What does a food-loving girl like me do when she stays home alone all day long? She treats herself to an excellent meal! A meal, consisting of ingredients she would normally have to omit in her cooking, in order to please her better half’s wishes.

I could have just taken it easy and have a little rest from cooking (or better said, from *washing up*, which is my least favorite occupation in the kitchen), but well… I really suck at resting when I’m home. There’s *always* something to do/to be done, apart from cooking and washing up; be it cleaning the dust (mission impossible here, in the construction town), processing the herbs I’d pick in the garden (preparing them for drying; chopping) or baking bread.

And today I decided to pamper myself with some tasty food – I prepared a 4-course meal which took me 4 hours to eat (with breaks, of course – namely, in those 4 hours I cooked, ate, baked bread, cleaned the house and did the washing up *twice*). I savored some of my favorite vegetables, including home grown spinach (yes, our garden’s long awaited 1st crop!), I indulged in my 1st asparagus this year (it finally got affordable) and tasted some sinfully delicious ice cream. I couldn’t ask for more!

And here’s the menu:

• Red beet carpaccio
• Prosciutto crudo and basil wrapped asparagus
• Lemon chicken skewers with basil and sunflower seed pesto;  Spinach and cauliflower risotto
• Vanilla ice cream with stewed red currants

My dear JP is actually fond of red beets (not at all as much as I am, though) but not so much of the raw ones.  He likes asparagus – if it’s white, canned and served with mayonnaise – I prefer non-canned, green one. When I buy cauliflower, I know I will have to eat it all by myself (none of a problem for me) – unless if I turn it into puree of a sort and mix it with other ingredients – but he has a good nose for such things and can’t be easily fooled. And for some reason, he dislikes the skewers (the pin, not the meat)  – while I adore them. It must be for my Balkan blood because the Balkans love their ražnjiči (skewered kebabs).

For a better view of what was cooking on my stove today, I have some photos for you:

Red beet carpaccio: one thinly sliced red beet with vinaigrette – olive oil, lemon juice, white wine vinegar, salt, grated parmesan and a bit of Dijon mustard.

Prosciutto and basil wrapped asparagus, gratinated in oven for 20 minutes at 180ºC.

Lemon chicken skewers with basil & sunflower seed pesto: chicken, marinated in lemon juice, salt, ground pepper and chopped fresh thyme; pesto is made like pesto genovese, replacing the pine nuts with sunflower seeds.
Spinach and cauliflower risotto: sautée some finely chopped garlic on a little olive oil, add thinly sliced cauliflower, the rice, nutmeg, salt, chopped fresh oregano and cook adding enough ladlefuls of hot vegetable stock for the rice to absorb it, just before the end mix in chopped spinach and some cooking cream.

And for the sweet finish, real vanilla ice cream with stewed red currants – I used frozen ones, and stewed them with some lemon juice and cane sugar. The hot-cold contrast is just indescribable.

Could you tell I am a pampered girl?