Chicken Pot Pie

As you probably know by now I'm not usually the one to initiate cooking a meat based meal.  But I really wanted some organic chicken pot pie! It was so worth it! I love the creaminess of chicken pot pie but try to only have it once or twice a year.

Our recipe is based off of a recipe from All Recipes but we changed a bunch of things to make it even better.

Roasted Herbed Porchetta

This roasted porchetta is based off of a number of different recipes online for roasted porchetta.  We followed the cooking directions that appeared most frequently.  But the mix of flavors are all our own.

We had some leftover Roasted Carrot Soup so we used that an a sauce to go under the meat.  But the porchetta is so good that you can really eat it with any side you want to make.  

Asian Inspired Wontons

On the weekend Steve gets to pick the main themes for our dinners.  He decided to make wontons. We made some with pork and cream cheese and others with carrot, bok choy, and green onions.  It was so nice to have a variety.

At most asian restaurants the wontons are fried but we wanted to go the healthier route of baking them and they turned out just as crispy.  You can put really whatever you want in wanton wrappers and we came up with a meat version and a veggie version.

Holiday Orange Duck

Whenever the holidays approach there is always the question of what to make.  We decided to trying out a dish early.  We've made duck before but only the breasts.  This dish uses a whole duck which weighs about 4 to 5 pounds.  The duck we bought had a packet of Orange Sauce but we made our own sauce.  Ducks are usually frozen when you buy them so make sure to give yourself enough time to defrost it.

Pork Tenderloin Roulade

The meal Steve picked to have for his birthday dinner was a pork tenderloin dish that my dad made for us the first time a few years ago. Steve loves it so much because it uses two types of pork: the tenderloin and bacon. If you don't like bacon or don't want to eat it you can easily pull it off the outside and enjoy the yummy pork in the middle.

The tenderloin is cut in half and stuffed with a tart berry jelly and cashews. It's folded back together and wrapped in bacon.  It cooks on the grill or in the oven for about an hour.

Breakfast Pizza with Eggs

Sometimes you need to try something new to discover something great. So today we decided to have pizza for breakfast and rather than the traditional pizza toppings  we used breakfast foods.

Breakfast Pizza

Pizza dough (store bought or homemade, enough for one or two pizzas)
4 slices of bacon
2 sausage patties (any type)
3 or 4 eggs per pizza
1/2 cup of cheddar cheese
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Spaetzle with Chicken and Peas

We were first introduced to spaetzle at Nudel in Lenox, MA. We used bacon in our dish as a special treat, but you can easily leave it out and just use EVOO to saute the onions.

Healthy Man Food: Wings and Fries

Man Post: Take me Out to the Ballpark:
SO I know that it is border line impossible to make both of these foods healthy so really all we have done is make them HEALTHIER than they were before:

Shepherds Pie

College introduced me to many things and one of those things is shepherds pie.  My best friend from college, Lila, would make it with her family when she was growing up in Maine where they have long cold winters.  She made it for me freshman year and it became a regular when we were all cooking together.  I have a great memory of making it with Lila, her boyfriend Ben, and Steve when we all went skiing in the Catskills over a spring break.  It was delicious to begin with and having the four of us make it together added the extra love it needed.  

Asian Stir-fry

When Steve and I lived in DC we would get take out from a really good Chinese place about once a month.  When I was living in Albuquerque I didn't have Chinese at all. I'm sure there were some good Chinese restaurants but I didn't have any inclination to find them.  Since it had been a while since we had Chinese food we decided to make an Asian stir-fry.  After we settled on this dish the next choice to be made was what would we put in it.  I didn't want meat but Steve did.  I figured I would make us the same meal with different sources of protein.  I didn't want to make two separate dishes so I made the veggies with sauce all together.  I cooked the chicken Steve wanted in another sauce pan and then added some of the veggie mixture and added some tofu to the first pan.  It turned out to be a great meal and not any harder than if it had been only one dish.  It's so nice finding dishes that make both of us happy!

Blueberry BBQ Sauce and Pork Chops

Over the weekend Steve and I made a dish inspired by the name of the blog.  We had a bunch of smaller, pretty bitter blueberries that we made into a BBQ sauce and then used some pork chops from the freezer.  We've made many homemade BBQ sauces over the years so we based this one off of our previous experiences. 

Tuna Quinoa

One of my favorite recipes is Tuna Quinoa. Christi first introduced it to me when I was living in Albuquerque.  I believe she got it from a weight lifting magazine.  It's a great dish as an entree, a side dish, or the perfect protein filled lunch.  I can't wait to create more exciting dishes with our new 4 pound bag of quinoa!

Homemade Pizza: One with Peaches, One with Sweet Coppa

Homemade pizza was on the menu for today! I made the pizza dough in the bread machine but that can easily be done by hand or by buying a pre-made dough from the grocery store (I suggest using an uncooked dough if you are getting one from the store).

Buffalo Bacon Cheese Burger & Salad

Yesterday morning I realized it had been almost a year since I had a burger of any kind (minus veggie burgers). Steve and I found some buffalo (aka bison) when we were at Costco so we decided to spoil ourselves.  We heated up the grill, made the burgers and got the bacon out of the fridge.  While Steve was grilling the meat I threw together a spinach salad with cucumber, orange pepper, cherry tomatoes, sliced almonds, and a homemade balsamic vinaigrette.  We had blackberry balsamic vinegar in the pantry which added a fruity flavor which I usually get from adding dried fruit like cranberries or golden raisins.  The sweet freshness of the salad was the perfect compliment to the meatiness of the burger.