Gourmet Food at Home!

I've had some extra time on my hands since we're still waiting for a baby... and I've been cooking some of my favorite things! I love to try recreating foods I've had at restaurants, so this week, I made Taste Unlimited's Grilled Chicken Salad, Gourmet Gang's Lemon Basil Pasta Salad and then I did a few of my own things too. I still need to perfect the spices in the two salads, but here's basically what I came up with:

Grilled Chicken Salad (actually Justine did the work for this one!):

We grilled the chicken with some olive oil, garlic powder, basil, salt & pepper, cut it in thin strips, mixed with mayo, sliced grapes, sliced celery, chopped green onion, parsley, salt, pepper and dill weed.

Lemon Basil Pasta Salad:

Penne Pasta tossed with finely chopped tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh chopped basil, parmasean cheese, olive oil, lemon juice, salt & pepper.

Then I made Ali's Chocolate Chip Pound Cake which is DELICIOUS - as you can see there's only half left!

And probably our favorite that I just made up, we liked it so much we made it again 2 days later (and ate it all so there's none left for a picture!): Tuscan Chicken Sandwiches:

Thin Grilled Chicken breasts seasoned with Garlic & Herb marinade & balsalmic vinegar, fresh basil leaves, fresh mozzerella, roma tomatoes sprinkled with olive oil, salt & pepper, and homemade roasted red peppers on Asiago Cheese bread. Amazing!!