Foodies for Thought: Tastespotting & Blogtasting

I've mentioned the blog tastespotting before.

It is a literal thumbnail view of beautiful food.

With pictures so good you can practically taste each dish.

I have found myself looking at those inspiring pictures a lot recently

and getting to work in my little kitchen.

There is nothing I hate more than going to WINCO to grocery shop.

In fact, just thinking about it produces the same visceral reaction I believe the Pants experiences when I turn on The Bachelor. At least it looks the same in my mind.

But when armed with images of the delicious things I will create because of my shopping trip I am inspired to push harder past the woman screaming at her child,

wrangle my bananas out from under the ten employees stocking produce

during the most high-traffic hour of the day,

and hike the mile back to the bulk foods section because

I forgot to get gluten flour the first time I passed it.

And in case you're wondering when the most high traffic hour of the day is, it is

every hour between 8 am and 10 pm.

Recently desserts are inspiring me. Who am I kidding? Recently, Ha!

I found both of these (when on a free carbs day) The Pants asked, "What shall we have for dessert?"

And rather than go to Chevron and get a Caramelo and Peanut Butter M&M's, we looked for the best looking dessert that enticed our palate*.

Here's what we came up with:

Blackberry Mascarpone Shortcake

Recipe here.

I confess that we had this twice within a weekend. Complete Gluttony, I know.

I didn't even feel bad about it though--there are berries in it for heaven's sake.

Vanilla Bean Ricotta Tart

This was so good The Pants has requested I make this for his birthday. I will defer to the picture from whence it came--next time I will butter that tart pan more liberally to prevent the crust from sticking. And my only deviation from the recipe was to use full-fat cream cheese, making it oh-so rich. *If you are in the Portland area--the cheapest Vanilla Bean I found was at Penzey's Spices (almost half the price of anywhere else).

This week I'll try my hand at entree recipes using meat other than Chicken--because I so often get stuck in that rut. I'm using this blog as my inspiration.

Happy Tastespotting and Blogtasting!

*Post edit: I hate when I spell words incorrectly. Such as palate-originally I had it spelled palette as in a painter's palette. Me eating a wooden/plastic disk covered in paint was not the image I was trying to convey.