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Sunday, Beginning and End

Sunday morning (late morning, anyway) started with a repeat of my open-faced bagel sandwiches, with shredded cheddar since we were out of slices.  This is ridiculously satisfying…I wish I had a picture of the wonderfully running yolk after you cut into the middle of the bagel! Next time I will get one!

I surprised Matt with a side for our bagel….cinnamon apples! YUM! I’ve never made these before, but I have a bunch of apples left in the fridge and felt like we needed some fruit to kick start our day.  Very very easy to make:

• Chop 2 apples into 16 pieces each (8 wedges, each cut in half)
• Toss in a small pan with about 1/2 cup of apple juice, 1 Tablespoon brown sugar, 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, and cinnamon to taste.
• Boil the hell out of them until they are soft and gooey.  If you like your apples more firm, decrease the apple juice, more soft, increase it!

 

yum yum yum yum yummmm!

We ran errands, splurged on some soft pretzels in the middle of the day, and then came home to make some delicious comfort food for dinner!

Sweet & Spicy Pepper Meatloaf

This recipe was adapted from Alton Brown’s Good Eats Meatloaf, and changed up based on what we had in the apartment.  When my mom makes meatloaf, there is a disgusting layer of grease that builds up around/on top of the meat that then gets drained off…it has always dissuaded me from making meatloaf.  When I came across this recipe, which avoids that problem for the most part, I was thrilled!

What you need:

• 3 oz crackers
• pepper
• cayenne
• chili powder
• dry thyme
• 1/2 an onion
• 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1.5 lbs ground beef
• salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• cumin
• Worcestershire sauce
• hot sauce
• honey

What you do:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• Pulse cracker, pepper, cayenne, chili powder and dry thyme in a food processor until fine and add to beef.
• Pulse onion and red pepper in food processor to a fine chop and add to the bowl. This made a gorgeous orange/red mix!
• Combine the cracker mixture, onion mixture and ground beef with salt and egg until well mixed, but not overworked. 

• Press mixture into loaf pan(s).  We used a mini loaf pan and got three loaves out of it.  This is a great way to make loaves to freeze and reheat later!  You can also do it in one large pan.
• On a parchment-lined baking sheet, turn the molded loaves out and bake for 10 minutes.

• Combine ketchup, cumin, Worcestershire, hot sauce and honey.
• After 10 minutes, brush glaze on loaves and return to oven.

• Bake until internal temperature reaches 155 degrees.  For our mini-loaves this took about 20-30 more minutes. 
• Remove from oven and let rest for a couple minutes, then place on paper towel-lined plate to remove some of  the grease from the bottom.
• Slice and serve!

   

We served with Parmesan Red Mashers (baby red potatoes mashed with a bit of parmesan, a tiny bit of cream, a pat of butter, salt and pepper) and my Creamy Bacon Brussels Sprouts.  This is one of my absolutely most favorite veggie side dishes, and a stellar example of how bacon makes the world a better place.

We were in major food coma state after dinner, but we relaxed, watch a movie and were completely satisfied with our comfort food for the weekend!

White Chicken Chili

What you need:

• 6 chicken thighs
• spice mix of cayenne, paprika, cumin, ground coriander, dry oregano, kosher salt…adjust ratio based on your taste. I love love love cumin, so I was heavy on that one.
• 1 Tb. olive oil
• 1 large yellow onion, diced
• 1 Tb. minced garlic
• 3 cans white beans of your choice, drained (I used great northern beans and regular white beans)
• 1 7oz. can diced green chilies
• 1 tomato, diced
• Hot sauce, to taste
• Low sodium chicken broth
• Scallions, cheese, sour cream, crusty bread, and any other toppings you like on your chili

 

What you do:

• Rub chicken thighs with spice mix to cover, grill to cook, rest and chop.  I used our Foreman grill and this was SO easy…I love that thing.

• Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven or deep pan.
• Sauté onion and garlic in oil until translucent.

• Add a couple spoonfuls of the same spice mix you used to coat chicken, beans, chilies, tomato, and hot sauce.
  • Thanks to my friend Daniel, I pureed about 1/3 of the beans before adding to the pan, this helps thicken the chili. 
  • The grocery had some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes and I used one for this chili and another I’m saving for Monday’s dinner.  Look how pretty!

• Add chicken broth to cover and bring to desired consistency. The longer you cook your chili, the thicker it will get.  We let ours simmer for several hours, so I added quite a bit of broth to make it pretty soupy at first.

• Heat on low until everything is nice and hot, and you can eat whenever you’re hungry.  This kind of thing usually only gets better and better as it cooks.  If it’s getting too thick, you can always add more chicken broth. You could also do this in a Crockpot and let it cook on low all day.
• Serve and add toppings of your choice…we went with shredded cheese and scallions.  Plus, some really great crusty bread from Macrina Bakery.  We have at least 2 servings ready for leftovers….I can’t wait!

Review of Julia’s

For a late breakfast on Saturday, Matt and I went to Julia’s in Wallingford.   Julia’s is a mini-chain in the Seattle area, and the one in Wallingford is the original (plus they have a bakery!).  The one in the Capital Hill neighborhood is apparently also great and has drag show fun on the weekends! I was craving breakfast burritos when we got out of bed and Matt was a sweetheart and did some internet searching to find some options.

Mae’s Cafe, down the street from our apartment, has an amazing breakfast burrito that comes with delicious black beans, spicy chorizo and a big pile of hash browns, but we were feeling something new, and Julia’s had the best selection of burritos, according to their online menu.  Plus, it’s really close to us and to a grocery store, which we needed to visit.

We were seated really quickly…it wasn’t packed, but we were also coming at about 11am, so the breakfast crowd was probably a little earlier in the morning.  I ordered the Disayuno Burrito (Large whole wheat tortilla, eggs, bacon, tomato, scallions, cheddar cheese, topped with sour cream and salsa) and Matt had the Herb & 3 Cheese Omelet (Swiss, Cheddar, Parmesan, Scallions and Italian Herbs). We both had coffee (which they refilled constantly!) and both of our dishes came with fried potatoes.

The coffee was great…I usually go with juice for breakfast, but they use Caffé Vita coffee, which is delicious and locally wonderful!

Our food came out really quickly and was majorly yummy! We of course tried the potatoes first, which were super flavorful and cooked to perfection, with lots of little bits of darkened potato that were nice and caramelized.   Both the potatoes and Matt’s omelet were SUPER seasoned…He enjoyed the omelet, but the bit I tried had a bit too much of a dried herb flavor for me.  The texture was fairly soft without him even asking for it soft, and it was mucho cheesy.  He also had toast, which I stole some of…I love toast with jam!

My burrito was also yum….if I had thought ahead of time, I would have asked for the sour cream and salsa on the side, because they put them right on top, so there was no way I could pick up the burrito.  So I cut it up and ate it with fork and knife (NOT as fun!).  Still delicious though!  I liked the whole wheat wrap a lot, and the amount of filling was perfect.  The bacon was cut into tiny tiny pieces and was not particularly prominent, and I would have preferred either nice thick slices, or at least bigger, crunchy pieces throughout.  The salsa was great and the sour cream got on my potatoes, which made them even better!!

Overall, a great breakfast! It looks like they have a fun happy hour snack menu too, so I wouldn’t mind going back sometime for that! Plus we have a coupon that can only be used during the week…maybe we’ll make it a recurring place. 

Dori and Matt’s mom are crazy about breakfast so we’re always keeping track of places we like so we can prepare for their visits.  We’ll definitely put this one on the list!! 

Home!

HEY HEY HEY! First things first….get over to Missy’s blog and vote for your favorite salsa recipe in her contest!! I’m #8, in case you have trouble choosing a winner from all the yummy choices! 🙂

One more fair this morning and with a lucky traffic day, I was home around 3:30!! I am EXCITED!  I love being on the road and travelling to new places, but I get so homesick…I wish I could take Matt and Santana along with me whenever I travel! That would be the best!

Green Foodie Arguments

Here is a link to an interesting post that is probably of interest to some of the other foodie bloggers out there.  Anyone into the organic, slow food movement should be familiar with Alice Waters and her restaurant in Berkeley, CA, Chez Panisse. When the roommate and I went to California on a grad school visit/research trip the summer before our senior year, and we made it a point to have lunch at Chez Panisse (dinner was WAY out of our price range). Super delicious and fun to be eating at Alice Waters’ place.  I met her and listened to her speak at The Bale Boone Symposium put on by The Gaines Center at the University of Kentucky in 2005 (I think?).  It was really amazing and wonderful for me at a time when I was still sort of defining who I was as a cook. 

The Jezebel post by Sadie, points to a recent backlash against Waters and her push for organics.  One of the most vociferous, unsurprisingly, is Anthony Bourdain (who I have a bit of a crush on, fyi).  Sadie quotes Bourdain:

Alice Waters annoys the living s%#* out of me. We’re all in the middle of a recession, like we’re all going to start buying expensive organic food and running to the green market. There’s something very Khmer Rouge about Alice Waters that has become unrealistic. I mean I’m not crazy about our obsession with corn or ethanol and all that, but I’m a little uncomfortable with legislating good eating habits.

First of all, he loves to talk about the Khmer Rouge…I have zero statistics or citations to back this up, but I have heard that name come out of his mouth so many times that when I read about Khmer Rouge (even unrelated to Bourdain at all), I hear it in his voice and I picture him ranting. This kind of random association is wonderful…maybe I should choose something to be obscurely connected to.  Whenever you think of Mussolini, you will think of me! Maybe not…

Second, I love Alice Waters, but I have no problem with Bourdain’s ranting…he often goes off on a lot of topics that I don’t agree with, but that is basically his job.  He’s a complainer and a grumper and I think this is why I love him oh so much.  He openly hates on cultures, women, men, children, other chefs, things I would normally be very against  ranting about…but from him, it’s pretty enjoyable.  So I am not bothered by him particularly saying this.  And I don’t think his overall culinary stance eschews the organic, local side of things.  In the essay “The Evildoers,” Bourdain says that you should “try to eat food that comes from somewhere, from somebody,” and I think this applies not only to his signature “Chef’s Tour” mantra of eating the cultural food of wherever you are, but also to the roots of where you get your food…if your veggies, your meat, your dairy comes from somewhere, someone in particular, you are more likely to connect to it and more likely to appreciate and understand its importance.

About the post itself, I have to agree with Sadie…Waters can handle the criticism as someone behind the Green movement and any kind of revolutionary progress needs to be questioned and pulled in different directions as it develops.  Yes, we’re in an economic crisis and a lot of people are having trouble affording the bare basics for their families.  Yes, the cost of organics is often high and going fully green is not necessarily feasible for every family out there.  But I know an increasing amount of people who are not typical of the “elitist” perception that has been tied to organics, especially as I’ve discovered more and more food bloggers who are in super green mode in so many ways.  And I think if more and more people fit local, sustainable, green, organic ways into their lives on a daily basis, at a level that fits their lifestyle and economic means, then it pushes for more and more change towards the positive. 

While the individual families have to make these changes on the small scale, on the larger, more vocal scale, revolutionaries like Waters and critics like Bourdain are necessary to keep pushing ideas forward and honing and refining the ideas that have made it to the mainstream mindset. 

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Ok, that was more rambling than I predicted, but I thought some of the bloggers out there would find this discussion interesting! What are your thoughts on Alice Waters? Anthony Bourdain? Feel free to despise either one, despite my love of them! 🙂

Contest news:

Don’t forget to enter Dori’s Doormat Giveaway, and she has a second one this week for an Always Infinity Gift Pack!

Missy is also having a giveaway for the Always gift bag!

Jackson’s World is not only featuring an adorable pup, but is also having a Spring has Sprung Giveaway! Bring on the spring!

Lucky Taste Buds has a Big S Farms Salsa giveaway! Yum yum yum for Salsa!

Celebration and a New Meal!

Hey hey hey! Look up! A Bacon-Wrapped Life is now located at it’s very own domain name baconwrappedlife.com!!! EXCITEMENT! Also exciting, Dori’s Shiny Blog is now located at dorishinyblog.com, check it out and keep your eyes peeled for some fun on her end to celebrate the change!!

I’ve been absent from the blog for a few days because we were switching servers, updating names, and just generally being busy with chores, errands and some nice weather  But I have a yummy new recipe to show for the missing weekend!

This is a conglomeration of this cooking light recipe and a pumpkin ravioli recipe I tried about 4 years ago and turned into an AMAZING pumpkin lasagna recipe that I’ll probably share at some point. 

Spicy Sweet Butternut Squash Ravioli with Prosciutto and Parmesan 

I roasted the heck out of a butternut squash at 400 degrees for about an hour or so, then scooped it out of the peel (after it cooled) and mashed it.  In a pan with a bit of olive oil, I sautéed 4oz diced prosciutto until it was a little crispy on the edges.  Half of the meat went into the squash along with breadcrumbs, 1 egg, salt, and parmesan cheese.  

 

I bought a package of wonton wrappers, and these made the ravioli! I filled a wonton wrapper with about 1Tb of the squash mixture, wet the edges with water, topped with another wrapper and sealed all around, making sure to get out all of the air bubbles.  I used a biscuit cutter to cut into rounds and set them aside on a parchment-lined tray. 

I made 20 ravioli like this and still hade some wrappers and squash mixture left, but knew we wouldn’t eat them, so I just stuck with the 20 (good thing, because I was stuffed by the end of the meal!).  Brought a big, wide pan full of water to a simmer and cooked about half of the ravioli at a time, for about 5 minutes with each batch.  I pulled them out with a slotted spoon and let them wait on the parchment-lined baking sheet while I cooked the second batch. 

As the second batch of ravioli cooked, I heated the remaining prosciutto and olive oil back up and added a little over a tablespoon of brown sugar, a few chopped sage leaves, a pat of butter and a dash of cayenne pepper for a little kick.

After this got all melty, I sort of just wanted to eat it with a spoon!

I melted this over medium-low heat and then tossed it with the ravioli and served, topped with a little more fresh sage and some parmesan!  Pretty easy (a little time-consuming because you have to fill the ravioli) and SUPER delicious!  You could also buy ravioli and just make this prosciutto brown sugar sauce to coat them, and it would be really really easy. 

We served it with a bagged Pacific salad with a bunch of different greens, soy nuts, carrots and a poppy seed dressing.  Plus we added a bunch of diced tomatoes from our CSA!  It was a nice accompaniment to the ravioli, which had a wonderful balance of the nutty squash, sweet brown sugar, salty prosciutto & parmesan, and a tiny bit of spice from the cayenne!