Mardi Gras Traditions

No need for Captain obvious statements: I'm aware that Mardi Gras was actually a week ago! But let's forget the date details and move on to the tastiness.

This is a King Cake, the most marvelous of treats. It's a Mardi Gras tradition to place a small plastic baby inside the baked cake and whoever gets the baby in their piece has to throw the party next year. Hooray!

Bring in the pig!

My sister asked me for some easy dinner recipes and I'm going to attempt to accommodate her here. She's a big fan of meat (when presented with a tofu curry, she asked repeatedly why there was no form of the good stuff located on her plate) and alcohol (who doesn't like Sunday Funday?), so here is my marriage of the two.

Shallot Risotto with Sausage in a Beer-Mustard sauce. And some green stuff for color.


Bomb-diggity.

Thai Coconut Chicken Soup

Thai food has always seemed far too complex to attempt, but this recipe is shockingly easy and magically tasty. Probably because the most difficult part of this fantastical assortment of ingredients (the curry paste), is easily purchased in stores. Of course, it's far more rewarding if you make the paste yourself, but we're not always going for rewarding. 

We're going for awesome. And by gum, that's what we're getting!

Winner winner chicken dinner

I've been shamefully remiss with my work lunches lately and have found myself shelling out far too much moolah on a daily basis for a tasty sandwich from the local haunt. No more! I am determined to find meals that are relatively easy to cook during the week that will keep for a few days and take the place of recent extravagance. I think I found a good one with...

Pesto chicken pasta bake. A couple of weeks ago I made a batch of pesto with almonds, macadamia nuts, spinach, arugula, and basil, which was pretty darn smooth and tasty. I portioned it out into an ice cube tray and put the frozen chunks into a freezer bag for later use. Tonight...they called to me.

Pizza Puffs

Football freaks (said with love): you can stop looking for the perfect finger food for the big day (which I'm pretty sure is coming up sometime soon...I'm not 100% on that front). Enter stage right:

The Pizza Puff. These delightful bits of nirvana come in two varieties tonight: Bacon Caper (my favorite combo, thanks Luci!) and your standard Pepperoni (classic nom). I will be dispersing them among my coworkers tomorrow, who will soon be victims to my diabolical plan to have all 401Ks signed over to me. This victory will be deliciously satisfying.

Going Greek

The last couple of days I've been on a real eggplant kick. Don't ask me why, it just spoke to me and I am rolling with it like a champ. Last night was garlic eggplant with rice, and tonight we have....

Moussaka! A tasty, hearty, totally awesome Greek/Middle Eastern casserole dish that will warm you right to the very core. My friend Leah described it as "lasagna made with eggplant instead of noodles", which is a very apt description. Of course, that makes it sound a tad healthy, which is a bit of a stretch. It starts out with good intentions, and then goes all rogue with a solid helping of bechamel sauce.

December Desserts

I told myself that December would be full of posts about holiday foodstuffs, and just look at how I've failed! Since I wasn't able to deliver on that front, I'll just give summary of some of the golden moments of the last month of 2011:

1. Maple Bacon Cupcakes

New-fangled Squash Lasagna

This lasagna is a real crowd pleaser: creamy without being oily with a good punch of squashiness. It lacks the often painfully long lasagna prep and is very easy to throw together. I've gotten a lot of compliments on this pan o' noodles, and we all know how much I love to be flattered.

Venison bourguignon (aka How to make the best out of a roadkill situation)

Dinner parties are one of my favorite things in the world. I love to plan the meal, turn on the backyard twinkly lights, and spend the whole day cooking something fabulous. When a hunk of deer turns up in your neighbor's freezer, you know it's time for a dinner party of your own.

My own dear neighbors offered up some of their venison (not roadkill, sadly) for last night's soiree and it was pure perfection. We found a tasty looking recipe on Pinterest and, with a few tweaks, it was soon our very own:

Venison bourguignon with crispy roast potatoes. 

Nonnie Sauce (Majorly delicious spaghetti and meatballs)

This is a very old Pelliccia family recipe that my dear father has consented to promote on the interwebs via my blog. Consider yourselves quite lucky, because this meal is a real treat!

The recipe was created by my great-grandmother Rosa, a southern Italian from Vico Equense whose family immigrated in the late 1860s on their very own vessel. She married my great-grandfather, Orlando, whose family was from Verni, a small town in northern Italy right outside of Lucca. I was actually fortunate enough to meet this branch of our family a few years ago, where we learned that Orlando was born in the Puccini house. No one knows why, but it's our claim to fame!

This ain't Barilla, baby

No more boxed pasta for you, trooper. This is the real deal, the stuff Kraft workers dream of and only experience in fantasty (fantasy + tasty) worlds. So come on down for some

Homemade Pasta.

Not your average Butternut

Hello friends. Here in California, we like to think that we have seasons just like the rest of the country. It's not true, but we enjoy our dreams. With November in full swing and Thanksgiving a mere stone's throw away, it's time to start prepping our innards for the onslaught of starches and festive holiday foods. We may not have snow and colorful foliage, but we can cook with the best of them.

And what's better than a delicious twist on a classic? Not a whole lot.

Butternut Miso Soup with Fried Leeks. 

Pig in a Pretzel

My lovely coworker, Mike, recently struck up a fun deal with yours truly: I make some epic tailgating foods, he posts them on his awesomely epic sports blog, Cosby Sweaters. We started with something delightful:

Pig in a Pretzel. Go here for the full post!
Nommynom nom

Delightfully heart-stopping

All things you know and love: bread, butter, ranch flavor, bacon, and cheese. I know, I know-- what was I thinking? Don't I value my arteries? To all you negative Nancies, I say only this: you are just jealous. I saw this recipe on Pinterest and had to unearth it's origins and make it myself. Without any further ado...

"Cheddar Bacon Ranch Pulls". This is amazing and addictive. You will punch people in the face to get to it first. You might even sacrifice your first born for another hit. So be warned-- don't enter into this culinary adventure if you're emotionally distraught; you might find yourself suddenly covered in bacon bits, with butter smeared across your best face. Food-binge blackouts are the worst!

Shake and Bake...

..some cake! I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with baked goods lately. We (Lo-lo and I) had a delightful yellow cake from Alice Waters (1234 cake) that had a layer of snickerdoodles baked into the center.

This little piggy got sauced

I am fairly intimidated by sauces of almost any variety. So when my friend David made a delicious pork shoulder sauce with what seemed to be minimal trouble and intelligence (just kidding, David. You can untwist your panties now), I got inspired. I got excited. I got...

...Slabs of meat! These piglets became a hearty Pork and wine sauce, stew, type thing. This has to simmer for several hours, so make sure you allot an appropriate amount of time for it or else it won't meld properly.

Creamy Pea Pasta

It may sound stupid, but it is so good. Giada gave it some other name, but let's face it: mine is better.

Italian Sausage, sweet peas, and mascarpone pasta. Boom goes the dynamite.

I brake for fried foods

Lauren and I decided to go with Southern cuisine, after much deliberation and battles of will. We threw around Red beans and Rice, Gumbo, and a variety of seafood dishes, but finally we settled on a dish that no one can be dissatisfied with:

Fried stuff on bread with some vegetables as an afterthought! Or, as it is more widely known, Shrimp Po'boys.

Flippin' Frittatas

One does not actually flip a frittata, so don't go trying anything crazy here. But I would highly recommend giving frittatas a shot for a whole slew of reasons: you can make them super healthy, they are delicious hot or cold, and it's a great way to get rid of leftover veggies or meat. I went on a major food kick over the Fourth of July and made everything from Peach-blueberry pie to Strawberry Cake to Filet Mignon. But what really got me thinking was a discussion I had with my cousin Kathy about frittatas and how gosh darn delicious they are. So here it is:

Golden Chard Frittata with Goat Cheese, Caramelized onions, and Yams.  Isn't it pretty?