Recipes Discovered

All In One Holiday Cake Recipe

The holidays are all about sharing and giving, and a lot of people have been asking me for my Thanksgiving recipes. On the menu this year, besides the normal roasted turkey with stuffing, and the not so normal deep fried turkey, was macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole, candied yams, green bean casserole, creamed corn, and cranberry jello salad. To keep everyone happy (and quiet) until dinner was served, I made a bacon ranch cheese ball and a pumpkin cream cheese dip, which was really great with pretzels. For dessert, there was pumpkin pie, all in one holiday cake (pumpkin, cranberry, apple, and pecans), and brownies. Of course, with all the food we had, Seth and I have a refrigerator full of leftovers. I’ve come up with some interesting uses for them though, including potato pancakes, turkey cranberry sandwiches, sweet potato and black bean chili, shepherds pie, and a macaroni and cheese concoction that I don’t even know what to name. Thanksgiving was a lot of fun and hopefully there are a lot more recipes to come during the holidays.

Spinach, Orange, and Avocado Salad

Although it sounds like an odd combination (to me, at least), this salad has become one of my favorites for lunch. It’s easy to put together with just a few ingredients, and the flavor is just insanely good. The spinach is a little bitter, the orange is sweet, the avocado is creamy, and onion is tangy, and the sunflower seeds add just a little bit of saltiness. It’s delicious and easy, which is always good in my book.

Sweet Red Drunken Pasta Recipe

I have a new love of beets. They are popping up on menus everywhere these days, mostly in the form of salad, and are delicious. This recipe is very simple – combining pasta, beets, garlic, and a little Parmesan cheese. The beets are shredded first, so they cooked up pretty quickly and are super sweet. The recipe calls for cooking the pasta in wine, but I don’t think that added a lot of flavor to the pasta. Most the the color the pasta picked up was from being tossed with the beets. No matter how the pasta is cooked, it’s a delicious dish. And paired with a simple green salad topped with fried goat cheese, it’s an absolutely wonderful dinner.

Fried Goat Cheese Salad Recipe

Crab Cakes with Corn Maque Choux and Tomato Jam Recipe

I have a habit of wanting to make everything I see a TV chef make, regardless of the chef. I happen to catch a glimpse of Emeril Lagasse making his “famous” crab cakes that he serves at his new restaurant in Mississippi, and I knew right away I would end up trying to make them myself. Not that trying to make something Emeril makes is a bad thing, just usually a time consuming one. The crab cakes were actually fairly simple, although I found it difficult to keep them from falling apart. Pressing them firmly into the bread crumbs seemed to help, but they still wanted to fall apart in the pan. Maque Choux (pronounced ‘mock shoe’) is a traditional Louisiana dish composed of corn, bell pepper, onions, garlic, celery, and sometimes tomatoes. After the veggies were sauteed, I added milk for a little richness. The tomato jam was simply tomatoes, vinegar, and sugar simmered together until it turned into jam. All together, this made a wonderful dish. The crab cakes were a little bland on there own (maybe more seasoning?), but combined with the corn and tomato jam, they were excellent. I love corn, so I really enjoyed the maque choux, but the highlight of the dish was actually the tomato jam. It added such a flavor punch to the dish, and I would definitely double the recipe for it next time, so there is more than a small dollop. The meal wasn’t difficult to make, but it did take a lot of time. It tasted great though, so I guess that is the trade off that makes it worth it in the end.

Shallota Pasta Recipe

Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Recipe 

Sometimes the simplest ingredients can make the biggest flavors. These two dishes are definite examples of that. Sausage (I used sausage links, but you can also use crumbled bulk sausage), garlic, and broccoli rabe are combined to make a spicy, slightly bitter dish while caramelized shallots, Parmesan cheese, and spaghetti make a sweet and salt dish. Together, they balance each other really well. It may seem like a lot of shallots, but they actually taste amazing and I added extra to the pasta. It’s may be a simple meal, but it has a lot of complex flavors.