Friendly Picnic

I love cooking and sharing my passion for food with others. This weekend I gathered a few close friends and shared a few meals that I thought they would enjoy.

Here we have scalloped sweet potatoes with fresh asiago cheese and thyme(from my garden)

This dish was a hit. It had layer upon layer of flavors. My friend who hates onions loved this dish (he did pick out the ones he spotted)

Here we have Butternut Squash Mac and cheese. The combo went so well that kids loved it!!! I mixed in half and half with a pack of frozen butternut squash.. made the rue first of course and mixed in fresh cheddar cheese. I loved this dish and it's 50/50 healthy and fattening..best of both worlds!!

Below we have my beef stew. There was a lot of love put into this as it was the most thought out dish of all. It took 6 hours to stew in the slow cooker, before that I browned all the meat in a skillet with fresh garlic, butter and canola oil. Then with the pan dripping added a bit of red wine, carrots, Worcestershire sauce, salt pepper and a few extra things. Dumped it all into the slow cooker and had it rock out. Of course I taste tested every half hour just to make sure it was coming along well!

Everyone enjoyed every last bit of every dish. I will be doing this again.. This time I will make more food because seconds was not an option for some :( 

Happy Eating all!