when have i ever kept something up?

i'm ditching the weekly menu thing for now.  let's be honest, i can hardly remember what i had for breakfast, let alone what i cooked for a week :)  but i do remember what the winners were in terms of new recipes, so i'll continue to share those :)

here are a few that we've really enjoyed the past few weeks.

#1:  shrimp cobb salad - here's my iPhone pic of it.  it was super tasty!  i was skeptical about salad for dinner (few in my book make a meal.  exceptions include: taco salad... and this one.) :)  i did use double the bacon and double the dressing but... it's still salad :)  corn.. tomatoes.. bacon... shrimp.. what's not to like?  it has a yummy lemon-y dressing too.

#2:  sea salt vanilla bean caramel sauce.  i drooled a little bit just typing that.  mmmmmm.  for my birthday, one of my requests was a salt keeper (a cute little olive wood one with a swivel lid).  and wonderful husband that he is, nate followed my carefully constructed amazon list and purchased it for me :)  he also got some fun salts to put in it, one of them was from the farmers' market.  the lady said she goes to some island in the keys and just rakes it up.  sketch?  maybe.  but sea salt down to the literal sense for sure.  i used it in this delicious caramel sauce.

i had never made caramel before and it was mildly tricky.  but the pics on the recipe really helped me decide when it was officially caramel :)  still, when i stirred in the cream (and vanilla bean- yum....), the whole thing seized (right word?  i have no idea.  but the whisk was suddenly weighed down with a gob of sugar) and i had to keep whisking for awhile until the sugar melted back in.  anyway, it was all worth it because it was SO good.  i am officially swearing off buying caramel ice cream topping ever again and forever making this instead.  i also saved my empty vanilla bean and put it in a jar of sugar per the suggestion in the recipe.  any idea what i can do with vanilla sugar?  it smells so yummy!

and so long as we're talking about the winners, it's important that you know there were also losers.  one in particular actually and that loser was mayo chicken.  i think it has a better name, but overall i thought it was bland.  i mean, the recipe sounded bland so i should have know, but i was expecting some kind of mayonaise alchemy or something and it definitely did not occur.  consider yourself warned :)