almond chocolate meringues

going into the oven:

Post-baking:

 Chocolate glazed:

Anti-pasta salad

This is my version of my mother's pasta salad.  The basics are: squiggly pasta (rotini, cavatappi, etc), cheese, scallions, cherry tomatoes, and italian dressing.  From there you can add whatever you've got around.  In this batch I have some salami and chick peas.

Divide it up into containers and you have lunch for the week (you can get 5 servings easily, but I only need four this week so I made them generous)

Pecan Pie Tartlets

These are the favorite thing I make for both my mother AND my mother-in-law, so I made them each a batch for Thanksgiving

a particularly pretty stir-fry

"Pumpkin stuffed with everything good"

I heard about this receipe on NPR last week and then tracked it down online.

First: open up a pumpkin

Empty it out, then mix up the stuffing and start stuffing it.  Stuffing: stale bread, cheese, crumbled bacon, scallions, garlic, thyme

Then, mix some nutmeg into some cream and pour it in:

Put the top back on and pop it in the over for around 2 hours (take the top back off for the last 20 minutes)

It comes out like this:

You can try slicing it up, but I went with option B which was "stick a spoon in there and mix it all up".  Then serve with bread.  It looks like vomit but it tasted pretty good.

 At the end you get the saddest pumpkin:

I probably wouldn't make this again but I'm glad I tried it.  If anything, I think I would take it one step further and blend it into some chicken broth to make a soup.  It had all the flavor of a rich soup but the texture was a challenge.  But hey, now I've cooked a pumpkin!

pot roast

Red curry

lazy sunday

I was in a cooking mood today, and it was also grocery day, so that worked out nicely.  Here are three things I made: ham and cheese crescent rolls, green bean casserole (from scratch - campbell's had nothing to do with this), and monkey bread (decidedly not from scratch - it uses prefab biscuit dough).  I also made a chocolate pudding pie, which was also decidedly not from scratch, but will definitely be delicious.

Roast pork with fennel

Another fall favorite: roast pork coated in fennel and garlic, with potatoes, onions and pears

Hello, fall food!

Lemon-rosemary grilled chicken, mashed butternut squash, sauteed brussels sprouts, and the classic roll from a blue tube. 

Here we go again

Just as I got started cooking again I got really sick for awhile and didn't feel like doing squat.  But that's finally over, so here's the tamale pie I made tonight:

back online... for one day

We're all moved in to our new house, which means I'm cooking again.  Here's two dinners from this week, followed by a bonus shot of the sampler appetizer platter at Thai Awesome.  Oh, and I'll be out of town for a week starting tomorrow, so we'll be back on hiatus until then.

Some things I've cooked this week

This all goes in one post today because I'm just a wee bit distracted by not yet knowing what time my house closing is tomorrow!  Anyway, it's: German Apple Strudel (baked for the photo for my cookbook), chicken parm (and then close-up), pepperoni pizza, and Muffins Amazing (also for cookbook).

A recent favorite

Cashew-crusted mahi mahi, with brown rice and green beans.  I even plated it!

A good idea in theory

Turkey-cheddar-bacon-apple melts.  They needed less bread and more cheese, I think.

a couple of skillet dinners

Tuna "casserole" and chicken with broccoli and ziti.

Kittyfish

It's cod under all the crunchy spicy goodness.  And yeah, the official name on the recipe is "crunchy baked fish" but that's not what we call it. 

Pork with bourton-apricot sauce, and brussels sprouts with bacon and shallots

None of this was as good as it sounds.  I'm sticking to my old brussels sprouts recipe.

beef stir-fry, grilled pork tenderloin, chicken in orange-apricot sauce

I love you so much, you almost make me forget about tacos

The other night I was at a bar in Brooklyn, and my friend came in with tacos.  She's the kind of person who brings tacos to a bar, and I mean that in the best way.  I had a teeny bite, which was mostly cilantro.  And I mean that in the best way.  Mostly, it made me want to make tacos.  So tonight I did:

As you can see, I still have plenty of sangria. 

Sexy beast

There is something about a grilled butterlied chicken that is just very appealing to me.  We're still working the kinks out of our technique as far as cooking time and such, but damn it looks good.