I would eat this...

I love blood pudding, and curry goat, and all sorts of other strange entrail and weird body part based foods. I would eat this.

Would you?

Picky does Mother's Day breakfast

I love big weekend breakfasts with Picky. He makes really good breakfast potatoes. Today, I got to sleep in. When I couldn't stand the yummy smells any more, I ventured from my room and found this breakfast with these smiling faces waiting for me! Yummmmm!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Stuffed cubanelles

I made delicious stuffed cubanelle peppers last week. I used to make this recipe with poblano peppers, but their heat is too unpredictable. I have had 3 people at the table telling me they are delicious, and one person crying and gulping water. The cubanelles had a wonderful, sweet flavor, more complex than bell peppers and no unpredictable scalding of anyone's tongue.

I roast, peel, and bread the peppers. It may seem high maintenance, but only the breading is really messy and hands on. I also roasted some garlic and tomato to put inside, and chopped up some delicious Italian mild sausage. I added some ricotta cheese, since I was using Italian sausage. Usually I do a more Mexican style filling. These were a huge hit.

What's grosser than gross?

When you Google the pizza place you usually order from because you lost the menu and can't find the number, and you come up with a site about restaurant closures by the health department because it was closed recently due to rodent activity.

*shudder*

We are now ordering from Mr. Pizza. Not on the list. I guess we're both somewhat picky.

What happens when I run out of time and onions

I seem to have a folder full of pictures of food, and no blog posts that I put up with them! So, without further ado, here are the highlights of a week or so of meals:


My former roommate Charity came over for a farewell visit, and she has since moved to Gainesville, boo hoo! I really enjoyed having her by my side in the kitchen again. Here is her beautiful salad with fresh fennel from the garden:

We had a favorite meal of hers that night, one I like to call the three P's: pork, pineapple and peppers. I put pork loin country ribs over chopped celery, onions, pineapple, and multi colored fresh sweet mini peppers, cut into rings, cilantro and diced garlic. I drizzle over this pineapple juice, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil or grapeseed oil. Roast in the oven at 375 or 400 for about an hour, until the pork is done. Watch out, the pineapple gets really scorching hot, and it's hard to resist digging in right away!


I made top sirloin this past week, on one of my favorite pieces of kitchen hardware - my cast iron grill pan. This sucker weighs 27 pounds, and I saw Alton Brown using an identical one on his show recently, so it must rock. Behold its glory.

Finally, I ran out of onions and celery. If you have read any of my recipes, you will see why that would cripple me. So, I decided to veer away from my usual tilapia recipe and tried adapting a recipe for Fish Meuniere with Browned Butter and Lemon. Instead of sole or flounder, I used tilapia, and instead of fresh parsley I substituted fresh garlic chives that I originally planted for my brother-in-law more than three years and two houses ago. It was fabulous, and a big hit. Even with Picky, who usually tries to order pizza every time it's fish night. At the end of this meal, he said, "This was definitely better than pizza." I was beaming.

Speaking of bread

I have recently overcome my fear of yeast breads. I am trying this No-Knead Bread recipe right now. Let's see what happens! I am letting it rise overnight. I will post pics tomorrow. Uh, if Picky figures out why the oven isn't heating.

Science project loaf

I spent my Earth Day making resolutions, potty training Z and doing a science project with S.

S's science project involved putting yeast in three different water samples. One was boiling, one was the recommended temperature of 110 degrees F, and one was cold from the refrigerator. We not only had a fun and educational time together, but we ended up with a yummy loaf of bread!