I especially love the double oven feature. I've been on a roasted veggie binge these last few weeks. It took me only an hour or so to cook up what would normally take a good part of the afternoon. Now I have roasted veggies for the week. Wheee!
I've been doing a big cook-up every Sunday so I have a stash of veggies and flesh to feed off of for the week. Usually by the time I get done walking the girls, make dinner, eat and clean up it's usually time for bed. At least this way, I don't have to make, just assemble dinner and there's minimal clean-up.
It's a good thing I have this double bellied beast since Bill the Fruit Guy finally showed up in town this past week with the year's first shipments of fresh produce. I went apeshit buying vegetables. I almost cried when I saw these beauties:

Which got turned into a huge pan of yumminess:

It's been ages since I've had eggplant. Usually by the time it shows up in the grocery shelves  here it looks like an old hag all covered with wrinkles and liver spots.

In celebration of Chinese Dragon New Year, I wanted to whip up some lettuce wraps. I didn't have any dragon meat but I did have a couple of pounds of ground muskox.

Which quickly got turned into this:

What recipe? You don't need no stinking recipe for lettuce wraps. I browned up the musk ox, dumped in some tamari and 5 spice, tossed in some leftover spinach, piled a mess of it onto a lettuce leaf and called it a day. Actually I had three piles of it. It was that good. Especially with my lover, Sriracha. You can keep your puny, weak-knee sappy hoisin sauce, my muskox needs some of the red rooster.

If Sriracha is my lover, this is my crack LOL!:

Cupboard Crack

For the sake of science, I've been experimenting with different applications for almond butter. I think I've found my favorite...on coconut-bacon pancakes 

Almond Butter Delivery System

sopping up the eggy sunshine

GET INTO MY BELLAH!!!!

Enjoy!