June 2010 Archives

I tried to make Vietnamese Bun once before, but what I made wasn't really bun, because I had never eaten bun and I was going off a vague description. Now that I have actually eaten it at a few places, I understand the dish better, and I love it! Where I messed up last time was that we thought it was fried but when I have had it out, the ingredients are usually raw (except the noodles and meats). The more I eat it, the more I realize that it is just a variation on pasta salad! This is a super simple way you can bring some of the flavors of Vietnamese bun to your next BBQ.

It's that time of the week again where I encourage everyone to go vote on the most recent Foodie Fight. The recipes for battle sesame seed and tropical fruit look fantastic(as always). Next week is a break week on Foodie Fights, so vote today while you still can! Also head over to the main page and add some ingredients to the poll that you want to see in a future battle.

These burgers have been on my mind for awhile. I knew I wasn't the first person to think of them, and a quick google search reaffirmed this theory. Even racheal ray has a version! Most use peanut butter, and mix the sauce throughout the patty. I like this method of smothering the cooked burger in the sauce because it amplifies the flavor, and keeps the burger juicy inside. It also allows the patty to get nicely browned, an important element in chicken satay. Check back Wednesday to see what we ate on the side.

Amy, an old regular on this blog, and a good friend of mine from the Bermuda days, was in Boston this past weekend and we hung out a bunch. We were particularly excited to cook together at Riches apartment since we used to cook all the time in Bermuda. Wondering what to make, we kinda wanted to come up with something Asian and Italian at the same time. Drunk one night we decided on peppersteak stuffed shells, but the next morning wandering around the Italian section of boston, small batch salami and pungent red sauces started to take over the brain. I get so overwhelmed by olfactory hues! We carried over the peppersteak idea but put it into a classic Italian braciole!

This isn't much of a blog post, but something is better than nothing right? Besides I wanted to share this one because I wasn't really expecting anything as I made it but it was so good I had to run and grab my camera. Have you guys been eating delicious summer BBQ? Grilling is fun, but i'm talking about real BBQ and all it's smokey glory. I have had it a few times this year, but not nearly enough. When I ate these ribs I was dreaming about them all night so when I woke I had to eat them again!

I haven't taken a break from the site in awhile, but it didn't even feel like a break at all, I have been busy as ever! Don't worry, I have been cooking a ton and have plenty of recipes to show you guys. This first one is basically me trying to clear out my sisters CSA before stuff went bad. I have always wanted to use beet greens in pasta since Mario Batali made a funny joke that hit the cover of Food and Wine. Now that I finally did, I have to say that they take the place of spinach or arugula very nicely.

A post at 2:40 in the afternoon? Sorry guys, I was busy being a grownup yesterday and this morning. Anyways, check out Foodie Fights today for some ancho-honey awesomeness, and check back here tomorrow for regularly scheduled programming.

Top Chef Started it's 7th season last night, and as always, I am here to choose the beard winner. The beards are a bit weaker this year than in past seasons. There are more people with facial hair, but less people with full-on beard situations. Last year in the finale, Kevin (the guy with the crazy red beard) mentioned websites talking about his beard and a facebook fanpage for it, and I like to think that it all started right here! (because I am delusional) Maybe he even saw my site? Aaaaaaaanyways. I am taking a long weekend. Busy busy busy. I will be back with a foodiefight post on Tuesday (Battle Ancho - Honey, sign up now!) and normal recipes resuming Wednesday.

Lemon on the chain with the V-Cuts. Lemon in the shade with my feet up. Lemon Pepper wings and a freeze cup. Lemon in their face watch 'em freeze up! Looking for lemon pepper wing recipes I realized that Wing Stop is known for them. Never heard of Wing Stop cause they aren't really in New England. Also, a freeze cup is is just frozen kool-aid in the south, but I went with lemon italian ice. Refer to the bottom of this post if you have no idea what I'm talking about.

So now that you guys are all sick of cherries cherry experts, you need to head over to Foodie Fights and choose the winner in Battle Cherry-Rye. Two competitors dropped out, so there are only 4 left, but they all really made awesome stuff totally worthy to be part of cherry week. I PROMISE no cherries tomorrow!!!

Whoa! I thought cherry week was over. There was a lot of cherries you guys! Got one recipe left. I actually didn't make this one, my mom wanted in on cherry week so I let her make these cookies for the website. Once I saw the recipe I couldn't say no!

I'm sure you guys knew I was going to bookend cherry week with pie recipes. Besides, any self respecting fruit week should end with a pie. I had never eaten cherry pie before this weekend, but it has really been on my mind for the past few months. Thats because I recently discovered one of the best TV shows I have ever seen. Its called "Twin Peaks" and was on in 1990 and 91. I watched it on DVD a few months ago and I highly recommend it to anyone! It's on netflix too. Anyways, the main character, Agent Cooper, Loves cherry pie and eats it all the time at the Double R Diner. I wonder if my pie is as good as Norma's? I bet her mom, the food critic from Seattle would think so.

This is a classic Persian recipe. I have seen some recipes with jarred sour cherries, but most with fresh. This was the only dish of cherry week that I did nothing to sweeten the cherries, and the tartness was really nice mixed with the toasty rice. The only thing I wish was that the cherry flavor permeated the dish more and not just on cherry bites. As with any Persian rice, the crust, or "tadig", is the best. The best!

Did anyone notice that I snuck cherry week into foodiefights? That's right, the next battle is Rye-Cherry. Cherry week is taking the internet by storm! I've seen cherry sauce on Chinese restaurant menus before, so I just kinda went for it in this recipe. It turned out to be a tasty sweet and sour, with an underlying cherry flavor.

It's Tuesday, and you guys know that that means Foodie Fight battle day, so make sure to head over and vote. I didn't want to interrupt Cherry Week here on TFIMB, so I have a quick cocktail for you guys, only 2 pictures, so it doesn't take your time away from Foodie Fights!

Welcome to Cherry Week!  I know you guys are expecting pie on cherry week, so here you go! What? This isn't the kinda cherry pie you were thinking of? But it was still really good! I dried the cherries in the sun all day, then diced them and put them into olive oil with parm, marjoram, salt, and pepper. I used this oil as the sauce on a white pizza with a little sausage, bit of cheese, and arugula. It was really tasty, and a great start to cherry week!

Fans of the site may know there is nothing I like more than eating from nature. I once ate a leaf off the street thinking it was a curry tree! A friend of mine has a cherry tree in her back yard. I didn't even know until I was there at a memorial day bbq the other day and I noticed all the red things on the tree. They told me the birds would eat them all within a day or two, so I came back the next day with a few boxes. I filled up both of my boxes overflowing and it didn't even seem like I made a dent on the tree! No recipe today, just some pictures of me having fun picking cherries. It's gonna be cherry week all next week here, so get ready to be blasted with cherry recipes every day! Whats your favorite cherry recipe?

Did you read that title right? Yep, that is correct. Lets break it down. Cuban Sandwich: A panini of roasted pork, ham, swiss, pickles, and mustard. Some people get weird about a pickle in a melty cheesy sandwich, but trust me, so good. On to the next. Mac and cheese: you all know this one, and you know I know it very well. Today we are talking about the sauce part and not the mac part. Lasagna: Normally a tomato sauce, ricottaey amazingness. Today its just about the noodles, I wanted to layer the mac and cheese to emulate the pressed sandwich. I was gonna leave the lasagna part out of the title, but about 5 people told me I'm not allowed to use lasagna noodles in a mac and cheese, I had to call it lasagna. This was hard to name! I could have also called it cubanza, but now I'm just talking nonsense. In other news, THIS WAS SOOO GOOD! It could have to do with me planning it for like 2 months, but I just loved it. Everyone who tried it gave me the "really?", followed by "its a bit pickley" followed by "it's actually really good!" like they were surprised or something. When have I led you guys astray that you doubt me so?

I used to keep it a secret that I watched Gossip Girl. Now that I have been back in the US for awhile, I realized that people watch some really awful television, and that I should be proud of my one guilty pleasure. At least it isn't some crap reality TV game show. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry had to take the lie detector test about weather or not he watched Melrose Place? After it was out that he watched the show, he seemed to start to embrace it. Anyway, I wanted to make waffles to watch the finale of Gossip Girl with Steph, because the guy on the show is always talking about waffles for some weird reason. I didn't want normal breakfast waffles, and I started to think about how people like to eat it with fried chicken. Then I started thinking about using it as a sandwich bread and that's where this meal came from. Instead of fried chicken, I went with an easy bbq chicken flavored with a store bought sauce, and a simple slaw topping. I loved how it came out!