29 March 2012

How to Make Cookies More Fun? Add Bacon!


Ahh springtime, known for cleaning of closets and of blogs. Seriously. You wouldn’t believe how many posts are just sitting here, waiting for me to write them if I would only make the time. Like this one of these delicious bacon chocolate chip cookie bars! This recipe is my go-to “Crap, I’m supposed to bring something and I need to leave in an hour” pick so these cookies get made (but not photographed) often.

The base recipe is actually the Tollhouse cookie recipe, minus nuts, plus bacon. Baking at altitude here in the beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountains is a bitch. When you find a recipe that works, you stick with it, even if it isn’t yours, and the Tollhouse recipe never fails. Mama always said you can’t improve upon perfection, right? Mama also always said cite your source. So, source cited, thank you Tollhouse. However, um, I don’t use their chips for these cookie bars (sorry Nestle!) because I prefer dark chocolate, especially as a compliment to the salty smoky bacon.
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18 March 2012

Church Ladies n’ Chicken Salad


In my granny’s time, having the best chicken salad at the church potluck was a social must to show all the others who the lord Himself would choose to dine with, if given the chance. The dish of choice for ladies luncheons and bridge clubs since the dawn of ladies luncheons and bridge clubs, chicken salad is an American classic. I’ve never been a fan of the overly mayoed, too much celery variety found at company picnics, however, so I think this classic could be improved upon by adding some new ingredients and flavors (to shake up those church ladies at the very least). The additions of shallots, curry, dried cherries, and pecans (to keep that crunch without the celery) make a salad I hope you’ll enjoy–with crackers, corn chips, or as a sandwich–as much as I do.
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09 March 2012

Pasta Making Madness & Bon Voyage Sadness

When friends move away it’s sad. [Insert sad emoticon here]. Recently my friends RnR moved to D.C. which is a bummer for obvious reasons—they are awesome and now D.C. just got infinitely more cool—and also means I’m hunting a replacement couple to double date with to rock shows, restaurants, and art galleries (if it’s you, send me a love letter). While it’s a bummer for me, at the same time it’s an exciting opportunity for them. After helping pack them up and ship them off I was left with a parting gift, a pasta maker. Squeee! Now I can think of them every time I hand roll out my own dough.

But, wah, there’s a theme here. The first night I busted out the pasta maker was to make dinner with another friend who, yep, you guessed it, is moving. If anyone wants to move TO Denver let me know. There are some openings in my calendar. So, sayonara RnR and Nicholio. I’ll load up on carbs til we meet again…

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19 February 2012

Ramen For Grown Ups

The BF has extremely refined tastes. Which is why we recently picked up a case of ramen noodles on a Costco run. Since I refuse to allow him to eat an entire case of it, I’ve had to put my culinary thinking cap on to devise some tasty alternatives to help him in his quest to eat a lot of stringy white noodles. Lo Mein, like most pasta dishes, is a great “kitchen sink” meal where you can throw in whatever veggies you have on hand and need to use up. Below is a basic recipe but I’d love to hear about what you come up with either in the comments or on the Facebook page. Happy eating!
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13 February 2012

Garlic N’ Greens Are Good Friends

Trying to eat a little better? Never quite sure how to add leafy greens into your diet? Hate that I keep asking you questions? Great! I’ll stop now… Greens are a staple in my house as you can open the fridge just about any time of year and find kale, chard, turnip greens, collards or (less frequently) spinach. But each of those greens is a little bit different in taste and texture and each is a little more or less palatable to certain folk. Today’s recipe is a quick n’ dirty easy side dish that goes great with any protein and accompanies most meals as a foolproof and fast way to add some greens to your plate.
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31 January 2012

Let Tonight’s Dinner Make Tomorrow’s Lunch


Pasta salad is pretty much the easiest thing on the planet to make. Seriously. It is nearly impossible to screw up (I say nearly because I’m sure somehow someone out there may have figured it out). I’m a fan of making up a batch, throwing in whatever ingredients are in the fridge, eating the pasta dish hot, and then refrigerating the rest to have pasta salad the next day. This recipe can be made year-round, depending on grocer’s produce section. Double the recipe for big gatherings or pot-lucks.
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16 January 2012

Meatloaf is for Lovers


I’m about to admit something that is probably completely un-American: I’ve never made meatloaf until now. Worse still, I think I’ve only eaten meatloaf a handful of times and none of them occurred before I was the age of 25. Meatloaf gets a bad rap, what with its un-sexy name and general loafy quality. But who knows, fancy or gourmet meatloaf might be the next haute cuisine trend. And when that happens, you can say you were one of the early adopters…

This recipe came out of creative necessity, probably as meatloaf itself likely originated. I had a pound of ground bison and no interest in making chili or burgers. It turns out that in the recesses of our minds, all of us probably know how to make meatloaf. Because when I stood before my refrigerator and thought, “What goes in meatloaf?” my hands confidently grabbed the onion, egg, breadcrumbs, worcestershire and tomato paste. I believe a 1950s housewife secretly lives in all of us—or at least me—because there is no other logical explanation for my meatloaf prowess. Obviously.
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17 December 2011

Why Mash Potato When You Can Parsnip

Parsnips kind of look like pale carrots. But I think they’re better. Naturally you don’t have to believe my bias, and it’s not like I have it out for carrots. Carrots are cool too, but not as buttery and yummily (nope, not a real word) as the parsnip. As a root vegetable, parsnips are great to roast and I often use them in soups too. But it being super close to Christmas and all, you should also know that the parsnip likes to be mashed. It won’t mash as smoothly as a potato does but I like my mashed products lumpy so it’s a non-issue for me…
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14 December 2011

Travel By Taste

Everyone needs friends who like to travel. Everyone. Especially if you’re like me and always have a bad case of wanderlust. It’s hard to believe that I only just got my passport a year or so ago. And a bigger shame that I used it for the first (and only!) time about six months ago. But it’s not for a lack of want. No. It’s for a lack of opportunity. Only now do I have the resources (read: make barely enough money) to travel abroad. My biggest regret from my college days was not spending a semester studying in a foreign land.

Since I haven’t often had the opportunity to travel, I like to be adventurous in my food. I read a lot of National Geographic Traveler and Travel & Leisure magazine and am quick to visually eat up all the bright colors and cultural flavors that pop off those pages. The dish below is inspired by Morocco (whether or not it is a culturally accurate recipe is another story) and my desire to one day travel there. If you go, send me a postcard!
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11 December 2011

Beans: The Glamour

Fideo con frijoles just makes me sound more worldly, eh? Translated it means pasta with beans, but fideo (and frijoles too for that matter) is a staple of Mexican and Spanish soups and stews. And nothing tastes better when baby it’s cold outside than a warm soup with a little kick to it! Fideo is also a great dish to prepare for a group gathering (e.g. Sunday football) as it’s simple to make and easily fills up many folk. This dish can also be made vegetarian by simply swapping the chicken broth for vegetable stock. Dinner is done!
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