Last week, I found myself faced with a dilemma: too much garlic! Fortunately, I was given some great suggestions by Deeba & Marie. Marie pointed out that there was a terrific recipe on FoodNetwork.com that requires 40 garlic cloves – perfect! I immediately searched for the recipe, found it, printed it, scanned over the ingredients & planned to make it the next day…… (BIG sigh here) I don’t know if any of you have ever done this, but I thought I had all of the ingredients – I had the garlic after all. Of course, I didn’t realize this until I started to pull everything out to cook. Dang. The recipe called for the use of Cognac, dry white wine & heavy cream – I had tequila, rum, red wine, port, grappa, 2% low-fat milk & butter milk. As you can imagine, panic started to ensue. So…. I made the decision to replace the 1 1/2 cups wine & 3T Cognac with 1 cup port (one Hail Mary here). Then, I replaced the heavy cream with butter milk (another Hail Mary). I followed the rest of the recipe EXACTLY & continued to pray – I just hate messing up dinner.

When Alfredo came home he was greeted with the rich smell of port, garlic & fresh thyme. He immediately was impressed by my culinary efforts (great! no pressure). As I timidly served the food, I said one more prayer. I thought, “Well, if it’s terrible, then I’ll blame Marie!” (just kidding, Marie!) Alfredo loved it!!! The kids loved it! Whew. My jaw dropped because I could not believe I pulled it off. If the truth be told, then the success of the meal was because the recipe was so clearly described. I hope to try it again with the proper ingredients.

BAKED SWEET POTATO ROUNDS

for a family of 4 I usually peel 2-3 sweet potatoes, slice into round, coat with olive oil & a wee-bit of sea salt. Then, bake at 400 for 40 minutes. I use a dutch oven, but you can use anything as long as the potatoes are covered.  These make such a tasty, no-brainer side dish – perfectly healthy & just enough color to dress up any meal.