My sister has made the most heart attack inducing, cholesterol raising, trans-fatty incredible meal that she wanted to share with the world the only way she knew how, with a guest post on TFIMB!  She will take over for the rest of the post and I may have some comments in red.

Since the 1st Celtics playoff game vs. the Atlanta Hawks, there has been a feeding frenzy at my house.  One of our regular group, who has been there for every game, could easily take on Kobayashi in a hot dog eating contest. Since the beginning of the playoffs, he's been talking about the chili and cheese corn dog fries that he saw on Phantom Gourmet.  My promise was that they would happen when we made it to the finals.  Well, here we are, game 2: the C's vs. Lakers.  

I think Beef Stroganoff is kind of a wintery meal for most people.  For Mandi, she craves it when she is sick.  I know in the afternoon when she isn’t feeling too well.  She says to me, “can you make me something yummy and eggy noodley tonight?”  I hadn’t made her stroganoff in awhile so I decided to go a different way with it which was a real risk because if Mandi is in the mood for something, it can be very specific.  I wanted to make a Jamie Oliver recipe I saw him make on the mushroom episode of Jamie at Home.  I usually make this sans mushrooms but I wanted to add some today.  I did not have the fresh mushrooms or venison he uses, but I was looking more for a method anyways.

(Note about the recipe.  It is really lame that this recipe is only available in the US.  It doesn’t even make sense to me.  I just had my friend who lives there get it and email it to me.  I was going to post it on here but I don’t want the food network or Jamie to get mad at me!!)

Impulsive Purchases. We all have them. Most grocers put candy and gum by the register to promote impulsive purchases.  It works on Mandi; she always leaves the store with a candy bar.  I think they should put the meat section right at the registers because I would always leave with extra meat.  All of my impulse buys happen to be large chunks of meat!  My last one resulted in this.  This past Saturday I called Mandi from the store:

Me: Hey
Mandi: what’s up
Me: nothing.   Ummm   I just bought a brisket.  I don’t know why.
Mandi: uhhh  sweet?
Me How the hell do you cook a brisket
Mandi: I don’t know
Me: Go online and get me a recipe so I know what else to buy.
Mandi: Naa, Im gonna go back to watching friends half awake.  SEEYA!

Luckily, I had everything I needed at home!  Thanks to a loosely followed Paula Deen recipe, we were in business.

Calzones are the oft neglected brother of the pizza.  When faced with the option of calzone or pizza, most people I know would choose the pizza.  But what most people don’t realize is that at home it is 10 times easier to recreate a delicious takeout calzone then it is a takeout pizza.  And what’s better is you can do it with leftovers!  Last night we made these calzones because we had made pizza over the weekend and had pepperoni, peppers and onion leftover.  Mandi made some cheesesteaks for a work event and had a bunch of leftover cheesesteak filling.  These would also be good with a filling of leftover Buffalo wings, pasta, sausage, chicken parm, taco meat, or really anything you could think of!  My opinion is that the wackier the filling the better the calzone. (Disclaimer: this is the opinion of Dan only and not the opinion of Mandi. Also TFIMB is not responsible for your awful chicken parm-pad thai-taco-mozzarella stick calzone with orange flavored dipping sauce)

About 2 and a half years ago, my mom found some random recipe online.  It was really simple and delicious she said.  So I decided to try it out for a dinner party.  It was our first dinner party ever, Mandi Rich and I fresh out of college living in Allston, MA and having 5 people over after work on Thursday to watch the office.  Mandi and I worked on the meal while Rich (1/2 of design team) cleaned up and prepped for the guests.  As we ate, we all just laughed the entire time.  This was the best food any of us had ever tasted!  I think that moment caused me to get more into cooking because seeing the joy on everyone’s faces was really awesome.  These days, I make this meal occasionally and it always reminds me of that night.  It is no longer the best thing I have ever tasted since my palate has changed and I have eaten much more types of foods since then, but it always brings me back to those days on Lorraine Terrace.

Does anyone remember that party?  Was it as good as I remember?  Or was I just drunk… Anyways, the recipe is here.  It is called chicken Tuscany although I don’t think it has anything to do with Tuscany.  We decided to put a Jamie Oliver risotto recipe with it.  Before I get into the food part, I found 5 pictures from that party a few years back that I want to share with you.

With the warm weather and summer feeling here in Bermuda, It may seem odd that I am making chicken pot pie.  There are however 3 main reasons for making it.  1. We needed to re-up on chicken broth in the freezer and pot pie is the perfect thing to make the day after making broth. 2.  It is still a bit cold in Massachusetts where most of my friends live so they can make this.  And 3. We got a cool new knife rack for the kitchen and we needed Gareth to help hang it for us.  Having concrete walls, it is tough to hang everything and Gareth can do it easily.  He always asks us for things like chicken pot pie, shepherds pie, and bangers and mash, so we thought it would be a good way to get him over and help us.

Mandi and I had been wanting to make mac and cheese for a week or 2.  We knew we didn’t want to go out on the weekend but rather keep it low key so we decided to make the macaroni and cheese on Friday night and watch the top chef I had downloaded.  On Thursday while shopping for tacos, I was minding my own business in the store when what did I see but a pack of beautiful slabs of pork belly!  This is a rare find in Bermuda so I snatched it up without even thinking of what we would do with it.  After brainstorming for a bit, we decided to incorporate it into the mac and cheese we had been craving.  We decided that a BBQ Sauce flavor would help bring the pork belly and mac and cheese together as one.  It is hard for me to do this post today because now I am craving this again! It was one of the best things we have made in a very long time and now im starving for a huge scoop of pork belly mac and cheese! Click below, you will be glad you did

One great application of chicken stock is making risotto.  Because of the effort involved in making it, I like to throw a lot of veggies and meat in and have it as a meal instead of a side.  Not that it is hard, it’s just time consuming and needs attention.  Like all the things we make, we made a ton and had lunches for work the next day.  It kept great and possibly even tasted better the next day!  This recipe is similar to a Giada recipe you can check out here.
Click below for more

Note- This is the second pasta recipe in a short period of time.  I have 3 comments:

1.  We love pasta and make it all the time
2.  I am trying to clear out pictures taken with my old camera
3.  Next week has a theme – “Happy Chicken Week” – no pasta there

Anyways, there are a ton of pictures here, but I couldn’t narrow them down any further cause this was an awesome night and a great meal.  We cooked for almost 4 hours then watched a foodie movie.  What more can you ask for?

This is a direct recipe from Giada De Laurentiis.  You can find it here on the food network website and in her cookbook “Everyday Pasta.”  I am going to explain the recipe as we go today.