I've had quite a few cooking attempts lately with some successes and some not so much.
For a superbowl party I made these chocolate pretzels with a recipe I found on
Smitten Kitchen. I only had half the amount of butter I needed, so I used sour cream. Why? I don't know. I think they would have been very good, but due to my last minute substitution, they were pretty dry, but looked pretty at least.
The husband and I made matzo ball soup as well, which was super delicious. Also a recipe from
Smitten Kitchen. He wanted me to make the matzo balls "bigger!" we didn't realize they would poof up so much in the water. But they were still very tasty.
Last night for Valentines Day we made Spinachi Ravioli with Sappori de Lotta. A recipe from a cooking class I took in Tuscany.
For the Ravioli
Ingredients:
1/2 cup flour
1 egg
pinch salt
t olive oil
serves 2 people - multiply amount as needed
Directions:
• mound flour on a table and make a hole in the center
• add whole egg(s) a pinch of salt and the olive oil
• scramble eggs in the middle and slowly incorporate flour
• half way through incorporating, start kneading
• once kneaded well, cover dough with cotton towel and set aside for 10 minutes
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Ravioli assembly using a pasta machine:
• Starting with #1 - roll small amount of dough through the machine.
• Roll 4 more times increasing the setting each time (#1 - #5)
• Before rolling with #6 dust both sides of the dough with light flour
• lay dough out and add large Tablespoons of your ravioli filling**, spacing 2 inches
• fold dough over, pressing down between raviolis with your hand
• cut ravioli apart with a knife
• boil ravioli for 7 minutes
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**Spinachi Ravioli filling
Ingredients:
2 lbs fresh spinach
1 lb ricotta cheese
2 eggs
4 T parmesan cheese
pinch nutmeg
pinch salt
Directions:
• cook spinach in a pan with a small amount of water until tender
• Squeeze water out of spinach and chop
• in a bowl add: chopped spinach, ricotta, parmesan, eggs, nutmeg and salt. Mix well
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"Sappori de Lotta" Taste of the Garden Sauce
Ingredients:
3 plum (or "Piccadilly") tomatoes per person
1 clove garlic per person, chopped
olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan
"handful" basil
1 cup parmesan
Directions:
• In a cold pan put olive oil and chopped garlic
• heat until it starts to bubble and remove from heat
• quarter whole tomatoes and add to the pan with salt and pepper and a handful of basil
• heat again until tomato is somewhat soft
• serve on pasta
• add parmesan to top
No photos of the final product, we ate them too fast.
Delicioso!
I am also taking Mr. Brown Thumb's suggestion and saving paper towel tubes/ toilet paper tubes for little pots.
Note the back wall - It used to be the back of the original house! There was an addition put on at some point (a long time ago).
Strong shelves!
Here we are installing the chimney on the roof (after shoveling it). I am distracted by my urge to sneak over to the neighbors to paint their garage doors. 
It took two days to install and was much more complicated than I thought it would be. Luckily we have very handy family members 
Annie helps to make some kindling
