Before I get into the recipes for soup shooters and grilled cheese bites, I want to say Happy Anniversary to David, my husband of 26 years. xoxo  And I want to tell you the story of the cute shooter glasses I found.

I was in Pier 1 Imports about a month ago and saw a great display they have up with a wide and wonderful assortment of mini glasses for a “Tasting Party”. They have mini cordials, mini parfait, mini trifle, mini wine, and mini martini glasses. I was immediately in love with the whole concept and had to hold myself back from buying at least one set of each. Part of what prevented that happening, was the price. Most of the sets were $29.95 each. That would not have been a “mini” amount to spend! So I resisted and just purchased one 24-piece set of mini parfaits to use as soup shooters.

Once I got home, I looked more closely and saw that the 24-piece set was actually only 12 glasses and included 12 mini spoons. Darn it! That meant I’d just spent $2.50 per glass. But this mistake leads me on the hunt for comparable mini shooters at a reasonable price.

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Here is another of the recipes we served at my Dad’s 80th Speakeasy Party, representing his birth year, 1931.

In 1931 The Joy of Cooking was privately printed and distributed from the home by Irma S. Rombauer of St. Louis. It is one the most-published cookbooks and has been in print continuously since 1931 with more than 18 million copies sold. Mrs. Rombauer was struggling emotionally and financially after her husband’s suicide in 1930.  She had 3,000 copies of Joy printed by A.C. Clayton, a company that had printed labels for fancy St. Louis shoe companies and for Listerine, but never a book.  In 1936, the book was picked up by a commercial printing house, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.  Joy is the backbone of many home cooks’ libraries and is very often found in commercial kitchens as well. The illustrations were done by Irma’s daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker.  This recipe pays homage to one of the many famous recipes from the iconic cookbook – baked macaroni and cheese.

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For our Easter dinner yesterday, I served my favorite spring/summertime beverage. So light and refreshing.

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This is my last chance to get up an Easter recipe. These potatoes will accompany our Pomegranate Molasses Lamb Chops.  I’m naming them double-smoked because of the delicious smoked Gouda and the ever-popular smoked paprika.  During cooking classes, last week at Les Gourmettes, our guest chef, Joanne Weir, needed to borrow a bottle of my smoked paprika and was shocked by how much I use… the bottle was nearly empty. I do love the stuff!

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Easter is a week away, so to help get you in the spirit and begin planning your Easter dinner menu… how about a little cocktail!?  I’m not fond of Peeps, but this is too cute to not do. Vanilla, coconut, and raspberry jelly beans, that is. If it’s a bit too sweet for your taste, use half as much cream of coconut and add a splash of fresh lemon juice.

Tip: When you want to try a new variety or brand of liqueur or alcohol, an inexpensive way to go is to buy the sample or “airplane” size bottles. That’s what I did with the coconut rum I used here. Total Wine has a great selection to choose from.

And although this recipe is vegetarian… it hardly counts as the Meatless Monday Meal I promised to begin posting on weekends. For that, you’ll need to go back to Friday’s post, and instead of cutting the baguette into slices to make crostini, cut it into four equal portions, cut open each of those pieces horizontally, almost through, as though you’re opening a book and make Grilled Vegetable Sandwiches with the toasted bread, herbed goat cheese, and veggies.  Super-Duper Yummy!

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Tomorrow is going to be a busy day for yours truly. First off, my sister and niece, Sloane and Raina, along with Marissa and I, are going to get up at the crack of dawn and drive to Tempe to participate in Pat’s Run. Pat’s Run honors American Hero, Pat Tillman and benefits The Pat Tillman Foundation which raises funds benefiting Tillman Military Scholars. If you don’t already know Pat Tillman’s story, you really need to learn about him!

After the run, (in all honesty, we are walking, but walking fast!) Marissa and I will race home, pack up, and get ourselves to Berridge Nurseries on Camelback and 46th Streets for the Art in the Garden event that I will be cooking at, beginning at noon.  This is the recipe I’ll be making, I realize it may look a bit intimidating with 25+ ingredients, but the majority of those are vegetables, herbs, and olive oil, so give it a whirl. I hope you’ll stop by the event and say “hello”.

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In February, Marissa was in London and when she returned home she raved about a dessert she had there, Banoffee Pie, aka Banoffi Pie. Banoffee is a banana and toffee pie that was invented in 1972 at The Hungry Monk restaurant. I promised to make it for her and today I am fulfilling that promise.  Her friend, and former college roommate, Petra, has been in town the last couple of weeks and she is leaving tomorrow, so I made the pie for them to share.  It was Petra who Marissa was visiting in the UK and Petra who introduced her to the dessert.

I found the original Hungry Monk recipe online and that is what I am posting here.  That was all good until I was ready to put the whipped cream on top and decided to go look at Marissa’s picture of the pie to see if the topping was spread or piped on.  The picture of her slice of pie looks nothing like what I’ve made, as you can see below!

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If you’ve made the Roasted Ratatouille Roulade on yesterday’s post, then you already have the ratatouille needed to make this lasagna. If not, CLICK HERE for the ratatouille recipe.  Enjoy!

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This would be another wonderful Meatless Monday meal, just leave out the chicken.  I added it because my dad was coming for dinner and it isn’t dinner if meat is not included for him… he is old school to the max! The chicken does benefit and stays lovely moist and juicy roasting under the vegetables this way. We’ll be using half of the ratatouille for these roulades and save the remaining half for tomorrow’s ratatouille lasagna.

I couldn’t find any really good-looking tomatoes in the grocery store, so I substituted canned diced tomatoes, always the way to go when there are no good tomatoes around.

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I’m going to try to post a “Meatless Monday” meal every week.  I honestly don’t know how long I’ll keep it up, but I’m going to give it my best shot.  The problem with posting on Monday is that if the recipe sounds like something you really would like to try for dinner that night, it doesn’t give you much time to get to the store and get the ingredients. So I plan to post “MM” recipes over the weekend.

Besides the Boca burgers I use to buy for Marissa during her vegetarian days, I’ve never purchased or cooked with meat replacements before, but the more I hear about them, the more I’ve been wanting to give them a chance.  Vegan activist and author, Kathy Freston, has been a frequent guest on both Oprah and Ellen and she swears by the Gardein and Morningstar Farms brands, so that is what I am going to start with.

I purchased a half-dozen different packages and decided to play it safe for this first go-round and make chili since if we didn’t care for the “fake” meat taste, the bold and spicy flavors of chili would easily cover it up!

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