Nutty Cooking Club

Valerie hosted the November cooking club, and the theme was nuts and seeds! Nancy made vegetarian meatballs featuring walnuts! Look at how cute these are in their mini baking dish!



Two kinds!



She served them two ways. A meatball sub with marinara, and a sweet 'n' spicy glazed meatball.



I could have eaten a whole platter of these!!!



Valerie's centerpiece was edible. Get crackin'!



Yumi made roasted eggplants with tahini sauce. Mmm, sesame seeds!



We paired that with Summer's creamy cashew curry with green chutney. Both dishes were fantastic! That chutney was AMAZING. So bright and flavorful! The curry was a lot more attractive in real life than it appears in this photo, I promise.



I made peanut butternut squash soup!



The soup paired perfectly with Valerie's seed bread.



When I brought the soups out to the table, everyone leaned in for a sniff and it looked vaguely religious!



Perfect couple.



Valerie also made a batch of brussels sprouts with maple and hazelnuts!



These paired perfectly with Emily's pecan-crusted trout! The trout was crispy and amazing.



Yumi made a white chocolate tahini bark, too! This was a great little palate cleanser.



And last, but NOT LEAST, Valerie made a Mounds cake!!!!!!! Dark chocolate and coconut!!!! Look at that bad boy!!! This cake was right in the corner of my peripheral vision all night long and I could not stop sneaking glances at it. A masterpiece!



Oh, hi!



We tore INTO that cake!!!



By the end of the evening, we all noticed that we were WAY more full than usual. Nuts are freaking filling, man! Soooo much protein! I couldn't finish my piece of cake (going down on my list of life regrets), but I brought the leftovers home to lucky Ben. It was delicious delicious delicious.



What a great theme!