It’s been hard for me to switch gears from the whole “Stuffed” concept. It’s too late to get this guy into the book, so here it is, Stuffed DVD special features! This is a play on a scotch egg, but also a Peruvian dish called papas rellenas. The key is perfectly soft boiling the eggs so that the yolk stays soft and comes running out when you cut into it.
Hot dogs on a pizza?!? It might seem weird to you, but to me, it makes total sense! I mean, think about it, many pizzas are topped with some sort of sausage, so why are hot dogs different? You can top this with whatever you want, but I made mine with my favorite hot dog…
My hobby: making pasta sauces out of vegetables besides tomatoes. I’ve done it with red peppers, carrots, and now corn. Mandi is obsessed with summer corn right now, and for good reason, it just tastes so damn good! I always get happy when I can think of a fun unique corn recipe, because most of the time I just eat it off the cob and don’t get to feature it on the site. This sauce came out really sweet because of the sweet nature of corn and carrots. Overall it was really awesome and balanced with the cheese and bacon, but once in awhile you would get a bite that was a little too sweet.
When I was growing up, every time I went to my grandparents house, there would be a snack of cold congealed cubes of pasta with an eggy flavor that was sometimes flecked with pepperoni. Based on the adjectives I used to describe it, you could probably imagine that I wasn’t super fond of it. The rest of my family seemed to love it, so I always felt left out. We called it Pastere, but I can’t find any evidence of such a thing existing on the internet. This 4th of July, when I was asked to bring the Pastere to the picnic, I decided I would make sure that I made something I would like too! Armed with my grandma’s handwritten recipe I got to work.
Last week I went to see Cayucas with some friends, and before we headed out to the show, I made this tasty ceviche as a light pre-concert meal. It was inspired by their song “Deep Sea Diver”, and it was summery, fresh, and reminiscent of the ocean, just like the band’s music!
As with most families these days, I have some vegetarians in mine. Being the conscious cook, I decided to try and make a vegetarian version of baked beans that would be so delicious that no one would miss the pork or even realize something was different. I based the beans off a hearty Italian tomato sauce, and added every non-meat based version of umami I could think of. Within 5 minutes of getting to the annual 4th of July party, my vegetarian aunt reminded me that she hates beans. Oh well! These beans were worth it anyways.
Whoa another Tuesday post? Yea… for some reason I feel like it would be a rip-off for me to post a drink recipe on the regularly scheduled days, so here we are. The thing is, this drink is so fantastic that it should never be considered a rip-off. In fact, it’s so good that it’s NON-ALCOHOLIC and I STILL put effort into it! Well sometimes I put vodka into it too.
A great mac and cheese for the Fall with lots of mushrooms, a little sausage, and spicy sriracha running throughout
I decided while I was away that when I came back I would make sure to stick to a more regular posting schedule. Instead of sometimes posting 4 or 5 times a week, then only posting twice some weeks, I would just always post 3 times, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I am going to try and stick to this for the time being, with Wednesdays usually featuring my most recent Tablespoon post, and see how it goes. Of course, there will still be theme weeks from time to time, where I post every day so I think the frequency will be pretty much the same as in the past.
Seems kinda weird to tell you all that info on a Tuesday post. But since I’ve been away so long, I figured I would give you guys a bonus recipe this week. It’s a good one too! I had some marinaded meat leftover from these burgers, and decided to cook it loose in a pan and serve it with a cous cous salad that was based on one of my favorite dishes, Vietnamese Bun Vermicelli. I ate this for lunch one day while getting some serious writing done and it really got me through the day! In fact I went back for more every hour or so…
I have a little confession for you guys. I suppose I could have started back up a week ago. I finished my work. Handed it in. But instead of getting the old blog-train cranked back up, I spent the past week at the beach eating dishes like this crazy Nacho Burger. Do you guys blame me? It feels really good to dust off the old cobwebs though (I almost forgot my passwords to log in and post!) I am a little worried however that some people may have moved on, since almost 2 months is like 5 internet-years, so any likes, tweets, or general passing along of this post would be greatly appreciated!!!
The premise of this dish was to to create a textural study between 3 different gummy ingredients, braised octopus, potato gnocchi, and korean rice cake. All 3 of these things can remind me of each other, so I thought it would be fun to put them all together in a korean flavored sauce. It came out pretty tasty in the end, but I don’t feel that I fully achieved what I was going for. The main issue was the size differences between the 3 main ingredients. I was aiming to make them all a similar size and shape but failed. Regardless, if you like octopus you will enjoy this dinner, but on a normal night I would make it with either gnocchi or rice cake, and not both.
We needed cocktails for our arrested development party, so we devised some clever drinks inspired by our favorite moments and characters from the show. I had a lot of fun all week with these posts, and I hope you guys enjoyed reading them as much as I liked writing them! Without further ado, the drinks.
