Cannolis & Gravlax

I haven't posted any cooking adventures here lately, but I really want to today because these two things turned out so well!  No, they weren't eaten together, but separately they were just heavenly.

We've been watching all of The Sopranos episodes and every time cannolis have been mentioned the husband and I have wanted to try to make them.  We finished the series and finally broke down a couple of days ago and made some.  This recipe is the one we went off of.  We followed all the directions except for using cannoli tubes, which we don't have.  We ended up creating makeshift tubes with aluminum foil, and they worked pretty well.  The cannolis turned out beautiful to us, although they probably wouldn't have cut it at a bakery.  It was our first attempt though, and they tasted great which is the important thing!

The past few days we'd also been curing a little piece of salmon to make gravlax.  When we discovered just how easy it is we decided we had to give it a shot too!

No real recipe for this one though.  Take a piece of salmon, remove any skin, and coat each side with a mixture of equal parts salt and sugar and also peppercorns and fresh dill.  Double wrap it in plastic wrap, place in a pan (we used a cake pan), cover with another pan and weigh down (we used a big soup can).  Place the whole thing in the fridge, flip the salmon every 12 hours, and it should be ready in 2-3 days.  So easy!

I tried to cut it at an angle at thinly as possible, but I'm still working on my knife skills.

After I cut my nice chunks, I piled them on top of a bagel with cream cheese, one of my favorite things in this world.  It was so wonderful!

Yummmmm!

And, oh yeah, I'm still doing the Special K "Challenge".  That bagel with a cannoli for dessert has been my one "sensible meal" a day for the past two days and probably will be again today.  I just can't stop!  I keep hoping the Alli will make up for the lack of sensibility in it.  I have lost a few pounds so far, so yay!