February; Weekend Cooking

We went out of town this weekend to attend a Bluegrass Festival in Des Moines.  I do love to travel and going anywhere requires finding a few good restaurants to try.  On this trip our main foodie experience was Gusto's Pizza near downtown.  This place does not have just your average pizzas plus they do gluten-free crusts for any of their pizzas.  I didn't snap any photos because I was too busy eating.  With names like Buffalo Springfield, Vincent Van Goat, Francesco, and the Fromage A'Trois it was very hard to make a choice. With all the menu choices we somehow missed the special of the day which was a spicy Thai pizza.

{Gusto's Pizza-just NOT the pizza we ordered}

After much deliberation we voted to get the Francesca which featured an Alfredo sauce, mozzarella, Roma tomato, artichokes, cremini mushrooms, and spinach.  It was divine.  We ate almost the whole thing.  There is one lonely piece waiting for me in the refrigerator for lunch or dinner.  Groovy Girl got to design her own small pizza; shrimp, fresh basil, Roma tomatoes, and extra mozzarella.  She was in pizza heaven and she had a wonderful cream soda to make her smile.  

My friend and I both tried 2 different salads from the menu as well.  Mine was the Fromage Bleu featuring apples, spiced walnuts, mixed greens, red onion and balsamic vinaigrette.  I wished for more bleu cheese crumbled on top-after all the name features bleu!  My friend ordered the quinoa continental and it was by far the winner!  A small amount of quinoa mixed with mixed greens, goat cheese, roasted butternut squash, dried cranberries, and balsamic vinaigrette.  I am going to re-create this salad at home!  All in all it was an amazing trip to Des Moines.  Oh, and the Bluegrass Festival; it was fantastic as well.  

We made it safely back yesterday afternoon just in time for Groovy Girl's school fundraiser.  Last night at about my bedtime I realized I needed to make something for our church potluck.  I whipped this vegan curry dish (from allrecipes.com) in about 40 minutes and it was a huge hit.  The bowl was scraped clean. Surprising as it was pretty spicy. No leftovers.  I'll have to make more.  It's been a good food weekend for me!

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekly foodie meme.  Click her link to find many other food-related posts.