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.