big cheese

Nothing beats a burger. Feeding a growing boy requires a lot of foods that fall under the "junk" category but when you are making them fresh then the junk element is eliminated. There is this pizza burger joint near where he rides his skateboard called Mamanis and he always wants me to duplicate the burger they serve there.



I am so very proud of my sixth grade boy right now for receiving Honors on his first report card from Middle School that burgers, fries and a chocolate shake were on his menu.



Hard not to snarf a big juicy burger!

walk in the park

Mushrooms in their natural habitat are certainly assertive.

beet up

Beet this, beet me, all beet to hell - the list goes on and on and on but what does have an end is my ideas for beets. I hit a wall right out of the gate. I love beets, I love them roasted and boiled in borscht and in salads - I enjoy beets. So in honor of the non beet lover I hereby introduce you to beets. Pasta. It tastes just like pasta but its made out of beets. Funny thing about pasta - it typically tastes like pasta.



This is beet pasta made with a sous vide pumpkin ball and alfredo sauce. I copied the sous vide from 5star foodie. Pumpkin and calabaza squash is so good no matter how you cook it.




Rip the plate apart and all you have left is fettuccini alfredo, plain and simple - but with pumpkin balls and beet pasta.




Arrange it delicately and this is what you might get. I should have done a beet foam with a pasta foam and a pumpkin foam all wadded up into a cookie.

wildness

Since I was a kid I have enjoyed foraging, hunting, fishing and collecting wild edibles. I probably wrote about this a long time ago when my blog was but a fledgling and most of you had never even heard of blogs, you may not know this by how inexperienced I seem but my blog turns five in March of next year - thats a lot of useless info! This blog rambled along quite unobtrusively for quite some time before I found my 'voice' and that 'voice' was showing you what I do best and that is cook. I dabbled in the daily journal type thing, the rants and what not but it wasnt until I decided to start showing more of my way of cooking that I started to get comfortable with the blog. I am so damn comfortable now I blog in ripped jeans and holey shirts.



These wild mushrooms are Shaggy Manes and Blewits, the Shaggy Manes(the whitish ones that look like a closed parasol) are mild with a stringy kind of asparagus consistency while the Blewits (the lavender ones) are a strong and hearty little fungi with a firm texture and an almost spicy bite.



Grilled ham and brie with wild mushrooms, foraging made simple!

no fakin' with bacon

All day long I was thinking about how delicious this was going to be, I was anxious, I was eager and I was determined, nothing was going to get between me and my bacon wrapped chicken.



I took some seasoned and butterflied chicken breasts and layered a few slices of ham and some brie then rolled them up in strips of bacon.



The rolls were then seared quickly in a hot pan and then put in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes with some fresh sage leaves laying over the top and inside the pan for additional aroma. Sunday chicken dinner never tasted so good especially with a baked potato and nice creamy gravy with garlic chives.

This an entry for Denny's and Foodbuzz Baconalia.