Whoopie Pies, Chicken, Sweet Potatoes, and Friends

Yesterday, I got a bit ambitious in the kitchen. I had two separate culinary agendas for the day. Least importantly I needed to use some sweet potatoes that I had bought at the market and were threatening to go bad. I will get to this in a second.

But, my first and most important agenda I had was to make these zucchini whoopie pies. My friend Casie, who shares an uncanny similarity in food taste with me told me about whoopie pies a few months ago. I thought it sounded delicious, but I failed to make any real move to bake them. Well, about a few weeks ago I was browsing the Gourmet website, and I came across a recipe for zucchini whoopie pies .(you can find the recipe here) These were going to be the ones I make, especially in the summer when there is fresh local zucchini everywhere. I kept putting it off, until I heard that Casie was going to be making whoopie pies this weekend. I had to do it this weekend so we could share stories and compare notes on monday.

At the same time that I was scheming on the whoopie pies, my friend James suggested that I cook something up to take over to Ben and Dawn's house for dinner. I needed to use those sweet potatoes, and so the logical supper to cook would be baked chicken and sweet potatoes with a maple syrup glaze. I have made this several times, and I had everything in my kitchen besides the chicken.

I went to the store grabbed a few things, and got to cooking.

At around 5:30, everything was ready, I loaded up the car with the food, all wrapped tightly, picked James up and headed for our friends' house.


We sat out on Ben and Dawn's porch and had a few drinks. I am sure I said it in another post, but just to get the point across, I love their house. I am so jealous of it. It is a great old house, with wood planked walls and a giant front porch shielded from the road by beautiful big green bushes and a tree speckled lawn. We sat out there until we could no longer wait.


We set the table with the sushi plate that Ben and Dawn put together (OMG I CAN EAT SUSHI ANY TIME!!!!!) the Chicken and sweet potatoes and our drinks. We all started loading up our plates. What a delicious dinner it was. The sushi made me incredibly happy, and the chicken, it turned out nice and simple as always. I should say that this chicken recipe is one of the easiest dishes to make, and it always comes off so tasty and it looks pretty impressive. Those are the best recipes ever, no?


We finished our chicken and sushi, everyone feeling full and happy, and I brought out the whoopie pies. Until this point, they had been wrapped up tightly, less they get squished or something. So, no one had seen them, and no one really knew what to expect.
The whoopie pies turned out a bit larger than what was reasonable for one person to eat, so we cut them into smaller portions, and began eating. Goodness, the were delicious. I would so highly recommend making them. It was suprising, because even James talked about them for the rest of the evening, and he doesn't like sweet things. And for as fancy as zucchini whoopie pies look and sound, they were pretty easy to make. I can say it took me about 2 hours to make both dishes and clean up, and have a glass of wine.

After we ate, we returned to the porch, where, in good Zenor fashion(if you know my dad, you know what i am talking about) I laid down on the couch in a complete food coma, half awake, and listened to the conversations only rousing every once in a while to laugh at something funny that was said. It was a beautiful evening.

So today, I have a bit of the icing left, so I am going to make another batch today, after I go to the gym, because god knows I need to work out after just looking at those things.