Smitten...with this cookbook

I swung by our amazing library on Monday during my lunch break to pick up a book I had on hold that had come in (Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan, which was very good) and did a quick peruse of the "what's new" shelves.  I've been a Smitten Kitchen follower for years, and being in quite the meal rut lately, I of course snagged the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.

Later that night I kicked back on the porch swing while Oscar and Ninja played in the backyard and started tabbing recipes....2 pads of post-its later....

I basically tabbed every other recipe.  It all just looked SO good, and her obsessive recipe testing guarantees it's not going to be a flop.  So far, I've made the zucchini ribbons with almond pesto (very tasty, though I sliced the zucchini too thick and need to try this one again; user error on my part as I can do like 1 setting on our mandolin grater) and the shaved asparagus pizza with her rushed pizza dough.  Oh. My. Goodness.

Never in a million years would it have occurred to me to thinly shave asparagus (which sounded really hard, but was a piece of cake with a potato peeler) and put it on top of a pizza.  I'm also a huge tomato sauce fan, so a sauceless pizza.....but I took one bite and fell in LOVE, this was out of this world.  Full disclosure:  Ryan got his own pizza with tomato sauce, cheese and mushrooms.  The asparagus was too "weird" for him.  

I will say, the next time I have this on the menu, I'll make the dough on a Sunday, freeze it then grab it out of the freezer the day I want to make it. Even with it being a "rushed" pizza dough recipe, it still took 45 minutes just for the dough, and that's too long for a weeknight dinner.

I haven't been this fired up about cooking in I don't know how long...maybe never?  There's a killer veggie ratoutille that WILL be made when our CSA ramps up at the beginning on June, popcorn cookies (with actual popcorn kernels in them, the anticipation is killing me on this one), lemon bars (for Ryan), a fruit breakfast crisp, shells with peas and a light alfredo....I could go on and on, and probably will as I start to cook my way through this!

I am a big library user, and really only buy books at garage sales or thrift stores.  But this book might be what I spend my $25 Barnes and Noble gift card on, that's how amazing it is.  I have stuff to make for dinner for weeks now!

Have you made anything particularly tasty lately? I know some of you are doing the Whole30 Cleanse, (Jessi I am super sorry about that Tiramisu recipe from earlier this week!),  I'd love to hear about some of the recipes you're using for that!