Red (Kidney) Beans & Rice

My neighbor, Chris, gave me his mom's "Red Beans and Rice" recipe back in November 2011. I've made it a few times since then, and I've altered it to my liking, but I put the original recipe (that Chris sent me) at the bottom of the post.

Spicy Italian Sausage & Lentil Soup

I was talking to the Chopping Block about lentil soup earlier and how we find it rather bland. So I decided to try to liven this soup up with some spice and lots and lots of meat. Okay, so maybe this is more like a hearty sausage soup with a dash of lentils, but whatever, it's all good. I made this soup twice, once with some Italian sausages from the butcher and once with some pre-cooked sausages from the deli aisle. I recommend the butcher stuff. The photo above was with the pre-cooked stuff.

Mac 'n Cheese

I invited the Chopping Block over for dinner, and I made her some macaroni and cheese! I also served it with some sweet carrot mash, some cornbread (with corn kernels hidden inside), and some barbecue ribs.

Potato-less New England Clam Chowder

You know what I hate? Potatoes in my clam chowder. Seriously! I always feel like I'm getting ripped off when I get a bowl full of potatoes with one or two clams, and because of that, I started to hate potatoes in my chowder. That delicious starchy vegetable has become a bane in my side, so I decided to get rid of it completely. You heard me right. Blasphemy.

"Grilled" Romantic Heart

The below conversation happened in Vietnamese:

My mom: Do you want some lettuce?
Me: What kind of lettuce?
My mom: Your favorite lettuce, remember? [in English] heart romantic!

That was how my mom referred to hearts of Romaine. It's incredibly cute. From now on, I'm going to call Romaine lettuce heart romantic lettuce instead.

Let me tell you about a silly little love affair between the beautiful and delicate Heart Romantic Lettuce and the bad bad Delicious Bacon boy who stopped the sweet lettuce in her track via a heart attack.

Spicy Candied Bacon

Studying gave me serious cases of the munchies. No lie. Checked the fridge for tasty drinks. None. Checked everywhere in kitchen for random snacks. Nada. Well, except for those stale/raw almonds. Then I remembered that I had some bacon left from previous bacon adventures. My fatty mind was craving something sweet. The light bulb went on! I also remembered seeing a recipe for Spicy Candied Bacon from Serious Eats.

What do you think my bright idea was?

Homefries

This morning I made myself a delicious omelette with a side of home fries and three strips of extra thick bacon. I always need a side of homefries with my Sunday morning brunch, but lots of brunch places have bland and boring homefries, and then I'm left disappointed. One of the very few good things about moving to Pittsburgh is Pamela's. Besides having good (and very different) hotcakes, they also have tasty potatoes (menu item lyonnaise potatoes). Definitely a must-try if you are in the area. So my creation this morning was a mix between Pamela's lyonnaise potatoes and a bacon baked potato. Nothing can go wrong with such a beautiful combination!

Bacon Wrapped Brussels Sprouts

I'm afraid I'm one of those bacon worshipers and believe that bacon-everything is awesome! Since I also love brussels sprouts, what am I going to do to double the fun? Wrap the brussels sprouts with bacon, of course!

A few recipes recommended that the brussels sprouts be blanched and the bacons be slightly fried before combining the two. A few other recipes start with frozen brussels sprouts. Well, I decided to try neither!




I started with some non-frozen brussels sprouts.




Wrapped one piece of bacon around each brussels sprout and secured with a toothpick.




Twenty to twenty-five minutes later (depending on how crispy you want your bacons) in a 375 400 degrees oven resulted in delicious bacon wrapped brussels sprouts (I checked my notes, I had it at 400 degrees not 375).

That's it! Almost no work at all. Easiest and tastiest appetizer ever!

Kay's Potato Gratin

I've been following Kay's cooking blog for a while now. This potato gratin recipe is the first one that I have decided to try to make after so many days of oogling at Kay's drool-worthy food photos and recipes. You can find the original recipe for this dish here and then follow my adventure in making it below.