Farmhouse Grits...

Farmhouse Grits

Breakfast...its what's for dinner.  If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE breakfast/brunch at any time of day.  I am not sure where my love affair began with all things breakfast; maybe it was from my mother serving it for dinner...waffles covered in butter and syrup, sausage/egg/potatoes fried up to perfection, stuff topped with eggs because it completed the dish (enchiladas should ALWAYS have an over easy egg on top...trust me).  This was a somewhat normal occurrence in our home and one that I can't get enough of now; however, I have had friends gasp at the thought of dinner for breakfast...GET OVER IT, its deliciousness times 3.

So I sit here wondering right now, "what will I be making for dinner tonight"...Farmhouse Grits.  Its cheesy; its got bacon; its got butter; its GOOD.  We had something similar at a restaurant in Portland, Oregon (The Screen Door).  Their grits were so good that I had to recreate the dish when I got home from our trip and I have been making it pretty regularly ever since.

Farmhouse Grits 

For printable recipe, please click here 

2 tubes of Trader Joe's Polenta

6 strips of Bacon

2 - 4 Tbsp Salted Butter

1 - 2 C English Cheddar

2 - 4 Tbsp Heavy Cream**

~1 C Milk

Salt/Pepper (to taste)

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat.  Cut the bacon into pieces using kitchen shears.  Fry up the bacon.  Once it is crisp, set the bacon aside to drain in a paper towel.  Place the skillet back on the burner at medium low heat (keeping the bacon grease in it), add the butter.   After the butter is melted, crumble the polenta into the skillet.  Stir in the cream, the polenta should start to become creamy.  Start adding the milk gradually, the polenta should be very creamy looking at this point.  Stir in the cheese and the bacon.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Refrigerate leftovers. 

**If you do not have heavy cream, a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream will work instead.

Farmhouse Grits

Farmhouse Grits - "Lets eat!"

So tonight, I will have a breakfast dish for dinner...tomorrow, I will eat my dinner for breakfast (I love leftovers).

Enjoy the foods of your labor.  :-)

The dreaded office potluck...

Nothing fills me with such dread as an office potluck, a place where you can be judged by your peers in the form of the amount eaten of the dish you brought. When I was in Germany, working for the contracting office, we had a 26th ASG (Area Support Group) breakfast held every month, in which the ASG would be split up in two halves, each half providing food every other month. I learned the dread and fear based off the fact people would look at my dish, curl up their nose and say "WHATS THAT?!?" in the most nasally, insulting way possible...like these people had never seen chorizo before (well, they probably hadn't...but that's no excuse, chorizo con huevos y papas is delicious)

Anyway, getting back to my dread...our office here decided to have a pot luck lunch for a training seminar recently. I was out of town the weekend before and had NO IDEA what I would be bringing. My indecision left me powerless; one minute I thought to bring dessert, the next minute it was pesto pasta salad (an idea I nixed due to the fact I was convinced it would cost at least $52 or more in ingredients...2 cups of basil packed, that must be 10 or 20 little packages at $2 a pop, right???).

Inspiration hit the day before the pot luck, and the day I would be traveling home...I was watching "Giada at Home" and she made the easiest, most beautiful Italian potato salad. That was all I had to see, I would make potato salad, just not Giada's potato salad. Mine is based off a recipe from my sister (she makes a baked potato potato salad, its awesome) and a herb dip recipe I use of Ina Garten's (BTW, if you are ever searching FoodNetork for recipes and Ina pops up as an option, use that recipe...oddly simple with the right amount of prep and always delicious).

Here's the recipe:

Dill Potato Salad

about 4 lbs New Potatoes (scrubbed)
4 Tbs Fresh Dill (finely chopped)
2 to 3 Tbs Fresh Parsley (finely chopped)
4 to 5 scallions (chopped, to include the white bits)
1 to 2 tsp Salt (or to taste)
about 2 tsp Fresh Ground Pepper (or to taste)
1/3 c Mayo (may need a little more or a little less depending on the consistency of the dressing)
1/2 c Plain Greek yogurt
6 to 8 strips of bacon

Start by boiling your cleaned potatoes until they are cooked through but still firm about 20 to 30 min., drain and let them cool a bit. Start frying the bacon in about inch long pieces for larger bacon bits, trimming some of the excess fat off. Once the bacon is done, drain the bits in a paper towel and let cool. For the dressing, combine the: yogurt, mayo, salt and pepper, whisk together. Add the scallions, dill and parsley to the dressing whisking gently and set dressing aside. Cube the potatoes in small bite size pieces leaving the skins on. Place the cubed potatoes in a bowl and let cool for a few minutes more. Take the dressing and add 3/4 of the bacon bits to the dressing, whisking it together gently. Keep the remainder of the bacon for garnish at the end. Combine the dressing with the potatoes stirring gently so the potatoes don't break up too much. Top off potato salad with the rest of the bacon bits and some extra chopped dill and parsley to give it color.





Needles to say, the day of the potluck this potato salad was a big hit, with only one small scoop full left at the end. My cooking ego was happy. Maybe I will even bring my chorizo breakfast dish one morning for these people...maybe. ;-)

Enjoy the foods of your labor...cook on my friends.

(how's that for a tag line...anything working for you guys yet??? Comments appreciated. :-) )

BACON!!! Bacon Bacon Bacon!

Here it goes...my first blog entry. This blog is about me...my cooking...and how FoodNetwork inspires me to be the chef-leberty that I am (in my mind). My TV is on the channel, not quite 24/7, but its close. I watch my favorite shows and then get a wild hair to make the thing that is on (which means a trip to Trader Joes and who doesn't love that) or trying to make something inspired by said show in less than 30 minutes...which is not possible in a kitchen the size of a small walkin closet. So basically, this is a blog about the common cook striving for FoodNetwork greatness in not so perfect kitchen surroundings...did I mention I can just barely fit one cookie sheet in my oven.

Well, for this weeks inspiration...I tuned into "The Best Thing I Ever Ate...With Bacon". Since you do not know me yet, you should know I LOVE bacon. BACON!!! It makes me smile just typing out the word. The smell of bacon on the weekends wafting through my apartment is better than any room freshener. Anywho, this show featured bacon and what it could do for food when added in unique ways, like an onion marmalade for a burger filled with BACON. So I decided that I too should use bacon as more than just a side and was inspired to create a

Candied Pecan and Bacon Topping

recipe to put over my french toast bake.

Candied Pecan and Bacon Topping

For printable recipe, click here
2 cups chopped pecans
6 strips of bacon, be sure to cut off extra fat
about a cup of brown sugar
about 2 Tbls salted butter

Using your kitchen shears, cut up the 6 strips of bacon into about half inch chunks into a cast iron skillet on medium heat. Get the bacon crispy, but don't burn it (trust me this is not an easy task when you are doing 5 things at once). Put in a paper plate with paper towel to absorb grease. Pour excess grease from the skillet into your bacon grease container (yes...save your bacon grease for strategic cooking purposes, I didn't know bacon grease WASN'T suppose to be in vegetables until I was 15) but be sure that you have enough grease left in the pain that it just coats the skillet and it looks shiny, but not soaked. Put the pecans in the skillet and brown them over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Once the pecans get shiny and are starting to brown slightly, throw the butter in the skillet with the pecans. When the butter has melted, stir in the brown sugar. Last, throw the bacon back in the skillet and saute for a few minutes more. The sugar should stay a bit granulated. Turn off the heat and let set. Losen the mixture with a wooden spatula and put over french toast bake or what ever else you would like...vanilla ice cream would be a good option for this topping.


These are the pictures of the final outcome, can you see the bacon...I put it over the french toast bake when it was half done so the brown sugar could melt a bit to create a gooey goodie goodness on top.