confession/observation

Ok. I know that bacon is considered a bit "trendy" right now, but I would like to argue that it is less trendy but more that people are simply taking it back. I spent years of my life shunning pork of all kinds, and I still do for the most part. Yes, it is the "other white meat" as we are told, but that is exactly what it is, white. It tastes like white, or beige if you will. I am sure if I found a nice local farm that does not breed their piggies to be lean and mean I would love it.

Needless to say, I started eating bacon a while back and seriously, I am in love. I could eat it every day and look for ways to incorporated it into my world. So color me trendy and bring on the bacon.

dinner we forgot to take pictures of...

We made a fairly stellar din-din of stuffed chicken breast and sauteed bok choy this evening and completely forgot to take any pictures till we and our guest had pretty much licked the plates clean. It went kinda like this.... hearty sized chicken breast (not the comically large ones or the freak chicken, just about 5-6 ozs that are appropriate to eat and have enough meat to put a bit of an opening down the side. Those were filled with a mixture of goat cheese, dried cranberries, fresh thyme, and some ground flax seed. I smooshed that all into a slit in the side of the breast and sealed it off with a toothpick and tossed in the oven. We chopped up some baby bok choy and started the stems with olive oil and shallots, once tender added in the leafy parts with some garlic and a few glugs of balsamic vinegar and some garlic. Once everything is good and wilty drop a few globs of goat cheese then mow on it.

Not to bad for a Monday.

VD

Hee hee, VD is funny.....

All things venereal aside, we made the most bad ass dinner tonight for Valentines day. French Onion soup and a spinach salad with a warm bacon vinaigrette and poached egg. The soup was very simple and accented wonderfully by the gruyere, hand picked by the wonderful Gustav at the Co-op. We generally do the float method rather than putting everything in the oven, while wonderful, it really turns into a dreadful clean-up of melty cheese.

The salad was pretty badass. We cooked up three strips of sliced smokey bacon till crisp, removing the bacon and most of the fat (save it for later). Added some minced shallots to the pan, then a bit of apple cider vinegar and dijon mustard. Once all of the good bits are deglazed from the pan add the fat and a bit of olive oil if needed and whisk till warm and combined. Plate the whole thing up over spinach, the bacon, and add in a poached egg (ours was not nearly as juicy as I would have liked....).
And then love all of the cheesy, crusty, bacony, wonderfulness.

Chocolate Chip Cashew Butter Cookies

I really have been feeling the cookie itch lately. Plus, cookies are way easy to unload on others once you have had the two or three that you have actually been hankering for. I liked these, but probably would have skipped the chips, strangely enough. The cashew butter really made a great cookie that was much more subtle than a regular peanut butter cookie and I think it would have stood on its own just fine. I followed this recipe, swapping cashew butter for the pb.

Next time I will definately skip the chips, maybe sub in some nice roasty cashews or toffee bits..... hmmm toffee bits.....

Nerding out a bit....

I rarely muse about pop culture here, but seriously why is Bryan Fuller not involved in every t.v./movie project ever. His touch is whimsical, amazing, and enthralling.

All things that he touches wraps you in a binky of goofball comfort.

some of the ugliest pizza ever

I am VERY aware of the poor quality of my pictures and most of that is due to a cruddy point and shoot paired with a lack of picture taking patience. That said, these were pretty uggo and the crap-tastic pics are certainly not doing them any favors.

The only one even fit for public viewing.....

These pizzas were made on the gluten-free crust previously seen here. We opted for a sauteed spinach, caramelized onion, and egg pizza. the two that we graciously saved from picture hell were an hoisin sauce, chicken, and caramelized onion combo. Lastly was the "fancy squash", roasted delicata squash, artichoke hearts, and caramelized onion.

Word of warning. If you get egg white on your pizza stone it will eventually burn off and can be scraped off, however it will smell super bad.

Cranky with a chance of snickerdoodles

I have been in an awesome mood, and by awesome, I mean an utterly cranky; borderline fightn' mood. So it is awesome in how in awe I am of my magnificent grumps.

Regardless I am still having my love affair with my new kitchen aid, so when the hubbs was asked "chocolate chip or snickerdoodle?" he actually responded "snicker baby snicker" this was via text, lest you think he is some sort of beatnik cool cat. Also posed with that question I think the hubbs is the only one that would immediately go for the doodle. I like them very much, but who passes up chocolate chip? But, I digress.....

I halved the recipe from here which is pretty much a very standard snickerdoodle. I have found very few variations. I did however make my cookies out of tablespoon size balls, hee hee balls, and the turned out to be rather robustly sized cookies. They were a good treat for my snickerdoodles loving husband and a nice surprise for my partners in snowy-day-happy-hour crime.