Weekend Dog Blogging, Weekend Jabber

Last weekend, we got some snow on the ground (fairly unusual for St. Louis, I hear), and our dog run (dog park) turned into a winter wonderland. We tried to take a picture of Dale standing still for a moment...

But Dale takes the "run" part of "dog run" seriously, and zoomed off in a blur of fur!

Don't forget to visit Sweetnicks and see all the pups at play!

And now for some a lot of weekend jabber...
A couple of days ago, I got the opportunity to attend a lovely tasting- for wine and sweets Valentine's day gift packages from Hollyberry Baking, a lovely little baking company right here in St. Louis. Hollyberry is known for their delicious all-natural home-style cookies, and this year, they are pairing their sweets with some amazing wines. It is quite the trend to pair wine with rich desserts but a bit unusual to pair wine with homely comforting desserts like cookies and brownies. It was fun to eat kid-at-heart treats with a grown-up spin of wine on the side. I also got to taste a St. Louis specialty dessert: gooey butter cake, which certainly lived up to its name by being very gooey and very rich! Click here to see all of Hollyberry's Valentine gifts.

Speaking of rich desserts, I hope all you chocoholics out there will visit David Lebovitz's blog and drool over the Chocolate by brand mega-round-up in four parts! I can see many recipes there that I am just dying to try out.

New recipes tried this week: only one, unfortunately, as it turned out to be a pretty busy work week: I made this Spanish Tortilla Loaf from an old issue of Vegetarian Times borrowed from the library. I do like the clean look of this magazine and it is always a fun read. Now here is the funny thing: EVERY SINGLE issue of "Vegetarian Times" that I have ever picked up in a public library (whether in NYC or St. Louis) has a few recipe pages missing because some unscrupulous reader tore them out! This has not been the case with any other food magazine. I can tell you that as a vegetarian, I find this quite puzzling and distressing! Anyway, I love the idea of the spanish tortilla (open-faced potato omelet). I followed this recipe to the letter (*very* unusual for me) and loved that it is one compact loaf pan that goes into the oven to bake in a bain marie.

The baking took 10-15 minutes longer than the recipe indicated but the result was delicious! I served the tortilla loaf in hearty slices with some roasted garlic salsa for a heavenly one-dish meal. This low-maintenance loaf will be perfect for a tapas party or served in little bites as an appetizer.

Check in on One Hot Stove tomorrow for the start of a brand new series: the A-Z of Indian Vegetables!