Chicken Enchiladas!!

This year's post (didn't this blog used to be monthly at least?) is about chicken enchiladas. I got a recipe from Tyler Florence and then kind of thought about it while I made the enchiladas. If you'd like his recipe it's here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/chicken-enchiladas-recipe.html

Otherwise, follow my delicious, Trader Jose-inspired version of this fabulous dish. Tonight I made it at Laurie and Derrick's house to try and impress Laurie's brothers Jack and Jay. We were going to do a whole "bachelorette" thing and see which brother I chose after dinner. Jay didn't show up so I guess I'll choose Jack. He's my half plus 7 so I think it'll work out (when determining if someone is old enough to date, they must be at least half your age, plus 7).

Here are the delicious ingredients you need to pick up from the Trader Jose's:
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Green Pepper
1 Big Red Onion
1lb Chicken Breast
1-2 Packages of Tortillas (they have delicious habanero lime tortillas if you want an extra kick)
1 Bottle Enchilada Sauce
1 Package Taco Seasoning (also garlic powder and cumin if you don't have them)
1 Bottle Cowboy Caviar Salsa
1 Bottle Hatch Valley Salsa
1 Block of Pepper Jack Cheese (Jack will feel like you thought about him when you make these with cheese named after him)
2 Cans Diced Fire Roasted Tomatoes

Sour Cream and avocados for "garnish"**

**by "garnish" I obviously mean mass consumption.

Now the beauty of these bad boys is that you can make them and then throw them in the refrigerator until about 30 minutes before dinner time. You can impress your mom with a clean kitchen before she even comes home and then feed her a delicious meal. This is a great way to weasel your way further into that will (pro tip! put sticky notes with your name under objects around your parents house that you want It'll save you from arguing with your siblings in the future).

OK Step 1:
Find a large, non-stick pan that'll fit all your chicken titties. Also snoop around the spice cabinet and pull out anything that goes in Mexican food (pro tip! If you're not sure what goes in Mexican food, smell it. Does it smell like a delicious Mexican dish? Pull it. Does it smell like a delicious Italian dish? Leave it in the drawer. That's oregano.).

Pro tip! If the label on the spice bottle is in Spanish, it's probably good in your enchiladas

Step 1.2:
Tenderize the chicken breasts. It might be difficult to find something to tenderize the meat with because you might not have state of the art kitchen equipment like my mother does:

Even I own an actual meat tenderizer. 

Step 1.3:

Next, put some olive oil in the pan and turn on the burner to medium heat. Put salt and pepper on one side of the chicken boobs. I guess I might have put garlic in the pan too. Who knows though. Put the salt and peppered part of the chicken down in the pan. Once they're down, put the spices on the other side of the chicken. Once the chicken has cooked half way though, turn them over. Once they're cooked through, remove them and set them aside on a cutting board or plate to cool.

This was my best chicken cooking maybe ever.

Step 2:

As the chicken was cooking, you should have probably been cutting up the pepper and onion. If not, do that now. Throw the onion and pepper into the pan with all those delicious spicy chicken juices. Maybe add some more spices if you're feeling sassy. Once the peppers and onions have softened a bit, add about 1/2 of the jar of cowboy caviar. Let it all simmer together until it looks something like this:

Step 3:

Since the chickens are cool now (cool chick), cut them into bite-sized chunks and add them to the delicious mixture. I like to pull the chicken apart but I'm small and dainty and fragile so sometimes the chicken is too hot to do that. 

You will note that this picture should be horizontal. Formatting it has been somewhat annoying and therefore I will save my formatting stress for my dissertation and not this amazing food blog.

Step 4:
Once my uncle was making a cold salad. He put all the ingredients together and said "Now we put them in the fridge and let them mate." He's hilarious. That's what we'll do with the chicken and peppers and onions (only in a pan instead of the fridge), and we'll also add them fire roasted tomatoes. Here's a pic of them mating in the pan:

I'd prefer this picture also be horizontal too. Please just tilt your head.

Step 5:

Put the enchilada sauce in a 9x13" pan. Slide your tortillas in the sauce and place filling in the tortilla, add a little cheese, and roll it over. At this point your dog should be standing next to you waiting for something to fall out. I dropped some chicken on the floor tonight and I'm pretty sure I heard Maebe say "this is the moment I've been waiting for."

 Oh now a picture gets horizontal! Whatever, blogspot. You're already dead to me.

Step 6:

Do this until you put all the filling in all the tortillas. You can then cover it all with more enchilada sauce and some cheese. At this point you can put it in the oven at 425 for like 30 minutes or however long it takes for the cheese to look all melty. 

Step 7: 

Here's a fun side dish! Instead of rice, take the remaining cowboy caviar and mix it with some 3rd world-destroying quinoa and let it cool. Not only does quinoa destroy certain impoverished countries, it's also a power food and looks delicious.

But like why? Why can these pictures not post horizontally? What did I do?

Serve the enchiladas with your mated quinoa salad and impress your friend's little brother! Pro tip! Instead of serving one whole enchilada, serve half of two enchiladas side by side for easier service.*
*using three forms of the word "serve" in one sentence? Bold move, Alison.

**Good dinner talking point: Where would you put sticky notes in your parents' house?

Delicious Level: 5/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: I find them to be easy to cook but that's just because I've done it about 15 times now.

Lesson Learned: Put sticky note under the hippo sculpture in the driveway. That's definitely mine.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

Summer Cocktail: Mint Lemonade with Krupnikas

All of those words sound delicious.

In honor of my dearest friend Rimantas, I recently shared some Brothers Vilgalys Krupnikas with some good friends and, as a result, got them totally hooked (suckers).

Krupnikas (http://brothersvilgalys.com/) is a Lithuanian spiced honey liqueur. A friend of mine started his own distillery in Durham, NC (only the greatest city in the US of A). This liqueur tastes like Christmas in your mouth, and if you have access to it you should definitely pick up a bottle. You can drink it straight up (krup in a cup), make delicious mixed drinks, or cook with it! We'll cook with it in a later post.

This is my first bottle of Krupnikas that I got to buy in the store. It was WAY too exciting. Also Gabe bottled it which basically makes it a limited edition since he ran away to New Zealand.

If your'e REALLY lucky, you can get one of these bottles with my name and jersey number. Are you kidding me? This was seriously one of the greatest coincidences of my life. 

This recipe is not THAT sustainable but it does offer 2/4 local ingredients so we’ll count it.

Ingredients:

1.5 cups sugar

1 handful mint (totes local if you have it growing on your porch)

6 lemons
8 cups water

Krupnikas*

*only if you’re 21+. If you’re not old enough for the krup, this lemonade is still delicious. Something about waiting until you're old enough to drink and delayed gratification is a beautiful thing. Also patience is a virtue.

First you need to get out your awesome ball jug and citrus reamer that you have sitting around and never use. My Uncle Tom bought me my ball jug and the citrus reamer because I’m his favorite niece in Pennsylvania. Grab a handful of mint from your awesome porch garden. Tear it up a little to really let the flavors come out. 

My mint lives with my tomatoes. They're basically a thing but don't tell Rosemary.

Put 8 cups of water on the stove to boil. While you wait, cut the lemons in half and juice them either using your awesome citrus reamer, a juicer, or just peel them and throw them in a blender with a little bit of water. 

My awesome citrus reamer catches the seeds and pulp. I think Tom and I found it at a thrift store in Cleveland for $2. Dreams really do come true.

Once the water is boiling, pour the water, sugar, and mint into the awesome ball jug until the sugar is dissolved in the water. As you get the lemon juice from the lemons, pour it into the ball jug and let it cool. This fills about half of my jug so I fill the other half with ice to help it cool. 

 This is the near finished product (sans ice) unless your'e over 21. 

This recipe might be a little to sour for you. If you can't handle how sour it is you have a few options. The first is to add more sugar (duh). The next option is to add artificial sweetener. Unfortunately, this is not actually an option because that stuff is both nasty and terrible for you. The best option, is to add krupnikas and ice and make it a pheNOMenal summer cocktail. Add about 4oz lemonade, 2 oz krup over ice.

I got these awesome cocktail glasses in Cleveland too. 

Delicious Level: 5/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: Easy Peasy.

Lesson Learned: Bring back more Krupnikas next time I'm in NC.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

What in the world do I do with this gigantic bag of KALE I got from my CSA guy?

"I don't even like kale." My CSA a few summers ago would always come with a lifetime supply of kale delivered weekly and I had no idea what to do with it. I'm not talking "it was a lifetime supply distributed over all the weeks of my CSA" like the lottery. I'm talking a lifetime supply every week. Even though I'm southern, I hate most all cooked leafy greens... even when they're cooked in pork fat by Mama Dip herself. I also don't like raw, bitter leafy greens. I also get bored eating salad. You just keep eating and not getting full! I definitely get bored before I get full when eating salads. SO when you're given a massive bag of kale, what in the world are you supposed to do with it?

What I did for the first few weeks of my CSA is stare at the massive bundle of kale until it wilted, looked totally inedible, and then threw it in the back yard and poured one out for all the starving people in the world (some of my Catholic guilt has remained with me). This is wasteful, but I honestly had no idea what to do with it. Now I eat kale daily. I forgot about my kale-induced anxiety from 2011 until a friend brought it up last night. She said "we get so much kale in our CSA and neither of us like kale at all." I really don't think she is alone in this so I figured I'd share my two favorite ways to eat kale.

SO MUCH KALE! Some of it's a little wilted and questionable looking but it's fine. My grandma survived the depression. As a result, my mom does things like save aluminum foil for re-use and I eat the sad, wilted kale because there's no point in buying more. 

Here I'm going to offer 2 recipes for your excessive amount of kale. If either of them work for you, you should consider making them a regular part of your diet as kale is a great source for potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, vitamin B-6, magnesium and even Iron. Ladies especially need iron.

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Recipe #1: Smoothie

I know what you're thinking. "Gross. Next." Well it's actually super delicious. If you read my previous post, you know that I once ruled Hillsborough St. in Raleigh as a professional blendgineer for Planet Smoothie. Even the nice homeless man would yell across the street at me "HEY SMOOTIE!" [no H]. Also if you don't remember the fashion trends of 2006-8 there was nothing sexier than showing up to class in a neon P.Smoo shirt covered in splattered fruit. What I'm trying to say is that I'm a bit of an expert when it comes to smoothie making and I'm really good at befriending the homeless. This smoothie is delicious and I drink it nearly every morning. 

What you need:

1 Banana

1/2-3/4 cup orange juice

1 cup yogurt (I use vanilla yogurt but if you don't have a horrible sweet tooth like me, I'd use plain)

1 cup of exciting fruit (either mixed berries or mango and pineapple - whatever your heart desires)

4 stalks of kale/ 1 giant handful of kale (yes that much, no you can't taste it)

**optional - 1-2 tbsp chia seeds if you're in need of some Omega 3 fatty acids. They make for a different texture but it's another power food that can really give you energy in the morning to get you going. Also the funny texture makes it easier to clean your cup and blender post smoothie consumption.

Put the banana, OJ and kale into the blender and mix it up until you have a very green, totally smooth mixture.

Add the exciting fruit and yogurt and finish blending. If you use berries, your smoothie won't even be green. It will be a purple smoothie looking color and if you can taste the kale, then you should be a sommelier or something because your tastebuds are Beyonce-level flawless. 

In this concoction, we have potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin B-6, magnesium, calcium, iron and protein. Basically if you eat this for breakfast, you can eat whatever the hell you want for the rest of the day because you just crushed most of the day's worth of nutrients.

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Recipe #2: Kale Chips

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and then keep reading.
Kale chips sound disgusting but they are delicious. Fresh out of the oven, they melt in your mouth. Instant sodium kick! For all my athletic friends, these are great to have with you during games/ races/ hiking/ whatever. They provide instant nutrients and sodium and you don't have to keep them cool. Just throw them in a tupperware in your bag (you can throw them in a plastic bag but then they'll all break and they will be annoying to eat).

What you need:
Cookie sheet
Lots of kale
Salt and/or pepper and/or garlic salt and/or parmesan cheese

Cut the leaves from the stalk and further cut them into large potato chip size pieces.

The best 'cookie sheet' to use for these is a pizza stone or something similar. It'll make them more crispy than a metal baking sheet will BUT the metal baking sheet is still jut fine.
Put the leaves on the baking sheet and coat them with olive oil.

I think my recent anti-biotic binge made my nails really healthy. OR MAYBE IT'S ALL THE KALE I EAT! Or maybe it's the fact that it's no longer winter... I need a manicure.

Next coat the leaves with your seasoning of choice. My personal favorite is to just use sea salt and lemon pepper. The big chunky pieces of salt and that hint of lemon is so delicious. You can also use garlic salt and parmesan cheese or anything like that. Get creative. Do. Yo. Thang.

Mom's slightly sketchy bottle of lemon pepper in an old Caraway Seed bottle which no doubt came from my grandma's house because heaven forbid we recycle that. You might need it some day, you know? Waste not, want not I suppose.

Once they're all coated, throw them in the oven for about 10 minutes or until they look super crispy like so:

 Crispy and delicious!

VIOLA! Two delicious options for all that kale you got in your CSA. Sweet and salty and both super delicious during kale season.

**If you have something in your CSA and you want a recipe, please do not hesitate to holla!**

Delicious Level: 5/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: Easy Peasy.

Lesson Learned: None, bro. I make these on the reg.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

What do I do with my sad, dying basil plant? Cheesy Homemade Eggplant Marinara Pastas

G'day!

Today's recipe was made about a week and a half ago (oops). Too bad this semester is whooping my tail and I have no time for blogging (as if graduate school is supposed to be this much work)! Ugh as IF!  If you've been displaced to the frozen tundra of central, PA or other northern states, your basil is probably starting to wilt and look a bit sad. Maybe it's depressed that you live in a frozen tundra and it's trying to send you a message: go back south. According to my comrade, EGG, the south has already risen again!

She obvi meant "What's" I think Erin still has a flip phone without autocorrect

So until I went home to my mommy the other week, I was working with an Osterizer Galaxie blender from around 1975. Like many of the appliances Andrew has given me (my mom gave me the blender though), it was probably one of the first of it's kind! I, like Tim Gunn, made it work though. I did work at the Planet Smoothie for 3+ years as a professional blendgineer after all. Anyway, I couldn't really use said blender to make pesto because... you know... it wasn't the bomb and I couldn't make it work (sorry, Tim Gunn). So what do I do with the end of my sad, dying basil plant? Invite Brittany and Austin over for dinner and make a Splendid Table inspired pasta dish! My mom made me the original splendid table dish for my 16th birthday and I fell in love with it.

The Osterizer Galaxie in all its glory

What you need:

Handfull + of basil

1 can of whole tomatoes

2tbsp of tomato paste

2 large shallots

1 clove of garlic

1 lb pastas that soak up sauce

1 Eggplant (how fall festive!)
1/2 cup gorgonzola

Wine

olive oil

salt

pepper

crushed red pepper flakes

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and then go outside and collect the end of your sad basil plant

Poor little basil plant :( I'll miss you, summer herb!

Step 2: Kitchen prep: chop the garlic, shallots, basil, and eggplant. The eggplant should be cut into 1"x 1" cubes. Lauren told me that eggplants are very moist vegetables and can take over with their moistness. Moist. A way to combat that is, once you cut up the eggplant, put it in a colander in the sink and sprinkle salt on the eggplant. Once it's dried out, rinse the salt off and prepare it for the oven.

Step 3: Coat a cookie sheet in olive oil and put in eggplant, covered in salt, pepper, and olive oil. Throw it in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the top is browned. Also put the pot of water on to boil for the pastas.

Step 4: As the eggplant is roasting, begin to make your sauce. Put olive oil, salt, pepper, shallots, and garlic into a pan. Once it has started to brown, add the tomato paste.  Top secret tomato paste tip!! My mama once said: once you opened a can of tomato paste, scoop the rest of the paste into tablespoon clumps and put them on wax paper in the freezer. Once they've hardened, put them in a plastic bag to store for later usage. Those moms.... ya know? I feel like only a mom would know that.

Step 5: Once your paste has properly integrated itself into your shallots and garlic, add the basil and get it all mixed up real good and stuff. Then add your wine. Usually about 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup will do. Really just try not to drink the whole bottle before you finish making the sauce. You need SOME of the wine and maybe you have some lying around that you don't plan to drink. Perhaps you put a bottle in the freezer to cool faster and forgot about it and went to bed.... Perhaps you made a winesicle in the freezer.... Anyway! Add the wine and reduce this delicious mixture into one beautiful piece of condensed marinara.

It start like dis....

...and reduce down to dis

Step 6: At this point, your eggplant should be done and your sauce is also almost done. Open a can of whoopass. Now open a can of tomatoes. I buy unsalted tomatoes but salted works too. Just trying to watch my figure :) Not really. I just prefer my own amounts of salt. Drain the juice from the tomatoes and crush them! This is a good time to get out any anger issues you might have. Take it out on the tomatoes. 

TJ's has the best canned tomatoes, obvi

Step7: Add the crushed tomatoes and red pepper flakes (optional) to the reduced mixture and heat it all up.

For the record, you can stop here and can this marinara sauce. It's delish.

Step 8: Add the eggplant to the sauce. Once the pasta is done, drain it and fold the sauce into the pasta. You're welcome to stop here OR you can add about 1/2 cup gorgonzola to the pasta and either bake it for about 5 minutes or just let the heat melt the cheese into the dish. Either way it's supremely nomsy.

Presentation is everything! What a terrible picture.

Delicious Level: 5/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: Easy Peasy.

Lesson Learned: Take a better picture of the final product. This one sucks.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

Brown Sugar Cinnamon Apple Pastries

I'm sorry... did you say brown sugar cinnamon apple pastries?!

Yes. I did. I made it up me-self! No pintrest! Can you believe that? I thought my own thoughts, ate some delicious food, and now I'm sharing my recipe with you!

This was the dessert (not desert) for our autumnal equinox dinner tonight. Apples and cinnamon and allspice are very autumnal and delicious. This tartlet dessert was a perfect ending to our fatty fatty delicious dinner and it all went together like Jenny and Forrest. So nomsy.

What you need:
1/4 cup Brown sugar
3 tablespoons cream cheese (this can be estimated as scooping cream cheese is a pain in the ass)
1 tsp allspice
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 granny smith apple
1 can of croissant dough
1/4 cup butter (softened)
1 egg

Step 1: Cut up the apple into thin, small slices. Try not to eat the whole apple while slicing it.

Step 2: In a bowl combine brown sugar, softened butter, cream cheese, allspice, and cinnamon. This will not delicious but it will taste like a dream. A good dream too.

"Things that don't photograph well" - By Alison Murray

Chapter 2:

Also This.

Step 3: Flatten out the croissant rolls. You should have 4 large rectangles (8 rolls). Leave the dough in large rectangles and try to roll them out to be a little flatter. Cut the rectangles into 4 smaller rectangles (16 smaller rectangles (holy cow, if I type rectables instead of rectangles one more time...)).

Step 4: Fill each rectangle with a little bit of the cinnamon brown sugar mix and put in 3 or so slices of apple.

Like a dream!

Step 5: Gently fold the dough to wrap the apple as much as you can. My friend and officemate, Jie is making pork dumplings for our class tomorrow. I was trying to channel her dumpling making skills while folding these little apple thingers. I don't think it worked. 

Step 6: Probably should have told you to preheat the oven at 350 earlier huh? Do that now. One day I'll learn.

Step 7: Put the pastries on a cookie sheet. They won't expand too much so they can be somewhat close together. Here is a picture of my best pastry. Try to make yours look like this one and none of the other ones I made.

"Oh girl! No you didn't!" - You

"Yes. Yes, I did." - Me

Step 8: Combine egg with some water (just a splash of water) so you can cover the pastries with egg. This makes sure they're moist while in the oven. Then put a sprinkle of cinnamon on top for both flavoring and good looks. We're all about lookin' good.

Step 9: Put those suckers in the oven for about 15-20 minutes at 350. Once they've browned on the top, they're good to take out. They are not yet ready for consumption as they are probably still about 350 degrees in the middle. Maybe wait 5 minutes before eating them. They'd probably be super delicious with some vanilla ice cream. Yummm....

Such delicious little pastries!

Ways I could have and possibly should have modified this recipe:

1) Eat while enjoying a glass of Brother Vilgalys Krupnikas

2) Use Trader Joe's pumpkin pie spice 

3) Add pumpkin? Question mark?

4) Make the pastry part a little larger so the innards aren't falling out. Srsly. Get it together, innards.

5) Rather than slicing the apples, chop them** and mix it in with the stuffing.

Delicious Level: 4/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom)

Difficulty Level: Easy Peasy.

Lesson Learned: Utilize one of the above mentioned suggestions. Also buy more Krupnikas next time in NC.

Here's to eatin' good and eatin' local! Cheers and uff-da!

** If Waffle House added chopped apples to their hash brown topping options, what would they call it?

A PhenAUTUMNal Meal!

Bonjour mon petit choux!

It's been about 6 billion moons since I last posted. My excuses include: grad school, moving, and not having a CSA. You're probably thinking "yeah yeah yeah! WHATever!" but it's true. Certain things in Central, PA are unreasonably expensive and some things are oddly cheap. The CSAs here (and PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong) are very expensive and out of my price range. Thus, I eat from trader joe's, the herbs my plants produce, and the occasional fruits and veggies my advisor brings into the office.

In May I wrote a review of an ultimate tournament and this semester I'm writing for a qualitative methods course. In both instances, I'm allowed to write the word "I". This is odd. Shouldn't I have to cite all of my thoughts (Winner, R., 2013)?! I remembered how much I love writing for the sake of writing without having to cite someone. One day I'll be badass enough to be able to cite myself and get away with it (Murray, A., 2013).

Today is the Autumnal Equinox. Thus, my new roommate and dear friends hosted family dinner with an autumnly (it's a word. Don't worry about it.) themed dinner. My late grandma used to say "if you've heard this story before, don't stop me because I love telling it!" In this way, Lauren has told me about 50 times that it is "Winter Squash Awareness Month". I let her tell me over and over because it's a ridiculous idea. What in the world does that even mean? Should we be aware the winter squash exist? Should we go to a winter squash shelter and adopt? Should we go to a winter squash shelter and volunteer to feed them? Regardless, we honored this special occasion with butternut squash baked pasta that I will spend the next 2 weeks working off.

This is a two part post: 1) Butternut Squash Baked Pasta; and 2) Baked Cinnamon Apple Pastries

Butternut Squashed Baked Pasta
Here is the original recipe from Cooking Light (LOL at the 'light' part)
http://www.cookinglight.com/food/top-rated-recipes/five-star-casseroles-00400000039138/page5.html

Que necesitas:
1 butternut squash
2 cups shredded mild-stinky cheese. We used smoked gouda and swiss.
1 lb bacon
4 cups milk
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup flour
1lb baking pasta (penne eg.)
3 shallots
Balsalmic
Rosemary
1 large appetite
1 exercise routine earlier in the day
Parmesan

Step 1: make your dreams come true
Step 2: make him fall in love with you
Step 3: girl it's plain to see... you're the only one for me

Step 1 (for real): cube the butternut squash. Butternut squash is a royal pain in the ass to cut up. Peeling it is not an option nor is cutting it with a dull knife. You need to cut it into 3/4" slices.

You should also cut the skin off of the squash rather than peeling it. It will be a lot easier and a lot quicker and you really won't lose much of the meat of the squash.

Step 2: Boil the squash for about 5 minutes, strain it and put it on a pan (a pan with oil so the squash doesn't stick).  Before putting the pan in the oven at 400 degrees, put some cut up rosemary on it, salt, and pepper and a little balsalmic.

This is the unsticking process for the squash if you fail to use oil.

"Sh*t! Should have used oil!" - (Abbott, L., 2013)

Step 3: Slice shallots and set them aside. Put about .75lb of bacon into a pan. I prefer thick cut, slovenian smoked bacon that was smoked by an old Croatian man named Elmer in Cleveland. If this is not an option, go for the highest quality bacon you can find. Perhaps the Chop Shop in Asheville can help you.... mmmm bacon. Cook the bacon until crisp and remove it to cool 

Step 4: Add shallots to the pan full of bacon fat. Yes. You read that correctly. Just park further away when you go to work tomorrow. I promise it's worth it. Saute them in the bacon fat until they're slightly  browned. 

Bacon fat + Shallots = Delicious

Step 5: Combine your squash, chopped bacon, and shallots in the pan and remove from heat. This will be added later.

Be sure to have a pet take up about 1/3 of the kitchen floor. This is most helpful.

Step 6: Cook the pasta. We used whole wheat penne pasta from Trader Joe's... to make it... you know... healthy?

Step 7: Time to make the Rue. Put the flour, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and milk into a deep pot. Whisk it until well mixed. On medium heat, continue to whisk until thickened. Once near a boil, remove from heat and mix in cheese.  You should now have three main components: The cheese rue, pasta, and butternut squash/bacon/shallots. 

Step 8: Mix all them things you made together and take in the delicious smells. 

All them things about to get mixed

"Things that don't photograph well" - By Alison Murray

Chapter 1:

This.

Step 9: Empty it all into a casserole dish(es), top with parmesan, and bake at 400 until melty and delicious looking. About 10 minutes or so.

Step 10: Serve up with some roasted veggies (we went with brussel sprouts and carrots for health) and eat.

Roasted Veggies = Health

Step 11: Presentation is everything. Make sure to enjoy this autumnal deliciousness with people you love. And wine. Wine is key. It is delicious.

Holy om noms, batman!

This dish was delicious. Probably very fattening but who counts calories anyway? Counting is exhausting. To quote Barbie "Gee! Math is hard!" Don't even bother.

Delicious Level: 4.5/5 Noms (om nom nom nom nom no...)

Difficulty Level: Lots of steps to time out! 2 people in the kitchen definitely helped!

Lesson Learned: More bacon, obvi. Ingles has a section called "Bacon". We should all learn a lesson from Ingles.

Long time no post :(

Apparently during your last semester of your masters program and during that summer you get really bogged down with work/finishing your thesis/moving 8 hours away/etc. I have a lot to catch up on and hopefully will get caught up in the next few days. Here's what we have coming up:

• Cajun stuffed bell peppers
• Meaty marinara sauce
• Pizza
• A tour of my mom's garden (just so you can all be jealous)
• Roasting peppers

This is Maebe being an adorable puppy. Good girl!!!