Culinary Adventures

The cool fall weather has inspired me to a new round of baking and cooking this week. Having essentially three days off in a row helps too. Sunday evening I decided to make a nice dinner for Brandon and I to celebrate having a day home alone to ourselves after a busy week. I decided on a recipe for smothered pork chops with cider and apples that I found on America's Test Kitchen website. Actually I ended up making everything on the webpage for a whole meal, (minus the cookies) because I also had brussels sprouts in the fridge for the first time in my life. I figured I wouldn't like them, but I was convicted that I needed to at least try and I have to say they were amazing! And all that was added was pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, and a little salt. I think I actually liked them better than the pork chops which were wonderful too. We ate way too much.

But I didn't stop there because I had Monday afternoon off too. So I tried a casserole recipe called "King Ranch Chicken" that I had been saving. It was wonderful but guilt inducing. Basically it's chicken, tomatoes with chiles, a cup of cheese, cream and broth cooked to thicken and then poured in a casserole layered with tortillas. Oh yeah, and Monday afternoon was spent making pumpkin bread and pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (using the same batter and a CSA pumpkin I roasted and pureed myself). P.S. if you like pumpkin stuff try this pumpkin cake rolled up with cream cheese frosting which I made for our halloween get together.

Today is day off #3 and I currently have dinner for Brandon and a friend of ours in the works. We're having burgers and chips, but they're my special (vegetarian) experimental version (I hope they turn out like the dream in my mind!) The cream, cheese, and chicken guilt from last night got me thinking. I don't have a hard time eating vegetarian in the summer, but my winter recipes are a whole 'nother story. I love eating with the seasons and am so ready for the warm casseroles and skillet dishes of winter, but almost all my staples include meat and plenty of it. So tonight's burgers will be my first ever attempt at veggie burgers. Thanks again to Mark Bittman's' book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian which offers endless ideas and variations! Mine consist of black beans, onion, garlic, spices, some cooked oatmeal to bind it, and a little leftover (CSA) butternut squash (I was thinking of the black bean and sweet potato burgers I saw listed on a local restaurant's menu a few days ago). And the rest of the squash went into an Autumn variation on a recipe for zucchini yeast rolls I made this summer which will serve as our burger buns. Finally, the chips are a CSA/Mark Bittman experiment as well as I try to figure out how in the world to use all the beets I have been accumulating this summer. I very carefully thinly sliced a beet, a rutabaga and a couple small sweet potatoes and will be tossing them in oil and baking them to make veggie chips! I'm trusting the sweet potatoes will at least be good, but the beets and rutabaga are a gamble.

The reality is that I simply love reading new recipes and trying new ideas. Sorry Brandon, besides our few absolute favorites that we have again and again, I see most nights as a culinary adventure for me to explore. Thanks for being such a willing participant!