Category: Recipes (Page 12 of 24)

      Cooler weather=warmer food

      October 25, 2011 /

      I have to admit, by the time September hits, and there is a chill in the air, I’m ready to stop grilling and making salads and gazpacho and ready to start cooking stick-to-you-ribs meals like chili and stew and roasts. One of the reasons I was excited about moving to Wisconsin last year was for the earlier changing of the season from that of Nashville. Of course, there is the down side to that–i.e. early and lots-of-it snow. But we have some time before that happens (well, hopefully we do). And the warmer fall has been a mild bummer in a cooking sense, because who wants to make stew when it’s 80 degrees outside, as it was the first week to 10 days of the month here in Madison. Something is wrong with that picture, but I’m no climate scientist.

      As I write this, however, it’s a brisk 60-ish with temps dropping into the low 40’s tonight. It’s stew time, and I’ve got a beef stew on the stove. I’m not making the one I posted here last year, but a new recipe I found in a magazine. But I have to tell you guys, I re-visited my chili recipe last week during a football Sunday (the beef one), and it came out way better than it ever has before. I think the key was just to let it thicken naturally, but either way I felt pretty good about that recipe, admittedly better than the first time I made it and created the recipe.

      I’m also looking forward to re-visiting casseroles and mac & cheese like this one. I also want to give another go-round with this Buffalo chicken mac I saw in the Food Network magazine recently. Man, was that amazing. Oh, and don’t forget about soup. Maybe I need to make new soups a priority this year–dude soup. Yeah, that’s it.

      Food TV, Grocery stores, Ingredients, On the Grille, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      Bacon woes

      October 11, 2011 /

      I had good intentions with another bacon recipe to post this past weekend, but lo and behold, not every recipe I develop is any good. My plan was to take refrigerated crescent rolls, and fill them with bacon and sausage and cheese. Mmmmm, breakfast-y goodness, right? Well, not really, and this makes me wonder how many recipes out there that are really good actually fail sometimes and fail as miserably as my breakfast sandwich.

      I cooked a bunch of bacon, and our 4-year old son ate more of it than I needed. That’s my boy. I was left with two slices. I cooked a link of turkey breakfast sausage. Then I took the rolls out or should I say, Mrs. Mike and I (mostly her) had to fight to open the package, which should have been our first sign. I won’t say the brand, because I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus here, but I will say this–the crescent rolls I bought were butter flavored. Now, you’d think that anything’s better with butter, right? The catch here is I don’t think it’s real butter we’re talking about.

      Anyway, I assembled the roll by pinching two triangles together to make a rectangle, and then I laid down some cheese, bacon and the sausage link and rolled that sucker up. I baked it for a few minutes longer than what the recipe suggested, and took a bite. B-L-E-C-H. I took another bite. B-L-E-C-H. It was the butter flavored roll, not anything else that made it disgusting. I imagine that with normal crescent rolls or biscuits, this sandwich would taste really good. But I haven’t recovered from that vile butter taste to give it a go.

      I will say this, though…..it’s been fun writing about bacon and coming up with recipes, so why not extend bacon week for another little while? I’ll be preoccupied for a few days but will deliver more bacon posts next week and into the following week before turning our attention to Halloween candy. Sound good? I thought so.

      Grocery stores, Ingredients, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      Maple-y bacon breakfast sandwich

      October 6, 2011 /

      Psst, don’t tell your cardiologist about this one.

      Last week, I saw Eggo French Toast Waffles, which are more of a waffle and less like French toast (the key is there is maple syrup baked in), in the freezer case at the grocery store. I thought our 4-year old would like these, so I picked them up. Then of course, I realized it’s bacon week and anything goes.

      So this morning, I toasted two of these “waffles,” and scrambled some eggs. I cooked up two slices of thick cut bacon in the microwave. When the pillows of maple goodness were toasted, I put a slice of cheese down on one of them, then topped with the scrambled eggs and the bacon slices and put the other waffle on top. And there you have a breakfast sandwich that is every bit as tasty as it sounds, and looks (above).

      Grocery stores, Ingredients, On the Grille, Recipes, Tailgating, Your Kitchen

      Classic BLT

      October 4, 2011 /

      One of the best things about bacon is the BLT–bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. I’m not quite sure why it all goes together, but it does. You can come up with all kinds of variations, but to me, the simplest form of BLT is the best–bacon, iceberg lettuce, ripe tomato, and mayo on white bread or a white roll. Today I bought some white sandwich rolls and ate two of them, pictured above.

      Here is how to do it. First, cook some bacon (yesterday we went over a few ways to do this). I chose to make two kinds–Oscar Mayer center cut bacon and a maple bacon I found today. I mixed the two on my sandwich and they came out amazing. After cooking the bacon (2-4 slices per sandwich), spread some mayo on the bread. Layer cooked bacon, tomato and lettuce, and that’s it! You can add a bit of salt and pepper if you like, or use rye or wheat bread, or even use a wrap, but the basic flavors are key.

      Okay, on to come up with more bacon ideas!

      Food on a Budget, Grocery stores, Ingredients, On the Grille, Recipes, Your Kitchen

      Healthy breakfast bowl

      September 13, 2011 /

      Last week I posted something on easy breakfast tacos, but it doesn’t always have to be about tacos or burritos when you are making a quick and healthy breakfast. What follows is my take on the breakfast bowl, something that has become more prominent in fast food chains as carbs have fallen out of favor the last few years.

      So here we go…..

      Chop some tomatoes, shred some cheddar cheese and open a can of pinto beans.

      Prepare some quick brown rice (I like the Trader Joe’s kind in the freezer section, that you nuke in three minutes) and put about 1/2 cup of the cooked rice in a bowl. Set the rest aside (or multiply this recipe out for more servings).

      Cook 2 eggs in a nonstick skillet over medium heat until the whites are just set (don’t overcook–you want a runny yolk). Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put the beans and tomato in the bowl with the rice, top with the cooked eggs and shredded cheese. (Other options and add-ins are green pepper, jalapenos, cooked corn off the cob, or diced avocado.)

      Top with salsa or hot sauce and serve.

      Healthy, Ingredients, Recipes, Your Kitchen

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