Eggs

A tasty North African dish of eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce, and some homemade lamb merguez sausage.

Ingredients2.5 Cups Flour1 Cup Cornmeal1 Cup Sugar2 Tablespoons Baking Powder1.5 Teaspoons Salt1.5 Cups Milk2 Eggs2 Sticks Butter1 Onion diced 2 Carrots diced 4 Celery Stalks diced 1 Tablespoon Minced Sage1.5 Tablespoons Minced Thyme1 Pound Ground Turkey3/4 Cup Chopped Dried Cranberries1/2 Cup Grated Parm1/4 Cup Breadcrumbs1 Egg1 Teaspoon Salt For: 36 mini muffinsPreparation: 1 hCooking: 30…

Ingredients3 Eggs2.5 Cups Flour2 Large Sweet PotatoesSalt2 Tablespoons Butter1.5 Cups Cranberries5 Leaves Lacinato Kale1 Cup Chicken Stock2 Cups Shredded Dark Meat Chicken For: 4 PeoplePreparation: 45 minCooking: 20 minReady in: 1 h 5 min InstructionsBake the potatoes until tender. Run the potatoes through a ricer. In a bowl, or on a work surface, add the…

Last time I made Carbonara on here,(a long long time ago) I got harassed a bit in the comments for putting cream into the sauce. Honestly, I made a decent version of the dish, but just because I added a splash of cream, people got mad. I have looked since, and there are some really really awful and offensive versions of carbonara out there on the web with nothing but nice and happy comments, so I’m not sure why I was singled out. (might have been the aggressive cheesy bread?) Either way, when I was in Rome last week, I made it my duty to seek out some authentic carbonara and see what the fuss was about.

My journey led me first to a dish called Rigatoni Alla Gricia, followed by Bucatini Alla Amatriciana, and then Spaghetti Alla Carbonara. These dishes had 3 things in common. First, the pasta was very al dente. Like, to the point that I apparently didn’t know what al dente really meant, because the pasta was straight up crunching in my mouth. Second, lots of pecorino romano cheese, and third, ample bits of crispy guanciale, a cured meat similar to pancetta, but made with the jowl instead of the belly. Alla Gricia predates the other dishes by a long shot, and is sort of the vanilla of the three dishes. Add some tomatoes and chile flake, and you have Amatriciana, add some eggs instead, and there’s your carbonara.

When I got home, I was dying to get into the kitchen to make these two dishes. I wanted to do it for redemption for my last carbonara post, but also to see if it was really just as simple as it seemed. These were my favorite two plates of food I had my entire time in Italy, could they really only take 20 minutes and 5 ingredients to make? You might be tempted to add onion or garlic like many recipes out there… DON’T DO IT! You may also think you can substitute pancetta or even bacon, (like 2008 Dan) but please please go out and find that guanciale. Then just take your time and enjoy cooking and eating something that has been made the same way for hundreds of years.

I wouldn’t exactly say that I was snowed in, but after being out all day in the gross snow/rain mixture, when it was time to finally be home I didn’t want to leave. I decided to try and make a soup based off things I only had in the house. The soup came out amazing and really warming on such a cold night, and I think it was mainly because of a slab of delicious bacon I was able to grab on a recent trip to the Culinary Institute of America with Jones Dairy Farm. The smokey bacon really gave the soup a deep warming flavor. Homemade stock, a can of tomatoes, and noodles from a package of ramen (without the flavor packet) rounded things out. Honestly there was nothing I would have rather eaten that night.

I was craving meatloaf. This is a sentence I have said as many as never times in my life, but it was the case the other night. If you are following along, you probably noticed the trend of healthy, mostly meatless, and pretty inexpensive dishes recently, because that is how I try to cook this time of year. Plus I keep having to make mac and cheese stuffed burgers for the cookbook publicity so I am trying to counteract some of that. That all being said, I wanted to make a vegetarian or mostly vegetarian “loaf”. I did some research, but most veggie loafs were loaded with grains and tofu, and not actual veggies like I wanted. I decided to just wing it and do mostly veg with a little beef and some cheese, sort of like a veggie heavy lightened version of a regular meatloaf.

An easy Mac and Cheese with all your favorite breakfast items packed inside!

My friend who can’t eat wheat was really craving burgers the other night and a burger patty on a plate or in a lettuce wrap would just not do. I’ve always had arepas in the back of my head as an idea for a gluten free version of bread. But traditional arepas are too thin and brittle to give you that nice pillowy bread texture for your burger. Instead I made more of a thick pancake batter with the arepa flour and used that for the burger bun. It was such a success, I’d suggest you give it a try next time you’re cooking gluten free.

What the what??? This came about because Mandi noticed the texture of sabra reminded her of cake frosting. She asked me to make her a carrot cake that we could frost with the hummus. It obviously had to be a savory cake to work with the super savory hummus. It actually came out pretty tasty! The cake was really flavorful and was almost the texture of a dense pancake. The carrot and curry really came through, and melded well with the hummus. I initially imagined this as a brunch dish, but it’s more of a cool and unique app for hummus lovers.

These noodles use hummus as a shortcut to making something that tastes like Thai takeout.

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.

If you don’t want to travel all the way to Mexico to get a cornballer on the black market, you can just make this tasty snack in any deep frying situation. I assume that the cornballs in question are similar to a hush puppy, so that was the approach I took making this recipe. They came out great and were a fun app for our little Arrested Development party. Yo soy loco por los cornballs!