recipes

Ever since the delightful Miss Megan brought bacon jam to book club on Sunday, I have been literally unable to stop talking about it. I tell everyone I see. I am an evangelist. “Do you KNOW what I ate the other day?” I ask them, then pause dramatically before the big reveal. The pause is very important.

The problem with preaching the gospel of bacon jam is that the general public, thus far, has been less receptive than I had perhaps expected. Tom just kind of stared at me when I told him about it. My mom was all, “Bacon what?” And Sierra was ballsy enough to flat-out say it sounded revolting, and she is lucky we agree on every other topic under the sun (with the possible exception of Joseph Gordon Leavitt ) because frankly, that’s a dealbreaker, ladies.

Maybe the world at large just doesn’t share my particular enthusiasm for bacon, although I can’t imagine that is the case. Instead, I suspect the problem is that when you say “bacon jam,” (after the dramatic pause of course), people reflexively picture a jar of bright red Smuckers with some pork suspended in it.

THAT IS NOT WHAT BACON JAM IS.

There’s nothing gelatinous happening here. Honest. Instead, bacon jam is more like a tapenade–a spicy, salty, smoky, bacony delight that you spread on the vehicle of your choice along with (dramatic pause) guacamole, or peanut butter, or chocolate. Megan put it on a s’more. I tried it with some cheese dip. I am here to tell you, friends, that bacon jam just might be the dark-wash-skinny-jeans of the culinary world: it goes with everything.

World without end, amen.

(Recipe is here, at Homesick Texan. Go forth. Seriously.)

Okay, I think I mentioned on this blog awhile back that I was worried I didn’t like homemade soup. BOY WAS I WRONG. More accurately, I don’t like crap homemade soup that serves only as a vehicle for dunking grilled cheese sandwiches, but that problem is now solved because, ladies and gentlemen, I have found the only soup recipe you or I will ever need.

Summer’s Broccoli-Cheese Soup for the Panera-Deprived is nothing short of a work of art, creamy and vegetable-y and so delicious you will be positively licking the bowl. Or eating an entire pot yourself over the course of a weekend. Whatever.

The only real change I made was swapping out the half-and-half for 1% milk, which is what we had, and it worked just fine. I did, however, cube and toast an everything bagel for crouton purposes, and I can enthusiastically recommend that particular addition (the everything bagel: the best of all bagel worlds? Discuss).

Summer, you are a genius. Thanks so much.

Gakked from Deb, though I switched in a graham cracker crust and added a coconut topping to cover up the weird-looking parts. This was delicious, if I do say so myself, although even with a serious amount of refrigeration it was pretty runny and sticky when I cut it up. Anybody out there know how to keep pies pretty, even in the serving?

Abbey made coconut ice cream. Mari made margaritas. Lisa and Christy made the best fajitas of my whole life. Ladies, you continue to bowl me over with your general awesomeness. See you in a month.

I realized it had been awhile since I fell all over myself telling you how Ina is my favorite person in the world besides Taylor Hanson and Michelle Obama (now there is a dinner party I would like to be invited to), so last week I got the original Barefoot book out of the library and set to work. I don’t own this one, and having now spent some time with it I don’t know WHY, since it’s lovely and easy and all the things I love about Ina, and plus if I had my own copy I could be sure that all the crumbs in the binding were mine. 

It was my friend H’s birthday (also, PS, I got her a Twilight jigsaw puzzle for which she went so gangbusters it almost made up for the fact that I was so embarrassed about BUYING a Twilight jigsaw puzzle that when I went up to the checkout counter at Borders I got this awful case of verbal spew and was all, “It’s a Twilight jigsaw puzzle. It’s not for me. It’s for my friend. It’s her birthday. She really likes jigsaw puzzles. And Twilight. I mean. It’s not for me.”) and she asked for something on the lighter side, so I made a big green spinach salad and the cheddar corn chowder.

IT WAS REALLY GOOD CHOWDER OKAY. Rich but not at all the kind of thing that makes you feel gross afterward, and so flavorful and autumn-y and just–cheerful. Can food be cheerful? This food was. I divided the recipe in thirds, since the original makes chowder for twelve people, but honestly even if I had made the full amount it probably would have been gone by the next day. 

Dear Ina: I hope you make this for Jeffrey on his birthday, along with your coconut cake and a nice bottle of wine, and I hope you got him a Twilight puzzle too, because the kids are just crazy for that Robert Pattinson. Many happy returns to you both from us here at Kitchen Door.

Because apparently I am on crack I signed us up for a winter CSA, which means that from now until December we’ll have like ten pounds of pumpkins and squash and onions to eat our way through every week. I don’t really know why I thought this was such an awesome idea, since my boyfriend has never once in our entire relationship (or his entire life) said, “You know what would be awesome? If we could have some gourds for dinner.” No  matter. I’m determined to convert him, and lucky for me every magazine I’ve picked up lately has been chock-full of squashy goodness. A lot of the recipes tend to call for stuff I don’t have lying around, though, so I’ve had to get a little creative.

I made this pasta dish the other night–butternut squash roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper, then mixed with spicy Italian sausage, a little onion, some whole-wheat shells, and mozzarella cheese. I put the whole thing in a baking dish and sprinkled it with a mix of bread crumbs and parmesan, then stuck it under the broiler until it got all brown and crunchy. Tom had seconds. I’m just saying.