Chicken in a Cashew Nut Sauce plus Potatoes in Yogurt Sauce

Oh, yes, that was Valentine's Day dinner! We've had the Chicken in a Cashew Nut Sauce before, but the potato dish was new and well worth it. It's a bit spicy, but I used Anaheim Peppers instead of Jalapeno to keep the heat mid-range, but creamy and a tiny bit tangy.



There is something so unexplainably satisfying about cooking from scratch, especially with lots of spices and unique ingredients. I love having to dig through and pull out all the spices for indian food, using my food processor to pulverize onions, add spices, and then fry it all up.



Over the holidays, we bought a 5 quart Le Creuset pot (on sale at Williams Sonoma, thankfully) and it's awesome! I still use the old one if I have two dishes going in a row, but the Le Creuset is worth the money because it heats evenly, keeps its heat, and makes food delish.

I also baked a cake - German Chocolate Cake - since Valentine's Day is all about a little chocolate. Turned out great, but I should have just baked in a deep pan like my mother since all the frosting on the side slid down and pooled at the bottom. This picture is shortly after it was frosted - you should see it this morning! It's shrugging off its suit!



If a passionate homecooked meal with a chocolate cake wasn't enough celebration of interests, we watched "Strangers on the Train," a 1951 Alfred Hitchcock film based on a Patricia Highsmith (my favorite) book. Great thriller! We also liked that there were two future Bewitched actresses in it, and the mystery that the male lead was born in Salt Lake City, had been committed for psychiatry problems before, and died to an adverse drug reaction given by a psychiatrist one night. Actor/actresses these day are so boring.

Tschüß!