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.

Chicken Tikka Masala

(Click photos for larger image)

You know what is ridiculous? Chicken Tikka Masala take-out from an Indian restaurant. Whenever we order this, we only get about four pieces of chicken with a lot of sauce. It's like I'm just buying a tub of sauce to dip my naan in. This is why I've decided to make my own chicken tikka masala. It's a lot of spices, yes, but once you have your cupboard stocked, you'll be able to make a ton of other things too. (Also it might help if you knew the Chopping Block... because that's where all my spices came from. :D)

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.

Caramelized Onions, Mushroom, and Spinach Quiche

So you might think this is a break from the burger experiments, but I kid you not, I've been eating hamburgers non-stop. Last night I had a mushroom and caramelized onion burger. Yup. This morning I decided it would be a great idea to make a quiche with mushrooms and caramelized onions. This is my first quiche, and I didn't follow any recipes. Dave predicts that it will be disgusting. We'll show him!