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.

Some friends invited me to their rental cabin at Okemo for New Years Eve this year. It was the first time I got a chance to snowboard this season, so I was really excited to go! I wanted to cook at his place, but I knew I would be exhausted after a long day on the mountain, so I prepared this dish the night before at home and just threw it in the oven when we were ready to eat. The ingredients in this came from the fact that pork and cooked greens are good luck to eat on New Years Eve, but the broccolini was actually supposed to be broccoli rabe. I’m not a superstitious person, so I didn’t care. I don’t need good luck, I make things happen!

My deep-rooted love of Italian flavors is constantly flooding my brain with new ways to explore classic ingredients. I also love sushi. Like most of my ideas, this one seems so obvious that looking back I cant believe this was the first time to try it. Using a little poetic license, I’m gonna call this experiment “Italian Sushi”. Cheesy orzo, Italian sausage, roasted peppers, basil. It was easy, and it was awesome. These would make a great appetizer for a holiday party, get everyone laughing and telling you how super cool and creative you are.

With a few sweet potatoes left over on Monday, I was indecisive all day about what to make with them. I couldn’t believe my eyes when Endless Simmer came to the rescue with one of their classic “100 ways” posts about sweet potatoes! After getting over the initial pride (this is the first time I have made one of their lists, can you find me?), I got down to business trying to figure out which of these amazing dishes I would make that night. Instantly I fell in love with the idea for these tamales, but completely changed the recipe when I made them that night.

Every time I think I have done everything possible with buffalo chicken, someone I know comes up with a new one! This time it was my roommate Sal who suggested making a buffalo flavored chili. Now, I have always been a fan of spicy dishes, but thanks to living with Sal, a true chile-head, I have become all out obsessed! We buy a big bag of habaneros weekly. I never remove a seed from any chile I come across, it all goes in the pot! I have decided to start adding a spice scale to my recipes, and telling you exactly how many peppers I used to achieve that number on the scale. Tonight’s heat scale is:



Before you go scoffing about 7.2, I want to warn you, 7.2 is nothing to scoff at! In fact, this is one of the hottest things I have ever made. Let me tell you a bit about the scale to put it into perspective. Remember when you ordered thai food and your curry dish has 3 chiles next to it and you were sweating while eating it? That would be placed around 5 on this scale. Anything 8.8 and above is pretty much inedible. Still scoffing? Then make this and follow the directions as closely as you can.