Have you ever paired BLT with pasta? If you haven’t yet, then you’ve got to try this pasta. This is my go to pasta when I need a pick me up and one of our favorite comfort foods. There are different versions of BLT Pasta but I like the combination of crisp bacon, roasted tomatoes and pesto.
We always save some of the biggest and best Hatch Chiles just for chile rellenos. I like the traditional rellenos stuffed with cheese. They can be stuffed with almost anything but there’s something about cutting into that batter fried chile and seeing all that cheese ooze out. You know it’s gonna be good! And they must have toppings. We had pico de gallo and chile pequin salsa but you can top yours with whatever you want. This recipe comes from “The Food of Santa Fe”.
The pequin chile is a small dried chile that packs quite a punch on the heat scale. My mouth waters just thinking about it. It’s so hot that you have to eat it fast and keep eating it because if you stop for just a second you will immediately start feeling the burn. This pequin salsa is hotter than I’m used to but the flavor is so good I’ve become addicted to it. Continue reading
Happy Halloween! Hope you all have a fun filled night. We got a pumpkin to put out on the porch and as always I wait until the last minute carve the pumpkin and roast the seeds. We waited until last minute because it’s been so warm lately and I wanted the pumpkin to last. Anyway, Joe got tired of waiting and carved the pumpkin and brought me the seeds. I love roasted pumpkin seeds so I separated them from the pulp, washed them and set them out on a newspaper to dry. Glad I did because they turned out crunchy, light and salty and now I can’t stop munching on them.
Are you tired of apples yet? Didn’t think so, so here’s one last recipe to share using those fall apples. There’s just something about pairing pork with apples and onions that tastes so good. It seemed like perfect timing since I already had the apples and the cider is on display in the grocery stores. So if you see the cider and want an excuse to buy some, here’s a great recipe to try. Maybe try one of the flavored ciders, that might be yummy too . . .
It’s apple season and since I have apples on hand I had to make apple butter. I brought out the slow cooker for this one because it’s so easy to fill it and leave it. I set it up to cook overnight and by morning the smell of apples and spices filled the kitchen. If you happen to have an apple machine that peels, cores and slices your apples, it really makes the job faster and easier because it’s consuming when doing it by hand. I made enough to put some in the freezer while keeping a couple jars in the fridge. I love it on a piece of buttered toast or a biscuit fresh from the oven.
Recently Joe and I got together with some of his family from Michigan and I ended up with a 1/2 bushel of Michigan apples. They are delicious apples for eating or to cook with. No, not “Delicious” apples, but rather Northern Spy apples. One of the first things I wanted to make was my Mom’s apple dumplings. This has always been my favorite apple dessert with the pastry covered apples and simple syrup. Mom always made them with biscuits but when I saw the puff pastry, I thought I would give it a try. Turns out it was a thicker dough and was easier to wrap up the apples, so that’s my contribution to Mom’s dumplings. Continue reading
It’s been a bit chilly lately and felt like time to warm up with a bowl of one of my favorite soups. This recipe will make a stock pot full but get your spoons ready because it won’t last long, at least not at my house. When Cameron smells the soup it disappears faster than you can say “time to eat”. It’s creamy and packed with flavor and will warm your heart and make you smile. Also, it’s a Paul Prudhomme classic so it has to be good!
You’d better come hungry because this is the ultimate burger with 2 patties of ground beef glued together with cheese and green chile. You may not see it now but within this burger lies a volcano of cheese and green chile just waiting to erupt. I found a recipe for a stuffed burger in Chile Pepper Magazine 1996 and ever since then my family has hounded me to make them again and again. The original recipe wrapped a couple strips of bacon around the patties so if that sounds good, go for it. I know that for me, I can only eat half, between the burger itself and all the toppings that are piled on it’s a lot for any one person but it’s sure fun to try. Continue reading
The best tacos I ever ate were at the local drive-inn in my home town called “The Westerner”. My sister and I loved these tacos and would make a “Westerner” run whenever we had a taco craving. The Westerner is no longer there anymore but Kat and I still reminisce about those tacos to this day. The tacos I made tonight might be called leftover tacos, simply because I had a little leftover ground beef and a couple odd pieces of chicken in the freezer that I didn’t know what to do with. There wasn’t enough of either one to make a meal so I compromised and made 2 small skillets, one of chicken taco meat and the other ground beef. I raided the fridge for toppings, finding a little of this, a little of that and in the end we had a taco bar going to fill your own tacos.
An Inspired Cook 