Have you guys been watching Americas Next Great Restaurant on NBC? I don’t particularly like most of the contestants, or anyones restaurant concept, but something about it keeps me watching. For one, I think it is pretty cool that the winning restaurant will open it’s doors the day after the finale airs. Basically the whole show is a commercial for the restaurant! The other reason I watch is that I am fascinated with Chipotle and since the founder/owner is one of the judges, there are a lot of cool stories about it’s creation and philosophies. The problem though, is that pretty much the whole time I watch I just think about how my restaurant idea would crush all competitors on the show.

I was particularly sour about it yesterday because I had just cooked a potential new menu item for my Indian – Southern US BBQ fusion joint. This burger is a take on the “smokehouse” style burger found at many restaurants that is topped with BBQ sauce and onion rings. I made an indian spiced bbq sauce, and pakoras, an Indian veggie fritter, and served the whole thing on freshly made naan bread. The only problem with my plans(Besides lack of money and experience?) is I can’t seem to name the place! After brainstorming with friends, “Indique” (Pronounced indy-Q) is the best we could come up with, but no one really likes it… Anyone have any good ideas?

You might have noticed a recent trend on this blog. I have always cooked spicy, but lately I have been going a bit over the top. That’s all due to my roommate, Sal. I thought I liked spicy food until I moved in with him! Now each time I try to make it hotter and hotter, and after eating he just looks at me, shrugs his shoulders, and says “meh, it was kinda spicy.” That is not the reaction I want! Even at Hell Night this kid ate his meal stone faced. This week I decided enough is enough. I vowed to serve the hottest wings we have ever eaten, or give up the spice game forever…

Yep. 9.6. Those familiar with the scale may know that I have yet to achieve over a 7.2, and that everything over 9 is inedible to 90% of the population! These wings burned. My whole face is tingling right now despite finishing eating over 3 hours ago and having taken a shower since! The funny thing was that we both ate our first wing, looked at each other, and gave kind of an “I don’t know…” look. I thought my spice days were finished. 2 wings later, I had literal tears dripping from my face. I ran to get milk and realized my critical error not purchasing some at the grocery store. Blue cheese and carrots were my only salvation. Sal and I pushed on, finishing about 13 wings each, and he finally showed signs of pain and fatigue. Success! This didn’t stop him from scooping up remaining wing sauce with pieces of celery! Did I forget to mention that these wings were just as delicious as they were hot?

Since gnocchi are mostly potato, I had the idea to serve them with my favorite baked potato toppings. This dish came out amazing! It was one of the fattiest richest things I have cooked in awhile, complete with a bacon fat-butter-sour cream sauce, but it was worth every calorie. The possibilities are endless here, you could top these with whatever you like on your potato. I like mine with chili! The potato flavor really came through in the final dish and everything meshed really well together.

As I mentioned Friday, I had a party at my apartment this past weekend. The party was actually related to TFIMB, but we can talk more about that later this week. For the food, I wanted to cook some of my favorite things from over the years, but put a spin on them. One of my favorite cooking moments in the past few years was the first time I opened a cardamom pod. It was like opening the door to a whole new world of cooking! I made a spicy lamb vindaloo that night. For this app, I wanted a chicken version, but something that would be a little more portable and hand friendly. Enter the arepa, another one of my favorite things to cook! Stuffing the vindaloo into the arepa was a match made in heaven. Indian and Latin food actually have a lot in common(lots of cumin, cilantro, rice) so they mesh well.

A few weeks ago I asked for some cooking suggestions, and some people said summer food to take their minds off the cold and snowy winter we have been having. Others said comfort foods like soup. I took these 2 ideas and ran with it, combining them into one meal! I was thinking about this for a couple days and bouncing a few ideas around with a blogger friend at a recent event finalized the dish in my head. 4 classic summer BBQ dishes in one soup. Pulled Pork, Baked Beans, Corn, and Cole Slaw. The results were awesome! We are forcasted 6-8 inches for today, so hopefully this soup helps some of your summer dreams flow.

No matter how deeply embedded I become in the gourmet food world, how many uni paninis or quail egg and truffle pizzas I eat, or how many times I read Pollan, Schlosser, or Kingsolver, there are some things that I will never give up. One example is boxed mac and cheese. Something about that powdered orange cheese calls me back every time. Is it food? ehh, not really. Is it delicious? YES. Another one is Taco Bell. I really love taco bell. It is a true guilty pleasure of mine. I mean, yea we all get a taco from the drive thru at 3:30 in the morning here and there, but I actually like Taco Bell so much that I eat it sober. They recently came out with a cheesy crunchy burrito. I love the cheesy crunchy gordita, so I knew I was in for a treat with this new buritto. I tried it, but I actually didn’t like it that much. For the crunch they use fritos, which I have always thought taste kinda funny. My friend John is a fellow Taco Bell addict (he is less in the closet about it than I am) so I decided to remake this burrito at his house and improve a few things.

“Fish rav in a thai sauce” has been a note in my phone for over a year. I have always skipped it over for some reason, waiting for the perfect time to make it. I got a pasta maker for christmas, so I decided this was the dish to restart my pasta making habit. I jumped right back on that train with ease and busted out these ravioli in no time. Probably because I have been making pasta with a rolling pin for the past year! The flavor in this dish was amazing, the juxtaposition of these 2 familiar flavors created something entirely new and unique on the palate. A little bit of work? Maybe, but you could really impress people with this one.

The way the tacone came about is that I happened to acquire a pizzelle maker a few months back and I have been trying to figure out something to make in it other than a pizzelle. Then I realized that I could squish AND cook a tortilla in there and cut out the middle man of a tortilla press. I hoped that if I modded the tortilla recipe, I could have a pliable tortilla out of the machine that would harden as it cooled, the way a pizzelle does. If I worked this right, I could make taco shell cones! Well, it did work, but not perfectly. There was a very thin line between soft and rock hard tortillas coming out of the machine. Also, the soft ones never fully hardened, so it was kind of a limp cone. However, the taste was really awesome. A perfect mix of corn tortilla flavor with a hint of waffle. I served some flat as tostatas, and some rolled up in cone shapes, and my roommate and I devoured them.

I’m feeling much better after that little break! I really made things happen this weekend, but more on that later this week. Oh and just to be clear, I took a few days off because I couldn’t WRITE, not because I couldn’t cook. I have tons of food ideas bouncing around. A head full of ideas, Lemme tell ya, that you wouldn’t believe! This one is a hearty soup with sausage, broccoli rabe, and beans, floating in a potato rosemary broth. I went to the gigantic new whole foods on my way home from work just to check the place out, and figured I would make something with whatever looked good. They had a really nice taleggio cheese on sale, so I started with that. I was set on making a tart with potato, rosemary, sausage, and taleggio, and even left the store with that in mind! Half way home I decided I wanted soup instead(maybe it was just a cold day?) So I made a quick stop at another grocery store to grab some boxes of stock and a nice crusty bread.