Dinner with friends and apple cake

My rate of updating this blog has slowed to a crawl, mostly because my time spent in the kitchen has dwindled into making quick salads for lunch and sandwiches to eat on the go after work on my way to all my after school ahem, work, activities. The last time I spent serious time in the kitchen was two (two!) weeks ago when a few of us gathered in Reid's kitchen to make the first three-course meal I've had in months.

We started the meal with a tomato and rice soup, which was expertly garnished by Reid.



The green bean risotto with pesto was absolutely delicious, perhaps especially so because we ended up going with a rustic pesto made the old-fashioned style with a cutting board and knife. I really liked this recipe because it wasn't as heavily cheesy as the typical risotto recipe. The smaller amount of cheese really allowed the awesome pesto flavor to come through.

 

I made my go-to apple cake recipe for dessert. I love this recipe. Aside from the fact that peeling a chopping 6 apples can be a pain, the rest of the cake is super easy to make. The result is a fantastically apple-y, moist cake that just happens to be great for breakfast, especially warm with vanilla ice cream (who said that?).