Brown Sugar Bacon

Brown Sugar Bacon - need I say more?

Dinner club this month turned into brunch and I immediately though of what an amazing excuse it was to try this bacon. I borrowed the recipe from Gina Neely on the Food Network, and impressed everyone at brunch. We all LOVED it and you MUST try it.

What makes this recipe so amazing is that there's a little bit of spice! It called for cayenne pepper and since I had ancho chili powder, I used a little of both. The cayenne gave it some heat and the ancho chilies added smokiness, which were perfect complements to the sugar and bacon.

I was worried it might be overly sugary and sweet, but not at all - it's just the right ratio of bacon to sugar and is kind of like bacon candy, if you can imagine such a thing. It was chewy, a little crisp, and not at all grisly like bacon can sometimes be... Go make this. Now.

Brown Sugar Bacon

1/2 cup Light Brown Sugar

1/2 teaspoon Ancho Chili Powder

1/2 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

16 oz. Thick Cut Bacon

• Preheat oven to 375. Line a cookie sheet with foil and place a wire rack on top.
• Mix the sugar and peppers together. Toss with the bacon.
• Lay bacon in single layer on wire rack.
• Cook for 15-30 min until brown and crisp
• Don't be crazy and eat it right away, even though you will want to, give it a few minutes to cool down.

No More Blue Box Blues

I love boxed mac and cheese as much as the next gal - despite the supremely fake orange color, the powder cheese mix, and 12 months shelf life there's something nostalgic and tasty about it. That said, this is a childhood treat due for an upgrade and is worth the effort to elevate!

This month Bon Appetit agrees and featured several baked pasta dishes with a mac & cheese cover story. I LOVE home made mac & cheese, and while I have a great recipe, I decided to indulge in the cover recipe as a Sunday evening treat...

cover recipe: Pimento Mac & Cheese

Tasty tasty - my Pimento Mac & Cheese was delightful. Bell pepper, garlic and peppadews give it a kick. Cheddar adds the flavor while mozzarella makes it feel really cheesy.

I think the thing I enjoyed the most about this recipe was the use of peppadew peppers. I discovered these gems in Germany, where they sell them packaged with cream cheese in the middle, and again in South Africa where it's common to put them on pizza. You can easily find them here at the 'olive bar' at Safeway - these mild little peppers usually come in an oil/brine, which makes them a little indulgent, but they're almost sweet and oh so good. They're a great addition to a salad, or an easy appetizer and I highly recommend giving them a go!

Peppadew Peppers

While I liked this mac & cheese - I do have one major complaint... It's not SUPER creamy. That's one of the best parts of mac & cheese! I want it to be cheesy, creamy and saucy. There was loads of flavor here, but less cheesy-ness than I like. There is no cream or bechamel sauce, which I noted before actually making it, but after eating it I definitely think starting with the milk/flour base would add that missing substance... Something to try next time as I continue to think outside the blue box!

Let Nature Inspire

Dinner club was Sunday and it was my turn for salad again... May not sound too exciting, but with a dish that's mainly all veggies, I thought it a great opportunity to utilize the farmer's market.

Off to to the market I went and found some fresh greens and blood oranges. I was really excited about the oranges because that's what I wanted to put in my first dinner club salad. I settled for regular oranges then, but voila blood oranges this go around. Always wanting to mix up textures and flavors, I added goat cheese, toasted walnuts (from the pantry reserves) and home made croutons - it was a GREAT combination.

Being the carb lover I am, a good crouton can be my favorite part of the salad, which they definitely were in this case. Broiled ciabatta with some olive oil, garlic salt, thyme and oregano they were crunchy on the outside, still kind of soft in the middle, added bursts of herbs and were great to soak up the dressing.

The key to this is experiment! See something that looks good? Just use your imagination... Salad is one thing that really has no right/wrong, over/under cooked - it's all about being inspired and making what you think would taste good. Keep it simple and see what happens! Here are some simple combinations to think of:

Salad = greens + seasonal fruit + cheese + nut + croutons

Dressing = vinegar + dijon mustard + oil

Croutons = bread cubes + oil + herbs

simple sweet treat

Here's the tart - finally! It's more of a crisp, really, but a winning combination no matter what you call it.

I learned this quick and easy recipe from a friend in Canada. We had gone apple picking in Quebec and she put this together with the fresh apples. While she cooked hers in a loaf type pan, I make mine in a tart dish and think it is the perfect ratio of apples to topping.

It's soooo simple. Peel and slice the apples, place them in the cooking vessel and cover with the topping. The topping is just 2 parts oats, 2 parts brown sugar, 1 part butter and 1 part flour (I find that 1/4 cup as 1 part yields just the right amount). Cube the butter and use your fingers to work it into the dry ingredients. Bake at 350 for 20-30 min until the apples are as cooked as you want them. And that's it!

I have made this on many a week night just for a sweet treat. I love how it gets crisp when the butter melts into the sugar and the oats really make it special by adding a different depth of flavor. It could be doctored up with a little cinnamon on the apples, mixing multiple kinds of apples or even using a different fruit all together. This topping would be amazing on just about anything

So go, be creative and make this recipe your own!

Little Dinner Parties, As Easy As That

Ina Garten has it together - an amazing home in the Hampton's, the effortless ability to throw a dinner party together as easy as that, and fabulous friends. I love her.

So when I decided to have my best friend and her husband over for dinner, Ina was a natural inspiration for my main course choice. Lemon Chicken Breasts, from her newest book How Easy Is That?, won the vote and did not disappoint! After I smashed some potatoes, sauteed asparagus and baked an apple tart, my little dinner party was born.

not my finest photo, but you get the idea

The chicken baked in a dish with olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, oregano & thyme. Mixed with the juices from the chicken you end up with a great 'sauce' to spoon over the finished product. The recipe calls for skin on, boneless breasts, but Safeway didn't have boneless breasts, so I went skin on bone in - amazing. Between the bone and the skin the breasts remain moist and tender (save for a little over cooking...)

My rustic mashed potatoes were red potatoes (skins on) with some chives, sour cream and cream - I loved these potatoes! Creamy and just a little tangy, with no pressure to be perfectly smooth. I sauteed the asparagus with olive oil, salt & pepper and finished with a sprinkle of parmesan. It all came together so well, with some left overs to spare.

And what about the apple tart? I have been making this most simple dessert for over a year now and it really deserves its own post... but all of this was prepared in a small kitchen with a late start, proof that having friends over for dinner really can be as easy as that.

rainy day delight

Soup and a grilled cheese is the ultimate rainy day food for me. Takes me way back to being a kid when my mom would make us tomato soup and a melted velveeta sandwich - oh so good.

Rainy Saturday creation numer two was Broccoli & Leek Soup with Thyme. I used dried thyme because it's what I had, and added a quarter cup of cream at the end because I think thats the way creamed soups should be finished, and it turned out great. Blended soups are SO easy - I love them. Start with some onions, add veggie(s) of your choice, cover with broth, boild until tender and blend... and of course, finish with a little cream ;)

Even though it wasn't raining today, I paired it with a sourdough+swiss+ham+apple grilled cheese sandwich, which is the perfect combo to melty+nutty+sweet+crisp.

I highly recommend this lunch or any variation of the soup method mentioned above on your next rainy day in.

best-ever brownies

I'm about to get the March issue of Bon Appetit any day now and realized I still hadn't made anything from Feb! So my rainy Saturday turned into a lovely cook day - first up the cover story brownies:

Brown Butter Brownies with Walnuts

I don't usually make brownies from scratch, I think the box does just fine in most cases, but these are truly amazing and worth the extra effort! The cover boasts 'best-ever brownies' and they just might be right...

The key is that you melt a ton of butter (fat is flavor, folks, don't be shy) and let it get toasty. The rest of the ingredients get added straight to the sauce pan you melt the butter in and it really is just that easy. Aside from the walnuts, the butter contributes to batter's nutty, almost savory profile - they're rich and fudgy and despite the generous amount of sugar are not painfully sweet. These chocolate squares of love definitely require a milk chaser and are the perfect way to soothe your soul on a rainy day.

my version of 'the best brownie ever'

Fun fact: the recipe says you get a crisp, shiny top, which is actually kind of like a meringue! I learned this from reading Bakewise a while back. It said if you beat the eggs too much in brownies or cookies you can end up with that meringue-like top layer. This recipe did indeed instruct me to 'vigorously' beat in each egg. Interesting, no?