who are u? julia child?

so i've always loved to cook, but i haven't been cooking a lot or not cooking that i want to do because i was in the biggest loser contest at work... so i think i'm making up for it these past couple weeks now that the competition is over, so my coworker asked, "what is going on with you?  who are you?  julia child?"  but its just im trying to make up for 3 months of non-cooking and baking...

i switched to the small csa box the last two weeks and there just isn't that much variety... the produce is still awesome, but the box is so much smaller.  i definitely don't have enough fruits to last me through the week, but i still go to the farmers market, so im okay with supplementing.

this week's box included carrots, sweet potatoes, zucchinis, gold nugget mandarins, strawberries, romaine, avocado, and broccoli.  i've never cooked sweet potatoes before and zucchini is fairly new to me.  and never cooked and fairly new to me is why i love the whole csa concept

i did make sweet potato oven fries last night when i made my favorite roast chicken, the zuni roast chicken, i've made the zuni roast chicken at least a hundred times, but this time, the skin on my chicken was amazing!  this is the first time im using a pasture raised chicken and not some commercial industrial raised bird... what a difference it made in my bird, it was always amazing, but i never had such amazing skin... it could also be experience.  although i did realize my fairly new silicone pot holders do not work well with a cast iron skillet in a 475` oven, i think the handle burns through the silicone a bit as i was having a bit of trouble or i've lost some muscle and can't manage to lift a cast iron skillet with a chicken out of the oven, but i'm thinking the handle was really hot so i was having some issues..

i ate all my oven baked sweet potato fries waiting for the chicken to finish, but that's okay.. the fries never made the plate, i ate right off the baking sheet...

i tried my hand at macarons, black sesame macarons to be exact, i ran into a few issues and i don't think it is picture worthy, but this is my journey, so maybe i'll be able to improve on them... 

i made my own almond meal, well i didn't want to overgrind so it got stuck in my piping bag tip since i only have a few tips and the tip i was using was a very small writing tip... i pulled off the tip eventually and just blobbed it down onto the parchment... can i add, i've rarely used a piping bag and this was my first time at making meringues... okay enough with the excuses... not exactly the prettiest little things, but hey, it was my first time

i had the most awesome texture of the cookie/meringue part... crispy on the outside that separated and gooey on the inside... the only issue was my filling was off and way too sweet, i even my coworker who grew up in europe try it and he agreed i got the texture right, my filling was too sweet... i think the cookie/meringue part is the hardest, so im super excited that the first time, i didn't do so bad

i will keep practicing and keep searching for some good macarons in the area so that i can do some research =)