pasta

Mac&Chorizo

I’m on year two of a five year plan that was put into operation about 15 years ago.  I’m a little behind, I’ll admit.  But the plan, the plan is still good.  The plan is to take over the world.  At first I thought I’d do it with my charm and effervescent wit.  But that hasn’t panned out yet.  So now I’m thinking I’ll take a slightly different tack.  I’m going to take over the world through a slow, steady and judicious application of macaroni and cheese.

First, I get the world’s attention with irresistible bacon comfort filled baked mac& cheese.  Then I up the ante with a sophisticated, spring-friendly chicken, spinach and leek concoction.  And now I’m sealing the deal with this sassy chorizo, garlic and broccoli  mac and cheese.  It’s just a little taste of what my reign will be like: a macaroni in every pot.

Well, a penne anyway.  Or a rigatoni.  Maybe shells.  Or spirals. (more…)

chicken

Sriracha-brined chicken and oil poached tomatoes

Why did the chicken cross the road?  To get to the rooster sauce.  At least, that would be my goal.

Like most people who pray at the altar of spicy food, my favorite edible deity is srircha sauce, or rooster sauce as it’s sometimes called (check out the bottle).  It is amazing, not just because it’s hot—and it’s hot—but because it’s packed with flavor.  I love hot sauce (have you tried making it?) but the thick, complex taste of sriracha is a perfect accompaniment to a lot of things, like pasta sauce.  It is also, I’ve discovered, an excellent addition to a meat brine.

Josh is a big fan of brining for two main reasons: 1) it gives poultry a much better flavor and more moisture and 2) he likes to do science to things and brining is really easy science.  As I explained in the brining pork ribs post,

If you don’t know, brining is the process of soaking meat in a salt solution that’s generally spiked with herbs, spices and other flavorings, for a few hours or overnight.  It tenderizes, moistens and flavors meat, making it really great for drier cuts of pork and poultry, in particular.

(more…)

miscellaneous

Pomegranate Vanilla Bean Curd

Lemon curd has become my new it-dessert for spring, I think.  It’s cheerful and luscious and sweet and tart and quick and easy.  I like to eat it with a spoon and someday, I may even spread it on a scone or two but mostly, I like to eat it with a spoon, in front of the fridge.  With the door open, of course.  Because I’m classy like that.  I like lemon curd so much that I started wondering what other kinds of fruit curds I could make.  Lime was my first thought.  My second thought was “spiked with rum.”  But then I had what I consider to be a brilliant idea…pomegranate.  It’s sweet, it’s healthy, it’s got a luscious red color.  And I know from previous experiments in pomegranate that anything made out of it is delicious.

So I set about trying it out on Saturday morning.  After a week away, it was a relief to be back in my own kitchen, puttering away.  I debated whether to add another flavor in with the pomegranate in the curd.  I didn’t want to do lemon–although I will try that next–because I didn’t want its flavor to overpower that of the pomegranate.  I also didn’t want something super citrusy.  I decided on vanilla, figuring it would make an elegant, rich companion and it did.  (more…)

general musings, reviews

Chicago Eats

Josh and I headed down to Chi-town this past week so I could attend a work conference.  It was good timing.  The weather is finally starting to turn around, it was beautiful, the St. Pat’s celebration was in full swing, green river and all and I was itching to get to a bigger city and do what’s really important–eat.

I didn’t have any culinary plans, really.  The conference–and our hotel–were downtown in the thick of everything, and so my only real guideline for the week was “wander around until you find something that looks tasty that doesn’t have a one hour wait.”  And that’s pretty much what we did.  While the downside of just wandering until you find a place is that the place might suck, you also sometimes run into awesome places that make you go, “Mmmm.” (more…)

desserts and sweets

Seven-Deadly-Layer Bars

Ogres have layers, bars have layers

It’s that time of year again.  Fat Tuesday.  Mardi Gras.  Carnivale.  For some people, “Paczki Day.”

I, for one, enjoy Mardi Gras.  Who doesn’t like shiny beads and socially accepted overindulgence?  Monks.  But we just won’t tell them about it.  Anyway, I enjoy the festivities.  There is, however, one thing that has always somewhat baffled me about the way people celebrate Fat Tuesday here in southeast Michigan, at least.

Paczkis.  The overwhelming obsession with paczkis.  I mean…why?

Now don’t hate me.  I know that already some of you are going, “Oh my god, you did not just say that,” and others are going, “You didn’t mean it; I forgive you,” and still others are going, “What the hell is a paczki?  And how do you even pronounce it?”  A paczki, pronounced here as puntj-ki, is a Polish pastry made of fried dough filled with jam. (more…)

miscellaneous

Foodie Skin Care: Vanilla-Almond Sugar Scrub

I love my chocolate bath scrub.  Love it.  Between that and the whipped chocolate soap I get from Etsy, I have the best smelling showers ever…and super-soft skin.  Which is important to me, especially in the freezing and drying air of winter.  However, the days are getting a bit longer, a bit bright and a bit more Dear-God-Is-That-Spring-I-See-Before-Me? and so, having reached the end of my current batch of chocolate scrub, I figured I would make something a little different, a little lighter perhaps.

I like making my own bath scrubs for a few reasons.  One, way cheaper.  Two, super easy–I can use stuff I already have in the pantry anyway and all I have to do is mix it together.  Three, I can control and pronounce the name of every ingredient in it.  I like to have very soft, healthy skin.  I am very skin-oriented and dedicated to the idea that the best way to improve and maintain your skin’s quality comes down to what you put in your body and what you put on it.  Don’t believe me?  I even have a free e-pamphlet stating as much with a bunch of different DIY food-based concoctions (see the Foodie Skin Care page). (more…)

beef

So a cow and a chicken walk onto my plate…

It’s a terrible dilemma, isn’t it?  Breakfast?  Or burgers?  Breakfast?  Or burgers?  Well, who says it has to be one or the other?  I say, have both.

I’m all very in to combinations this week.  On Sunday, a few friends and I had dinner at El Barzon in Detroit.  If you’ve never been there, it’s a fine dining restaurant in off Michigan Ave that serves Mexican…and Italian.  Mexican and Italian.  Mexitalian.  If that isn’t just a brilliant idea, I don’t know what is.  Why choose between tacos or lasagna?  Have both.  This is America, damnit, the land of opportunity…to have both tortilla chips and salsa and gnocchi in the same meal.  Apparently. (more…)

desserts and sweets

Eat your heart out, Bart Simpson–Homemade Butterfingers

Does making a Bart Simpson/Butterfinger joke make me old?  No, of course not, don’t be silly.  But the fact that the Simpsons as we know them debuted on my seventh birthday in 1989 makes me feel old.  And awesome at the same time.  I never liked Butterfingers as a kid, cowabunga-cred notwithstanding.  Even now, I don’t eat them.  I much prefer my candy bars to either be all chocolate and nuts or contain vast amounts of caramel.  Josh, though, Josh loves Butterfingers.  Josh likes any combination of peanut butter and chocolate but Butterfingers are his go-to candy bar when we’re on the road and we’ve stopped in to a gas station for a pick-me-up.  So when I started experimenting in making homemade versions of popular candy bars last year, this was his request, and it was seconded by my friend Tim.  I sort of slowed down the candy-train a bit over the last few months due to just being busy with other things but now, spring is in the air, Valentine’s Day has come and gone, Easter is around the corner…the allure of melted chocolate is once again knocking on the proverbial door.  (more…)

general musings, links!

Share the Love…and Pass a Plate

strawberries

I like Valentine’s Day.  I know it’s a somewhat controversial holiday (which ones aren’t, these days?) but I personally appreciate it, for about the same base reason that I like Halloween: you just can’t go wrong with a holiday where a major focus is candy.

The second best part of V-Day is the silly cards you can swap with your friends.  You know, the “I choo-choo-choose you” train-shaped cards like Ralph gave to Lisa on the Simpsons?  Those are awesome and fun.  Any cute little paper card that references a cartoon I grew up watching is a winner. Unless it’s Captain Planet themed.  Then I just feel guilty.

Anyhow, the candy is really what’s important here.  My mom always makes sure we have some sort of Valentine’s treat—cookies or candy hearts or those little sampler boxes of Whitman’s chocolates.  And then come’s the inevitable Forrest Gump reference about life being like a box of chocolates.    Ha.  I wish. If life really was like a box of chocolates, I would be deliriously eating my way through the fabric of space. Om nom nom.

Where was I going with this?  I don’t remember.

The important thing is that whether you’re celebrating the Big V…alentine…with a significant other or friends or that random guy who always sits next to you on the bus no matter how many other seats are available, I’ve got some awesome meals and treats that will make your day delicious. (more…)

desserts and sweets

A real sunny delight: Meyer Lemon Curd

Meyer lemon curdI’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: real desserts have chocolate in them.  But sometimes, sometimes it’s nice to have an “after diner snack” that is light and fruity instead.  And I adore fruit for breakfast, snacks…basically any meal of the day.  And fruit is more than welcome to dip itself into some melted chocolate and march itself into my mouth.  By all means, please do.

Having said that though, I do have a soft spot for lemony sweets as well.  Lemon is an amazing flavor when treated right.  Sometimes it can be too sweet, or too harsh and sour.  But sometimes it can be just the right amount of sweet, just the right amount of tart, just the right level of flavor and then it’s amazing.  It’s bright and light and interesting and to be honest, makes me feel like a kid again.  As a kid, my favorite (non-chocolate) dessert sweet snack was lemon meringue pie, a favorite I shared with my dad.  But mostly lemon makes me think of my grandmother.  For two reasons.

One, when I was young–and occasionally still these days–my grandmother would make us lemonade from scratch.  As in, from real lemons.  Not from packets of Kool-Aid like I know some of you think of when you hear the words “make lemonade.”  No, this is the real deal.  She hand-squeezed lemons (a juicer? Pshaw) and strained out the seeds and mixed in just the right amount of sugar, water and ice to make a perfect icy cold tart-with-a-hint-of-sweetness treat, especially great during the hot summer days when my sister and I would come over and catch butterflies in the fields by their house, or to make me feel better after their chickens chased me around the yard.  (more…)

Can you judge a digital cookbook by its cover?

(Note: This is a long post.  However, there’s two recipes...

The Mango Tango, Pt 3

You know what the best meal ever is?  Dessert.  But...

Strawberry Tiramisu

I like tiramisu.  I like the idea of it even...

Potatoes as nature intended: fried in beef fat

One of the things I’ve wanted to do for a...

Roasted mushroom spaghetti

I’m a simple person.  I don’t want much in life. ...

Eat Tech

Originally, I started writing a planned, multi-post article on my...

There Will Be Brownies

This will probably be a short post, because it’s been...

It rubs the lotion on its skin: chocolate salt body scrub

Chocolate is truly the food of the gods.  You can...

Can you judge a digital cookbook by its cover?

(Note: This is a long post.  However, there’s two recipes...

Night of the Day of the Dawn of the 28 Days of Zombieland Cupcakes

According to a super-scientific quiz on Facebook, I am well...

the Great Recipe Experiment: #3-Peppermint Patties

I always liked Peppermint Patty, maybe because she was a...

Tell everybody that we’re having a party

It was a busy weekend.  On Friday I baked several...