I have always wanted to make cheese at home. But you know how those things go... it's just something that I talk about but keep putting off. Yesterday when I saw ricotta in our recipe I decided to stop putting it off and give it a try! Ricotta is a great intro to home cheesemaking because it is fairly simple. Now that we've tried it, I have the feeling we will start making it all the time because it was easy and so delicious! I have seen Mario make this before and planned to use his recipe, but we ended up using one from my new favorite food site - playing with fire and water. The only ingredients were milk, buttermilk, and salt! The main difference is the acid used to help the milk separate into curds and whey. In Mario’s recipe, lemon juice is the acid but in this recipe it is buttermilk.

One of the many highlights of my trip home was the last day. Steph hosted a BBQ so I could see a bunch of people from the area that afternoon. Fun times were had by all. We ate cous cous salad, corn on the cob, jalepeno poppers, pancetta wrapped peaches, scallops, and of course, ribs! Recipes / links are at the bottom of the post.

Were back!  And what a great vacation it was!   Wanna hear about it?  Here goes.  Ribs 4 times, potato salad, peaches wrapped in bacon, pasta salad, scallops, taco dip, chicken wings, cheesesteaks, qdoba burrito, cheese fries, cheese fries, mcdonalds 4 times, steak egg and cheese bagel from there, sausage egg and cheese from dunks, finagled another bagel, 2x taco bell, (once drunk at 1:30 am with my family?) clam chowder, clam chowder, chili, fried fish sandwich, beef burros, boneless wings from petes (still good), soft pretzel, pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza, spicy basil pad Thai, spring rolls, kobe flat iron, tuna tartare, sweetbreads, bone marrow, and about 400 or so beers.  I’m sure I missed stuff; we had about 4 meals a day.  And NOW it is time for a diet!  Starting off my diet today I have an iceberg wedge salad with a blue cheese dressing.  Blue cheese dressing!?!  You can’t have that if you are trying to be healthy!!!!!   Relax folks, we only used 4 oz. of blue cheese (<200 calories each) and made the dressing with low fat yogurt and buttermilk.  It was delicious!

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.  

Mandi always claims she hates burgers.  I think one of the reasons is that when I make them, they always end up huge and have no direction.  I put in whatever is in the fridge and they end up tasting more like meatloaf than cheeseburgers.  Now that grilling season has begun, I am trying to make more focused burgers and turn around Mandi’s opinion. My first attempt was a taco burger.  An obvious choice due to her love of tacos!

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!!)

Ive been craving thai flavors every day for the past 2 weeks.  The problem is the thai place here is very limited.  It is so awesome, but there isn't a ton to choose from.  In a totally unrelated note, I've been seeing grilling on food network and on the blogs every day.  This time of year, grilling is the hot topic.  I love grilling, but I am always seeking out things that aren't the normal grilling fare.  I decided to marinate some steaks in a green curry paste, grill and serve them with a thai style basil fried rice.  Searching on google for basil fried rice, I found this awesome video of two women making a great fried rice exactly how I wanted.  We used the Jamie Oliver green curry recipe we usually use for thai recipes to marinate the steaks.  I had really wanted to use a flank steak for this meal, but apparently Bermuda was out of flanks steaks and I had to settle for the more expensive and, IMO, less delicious tenderloin.

Caesar Salad.  We have all had it countless times, but have you ever made Caesar dressing?  I finally did the other day and I was VERY happy with the results.

We ate so bad this weekend… how bad did you eat?  We ate SOOO bad this weekend that we kept oil on the stove at all times in case we had the urge to fry!  And fry we did.  This particular fry session was around 12:30 on fry-day night (he he). 

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.

I have really wanted to sear tuna lately.  Why? I have no idea.  For some reason it has been one of those dishes that gets stuck in your head and you can’t stop thinking about it until you finally make it yourself!  But what would we do with this seared tuna?  I didn’t really want to put it in a salad.  The brainstorming began at 2:30ish between Mandi and I over email.  Mandi wanted avocado because Thursday is usually taco night and if she couldn’t have tacos, some avocado would at least ease the pain.  I thought mangos would be a nice compliment to the lightness of the tuna.  After looking for awhile online, I was reminded of a raw tuna nacho appetizer I had at Mesa Grill in New York.  I saw a recipe that included an avocado and a chipotle crema and decided to make these, wing a mango salsa, and put it all on a corn tortilla.  The results were delicious!

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)

I haven’t put any breakfast posts up, but in my interview I mentioned that breakfast is my favorite meal to cook.  I think this is because it is very relaxing to me.  There are no cameras around, it is a weekend morning, and I am in relaxation mode making an omelet for Mandi or a few egg sandwiches before heading to the beach.  I decided to put some of my favorite breakfasts up here.  They are all very simple, nothing crazy or innovative, and most involve eggs.  Today we have the infamous “breakfast pile.”  I’m sure everyone has made this before. A big pan of scrambled eggs with any and everything breakfast related mixed in.  Make no mistakes; this meal is made for hangovers.  This is the perfect breakfast for when you don’t feel so good when you wake up, but you have plans for the day that need to be carried out.  The breakfast of champions.  It is also helpful to have a lot of leftovers in the fridge.

The most important thing when making the breakfast pile is that it's not a recipe, it is an order of operations.  Similar to the FOIL method when learning math (first, outer, inner, last), there is a breakfast pile method I like to call the VEMCH method (Veggies, Eggs, Meats (cooked), Cheeses, Herbs).  Once you own this method, you can put whatever you want in here.

Ever go to a BYOF BBQ?  Ya know, when your friend says “Hey man, come by tonight, we’re gonna fire up the grill and you can bring some meats or whatever you want to throw on there."  When this happens what do you end up bringing?  I bet the answer is a burger or hot dog.  Now not that those things aren’t delicious but I think it is much more fun to bring something like this.  This particular day we weren’t going to one of those BBQ’s, we were going to the beach, but this is a great recipe for one of those situations.

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.

Sliders are a popular option at so many restaurants these days, but did you know they are extremely easy to make at home?  Some weary travelers were set to arrive at my house around 4 and we weren’t going to be having dinner until close to 9 so I knew they would need a snack.  I thought this would be just the thing to get them going.

Last Friday, Mandi was away and I had a friend coming over to play Mario Kart before we headed out for the night.  I wanted to throw something simple on the grill, but I also wanted something awesome.  Not just a steak or burger, something a little different.  The idea hit me at about 3pm out of nowhere and I ran with it.

Nothing crazy here today, just a really basic yet delicious strawberry salad.  I’m sure you’ve all pretty much had this salad in one form or another, and this is the way we make it.  Mandi really wanted to post this one because it is her favorite salad.  The strawberries were really fresh and delicious and the pictures came out great so here it is.

I totally did not plan to make a Cinco de Mayo themed post today.  I had tamales all lined up to go, and I woke up and was like…hmmm today is Cinco de Mayo...  crazy!  We made these because Mandi was scouring the internet for other things to steam.  Once we bought the steamer she decided that she wanted every meal steamed from that point on.  The thing about tamales is you are supposed to use a metal pot steamer.  This is because they take over an hour and a half and the bamboo starts to get really soggy at that point.  This is fine, it still dries out and everything, you just have to be careful with it.  They came out great for us and we even got some nice bamboo flavor in the tamales that was delicious.  In a totally unrelated side note to TFIMB fans, check out the web comic xkcd from today and also from Friday.  They are both food related, slightly nerdy, and hilarious as usual.  Be sure to mouse over to see the alt text.

We went to Amy’s for a Cuban dinner party this past weekend and it was a great time.  I have never had some of the ingredients and flavors she worked with and I was excited to try them all week.  Mandi went over and helped her take pictures and cook in the afternoon, then we all showed up around 7.  Amy will be writing the rest of the post, but I may leave a few comments in red.  Also the Recipes (as usual) are at the bottom of the post.

Ever since Heidi made dumplings a week or so ago, Mandi has been asking me every day “when can we make dumplings?”  Well when she came home with a new bamboo steamer, I knew it was time.  The other reason I knew we should make them, is that they actually had Pork Shoulder at the store.  In Bermuda, this is a rare find for me. (side note- because of this, there will be 3 pork shoulder recipes in a row, HA!) 

As I was making these meatballs, I was a bit worried about posting the recipe.  My mother told me the recipe, as my grandmother had given it to her.  I didn’t know if there was some sort of embargo or block on passing it out for all to see.  Would I be blacklisted by my family and never given any recipes again?  No more Gnocchi secrets or Lasagna tips?  No more making tortellini’s for the holidays?  I didn’t know what to do.  Then last night I was watching Molto Mario (Re-Runs on fine living!) and the weight was lifted!  Mario made meatballs almost the exact same way as my family!  This did 2 things, for one, it made me proud because Mario is as authentic as you can get for Italian food, and 2, it released the ban on the recipe because it is no secret, its already out there for the world to see via Mario Batali.

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.

We made Persian food this week.  Neither of us are Persian or have ever been to the area, and I have never even tried this type of food so I don’t even know if it came out authentic tasting, but I do know it was delicious.  Mandi has had Persian once before.  she was at her friend Nooshin’s house.  Her mom made some delicious Persian dishes for dinner when we all lived in Boston.  Now Noosh has moved to LA and we have moved here.  The reason we cooked this meal, is because Mandi is going to visit Nooshin in LA next week and wants to cook her something to remind her of home.  What a nice girl.

This is probably our favorite after beach BBQ.  We make it after a long day of beach when you need something hearty and flavorful, yet light and summery at the same time.  My parents were down visiting and we had just gotten back from a long day at the beach. Click below for more

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

Since there was a public outcry after my last healthy post (apparently 2 slices of bacon makes you a fatty) I decided to post another one today.  Sometimes when I am trying to be healthy, I ruin it because I crave pasta all the time.  I generally do not like whole wheat and whole grain pastas.  For some reason however, when I put a pesto on a whole grain pasta, I really enjoy it.

This recipe is a combination of Giada’s Swordfish and Spaghetti with Citrus Pesto, Heidi’s Pesto techniques, and some tweaks of our own (putting the citrus in the fish instead of the pasta, using whole grain pasta, fish selections).  I find it important to cite my sources so that I don’t pull a Cindy McCain.  I’m so Topical!

Click below for the recipe and pictures.

We had a pizza party last weekend and we had a ton of leftovers.  We used them in a variety of ways, one being this salad.  We had the arugula leftover because we had planned a salami arugula pizza but people got full and we cancelled that one.  The only thing we ended up buying for this salad was the fennel.

Mandi loves cheesesteaks.  She has been dying to share her recipe and process here with everyone.  So much so, that we needed to take pictures 3 SEPARATE TIMES in order to get them perfectly right!  That was fine with me because they are so delicious that I don’t mind eating them multiple nights in a week. Click below for more!

On Friday I posted my usual tacos that Mandi and I make most Thursdays.  This past week however, we were trying to be healthy.  We still wanted tacos, so we decided to make a more authentic Mexican version of tacos from the cookbook “Authentic Mexican” by Rick Bayless.  I’ve had this book for a few months and we had yet to make anything from it, seeing him on top chef last week prompted me to finally open it up.  While what we made isn’t healthy, it is better then the tacos we usually make, and since it was different, we would be more conscious of not stuffing ourselves.  It turned out really great and I think if we made it one or 2 more times it would be even better with a bit more kick in the sauce. Click below to continue. 

Tacos.  Almost every week since college I have eaten tacos on Thursday night.  At one time it was much simpler.  Taco kit, jar of salsa, bag of cheese, some pre washed/cut lettuce, and call it a day.  As the years went by, we swapped out the pre made ingredients one by one to get where we are today. Trade a jar of salsa to bought fresh salsa to actually making salsa.  Go from the taco seasoning packet, to half the packet and some of your own spices, to fully using your own blend.  This obviously is a very American version of tacos, tune in Monday and I will post a more authentic Mexican version of tacos we actually made last night!

The most common question asked of me by friends is this – “what’s a quick, easy, healthy, and delicious dinner I can have after work tonight?” What do you guys think I am, Rachael ray?  Well guess what!? You’re all in luck! I am on a diet since bathing suit season starts in a week or 2 here in Bermuda. (Even though actual Bermudians refuse to go to the beach until May 25^th.) So I will have some healthy weeknight dinners up here in the next few weeks.  Now don’t worry, they won’t all be healthy.  I have a few posts I made pre-dieting that I am waiting to post.  Also, my diets are short because they are intense.

I’m rambling, so without further a due, my FAVORITE fast easy delicious and super-ancient-whole-grain-run-a-mile-punch-a-baby-healthy meal!  Fish-in-a-bag!

Some of my friends right now are saying “Fish?  Really?  I mean… I don’t really like fish.” To you I say shut up and make this and you will LOVE it.  Unless you mess it up somehow which you probably will.  Jeez my friends are dumb... just kidding friends!

Click below for more!!

Today I have a guest post from the design team.  Rich and Kim had a few friends over Rich and Mike’s apartment and served them a delicious looking duck dinner.  When a bunch of friends get together like this, it makes me wish I could be back in Boston hanging out with them.  But in a few weeks, I will be making them jealous with weekly beach trips so it isn’t so bad.  Rich’s comments will be in green, and I might make a few in black.

"Cookin' Up Some Quack"

Kim, Mike, Steph, Alex, Amy, and I were the 6 party people on Friday...  good thing there weren't any more people than that, even though I invited 5 other people who couldn't come.  The amount of food ended up literally being just enough and there was only 1 piece of Duck left over.

Oh chicken tikka, like spaghetti with meatballs and general Tso before you, you have no cultural reference.  The California roll of Indian cuisine.  Created by an Indian expat in Britain to help western palates adapt to Middle Eastern flavors, Chicken Tikka Masala is the most popular “Indian” food around.  Since we hadn’t cooked Indian before, we thought it would be a good starting point.  We didn’t have much time to cook that night, but this recipe seemed so simple, what I had overlooked was resting and marinating times.  Because of this, our final product was slightly on the bland side but still really delicious. Click below for more

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

These last two days of "happy chicken week" are just to show a couple different, interesting uses for the stored up chicken stock.  Our idea this past weekend was to cook something that looked like a totally different food than it actually was.

A few weeks ago at the Grillin and Chillin event we had a dish by Chef Shaker Estephane where the Mango was cut into what looked like stringy little noodles. This gave Mandi the idea that she wanted to make an entire dish where everything was shaped like noodles. I had also been thinking about it when reading Morimoto’s cookbook that I got for Christmas. He loves what he calls “visual food puns”.  So we first thought of a food we have often, spaghetti and meatballs. It got us thinking... what if the meat was the noodles, and the pasta was the meatballs? What we ended up with was pretty awesome. 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.

We had revenge on pad thai this past weekend.  I didn’t take as many pictures this time because we had so many good ones last time.  Also because once you get going with this dish in the wok,  you need to be focused and keep the ingredients coming.  If you are serious about trying pad thai, check out chez pim and read her page on it.  It may seem long, but you need to read through it to get the idea of how to make this dish really great. 

This past Sunday afternoon I had a big plan to make stock. Unfortunately I hadn’t checked my bank account in a few days and when I was about to leave to buy the supplies I realized there was no chance. I quickly flipped through Mandi’s new Jamie Oliver cookbook thinking pasta would be delicious and knowing we had eggs and flour so the actual noodle part would be free. I found an extremely simple recipe for pasta with meatballs and tomato sauce. This intrigued me because I suddenly realized that I follow all sorts of recipes for all types of food, but when I make spaghetti and meatballs I always just do my same variation on my mother / grandmother’s recipe. Something new might be fun. Click below for recipe.