Remember my valiumtimes grocery list? Well this is how the cookie crumbled:

and

Due to a string of fortuitous events, the game plan was wiped out and I did the cooking the whole day. I used McCormick’s recipe for the chicken and thyme pasta and (I must say that) we were disappointed. To make it work we either had to:

• pile up on the salt and pepper
• (or) eat it together with the salty beef steak (yes, you read that right and yes, you can laugh now) my brother requested.

R (my brother) thinks otherwise though as he was able to finish 12 servings in 24 hours!

The panna cotta’s texture turned out to be fine but lacked on vanilla. Terry Selection (The Podium) ran out of vanilla sticks that I had to use vanilla extract the last minute.

(sigh) I hope that next year’s v-day cookout will be the exact opposite of this year’s.

*The beautiful (as usual) panna cotta shots were by Jayvee