Bacon & Egg Bread Pudding

In my travels through the ether a few days ago, I came across Bacon & Egg Bread Pudding at Kat's blog, A Good Appetite. It looked too good not to make.

-- Most people give a warning when they have a picture-heavy post, which I guess this is (at least by my blogging standards). Most of the time, those posts are laden with beautiful photographs of exotic places and the food they ate while visiting whichever exotic locale they were lucky enough to visit. However, in my case, it just means I took a lot of pictures, and they didn't all completely suck. --

Chopped bread cubes and shredded cheddar, eggs and milk with salt & pepper:














Yes, I weigh my cheese. What, you don't?

Frying bacon:















MIL's bedroom is going to smell like bacon for a week. Something about the airflow in my house doesn't work right, the poor woman's room retains everything. But hey, at least it's bacon, and not tripe.

Bread mixed with cheese, soaking in aforementioned eggs and milk:















I forgot to get a picture with the bacon mixed in, and extra cheese sprinkled on top. So just imagine the above picture with...like...bacon mixed in...and...more cheese sprinkled on top...shut up.

Final product:















Bonus picture, bacon fat:















Mmm...bacon fat...I see home-fried potatoes in my future.

Thanks for the recipe, Kat! It completely satisfied my breakfast-for-dinner craving.

Baked Zucchini Potato Frittata

This dish was created out of the need to use one lonely zucchini in my veggie drawer, and some potatoes hiding in a cool, dark place.



















1 zucchini, shredded, squeezed as dry as possible
1 russet potato, shredded
1/2 - 1 c shredded cheddar cheese
2 green onions, sliced fine
3 slices bacon, chopped
4 eggs, beaten
salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc.

Mix everything together. Season. I used salt, pepper, garlic powder, some Cavender's, and some Vegeta. Dump in a casserole dish, and bake at 375 until set, somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes, I wasn't keeping track.

You could replace the green onion with regular onion, the bacon with ham, spice it differently (maybe curry or smoked paprika), add fresh herbs, etc.

Russian Tea Cookies

I found a recipe for Russian Tea Cookies over at Foodista the other day, and they reminded me of the "snowballs" we'd have around Christmas every year when I was growing up.




















I had everything except the pecans...but I did have sliced almonds, left over from a disastrous chicken recipe that shall not be talked about.

















So, in an effort to block that horrific poultry concoction from my brain, I headed back to the kitchen, bound and determined to make something tasty.

And I did. Thanks, Foodista!

Foodbuzz Publisher Community Launches

Hey everyone - did you hear about the official launch of the Foodbuzz Publisher Community? They had 1100 publishers already, and growing. Foodbuzz is like Facebook for food bloggers (as a matter of fact, they have a group on Facebook, find it here). Check out their press release:

LAUNCH OF GLOBAL FOODBUZZ BLOGGER COMMUNITY

LEVERAGES REAL-PEOPLE, REAL-TIME POWER OF FOOD PUBLISHING

San Francisco – October 13, 2008: Foodbuzz, Inc., officially inaugurates its food blogger community with more than 1,000 blog partners, a global food blogging event and an online platform that captures the real-people, real-time power of food publishing in every corner of the world. At launch, the Foodbuzz community ranks as one of the top-10 Internet destinations for food and dining (Quantcast), with bloggers based in 45 countries and 863 cities serving up daily food content.

“Food bloggers are at the forefront of reality publishing and the dramatic growth of new media has redefined how food enthusiasts access tasty content,” said Doug Collister, Executive Vice President of Foodbuzz, Inc. “Food bloggers are the new breed of local food experts and at any minute of the day, Foodbuzz is there to help capture the immediacy of their hands-on experiences, be it a memorable restaurant meal, a trip to the farmers market, or a special home-cooked meal.”

Foodbuzz is the only online community with content created exclusively by food bloggers and rated by foodies. The site offers more than 20,000 pieces of new food and dining content weekly, including recipes, photos, blog posts, videos and restaurant reviews. Members decide the “tastiness” of each piece of content by voting and “buzz” the most popular posts to the top of the daily menu of submissions. Foodbuzz currently logs over 13 million monthly page views and over three million monthly unique visitors.

“Our goal is to be the number-one online source of quality food and dining content by promoting the talent, enthusiasm and knowledge of food bloggers around the globe,” said Ben Dehan, founder and CEO of Foodbuzz, Inc.

The Foodbuzz blogger community is growing at a rate of 40 percent per month driven by strong growth in existing partner blogs and the addition of over 100 new blogs per month. “The Foodbuzz.com Web site is like the stock of a great soup. The Web site provides the base or backbone for bloggers to interact as a community, contribute content, and have that content buzzed by their peers,” said Mr. Dehan.

Global Blogging Event

Demonstrating the talent and scope of the Foodbuzz community, 24 Meals, 24 Hours, 24 Blogs offered online food enthusiasts an international, virtual street festival of food and diversity. The new feature showcased blog posts from 24 Foodbuzz partner bloggers chronicling events occurring around the globe during a 24 hour period and included:

• Mid-Autumn Festival Banquest (New York, NY)
• The "Found on Foodbuzz" 24-Item Tasting Menu (San Francisco, CA)
• Aussie BBQ Bonanza – Celebrating Diversity (Sydney, Australia)
• The Four Corners of Carolina BBQ Road Trip (Charleston, SC)
• Criminal Tastes – An Illegal Supper (Crested Butte, CO)
• From Matambre to Empanadas: An Argentine Dinner (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
• A Sweet Trompe l’oeil (Seattle, WA)

“24 Meals, 24 Hours, 24 Blogs” captures the quality and unique local perspective of our food bloggers and shared it with the world,” said Ryan Stern, Director of the Foodbuzz Publisher Community. “It illustrates exactly what the future of food publishing is all about – real food, experienced by real people, shared real-time.”

About Foodbuzz, Inc.

Based in San Francisco, Foodbuzz, Inc., launched its beta Web site, foodbuzz.com, in 2007. In less than a year, Fooduzz.com and its community of over 1,000 exclusive partner food blogs have grown into an extended online property that reaches more than three million users.

Potato and Kipper Gratin

Yup. I said kippers.

I had never had them before today. I bought a tin a couple weeks back, for reasons that completely escape me. Perhaps there were no reasons. I was completely prepared to hate this dish. MIL said she wasn't even going to try it.


















I followed the recipe from Epicurious (Gourmet, January 1995) almost exactly, except I used half the called-for amount of capers, and less onion.

Basically, you slice a russet potato very thin, lay half of the slices in a dish, sprinkle with capers and chopped onion, scatter your bits o' kipper, then layer on the rest of the potato. Salt and pepper, then a cup of heavy cream, and bake at 450 for 30 minutes. The original recipe said 20 minutes, but my potatoes weren't done, and there wasn't that happy crustiness until 30 minutes.

This dish was so good. I'm now thoroughly convinced that anything with potatoes and cream in it is delicious, even if the other ingredients are potentially nasty. It was rich and creamy (duh), with a smokiness from the fish, and only a very slight tang from the capers (I was expecting much more tang, and I'm glad my expectations were not met).

I'm thinking that this would make a good brunch dish, with a salad dressed with something vinegary, to cut the creaminess. But we ate it right out of the dish, standing at the kitchen counter.

Kitchen Keepsakes & more Kitchen Keepsakes

Courtesy of MIL, I now have access to Kitchen Keepsakes & more Kitchen Keepsakes, in a single spiral-bound edition, originally printed in 1983. I know, aren't you jealous?

How about Quick Stuffed Mushrooms? Jimmy Dean sausage stuffed into mushroom caps and baked.

Or Hot Nacho Dip?

1 lb ground beef
1 lb chorizo sausage
1 onion, chopped
1 or 2 8-oz cans refried beans
12 oz pkg Monterey Jack or Cheddar cheese, grated
1 8-oz jar taco sauce
1 medium avocado, chopped
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 2.5-oz can ripe olives, chopped
1/2 c sour cream
tortilla chips

Brown meat, add onion and cook until onion is transparent. Drain off fat. Spread the refried beans in a 3 quart casserole. Top with meat mixture. Cover with cheese. Pour taco sauce over cheese. (At this point it can be covered and chilled.) Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes. Garnish with chopped avocado, tomato, olives and sour cream. Serve hot with tortilla chips.

You know, that actually sounds really good.

Or, in the Kids Food section, The Cookbook Kids' Snack:

bread
Cool Whip
slices of processed American cheese

Spread a slice of bread generously with Cool Whip. Top with 1 1/2 slices of cheese.

Umm...that sounds absolutely horendous. But I'm sure a 5-year-old would love it.

Flaming Spinach Salad

from Celebrity All-Occasion Cooking...

Flaming Spinach Salad

4 c spinach torn into bite-size pieces
1/4 c sliced celery
4 T sliced green onions
4 slices bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces
2 T vinegar
2 T packed brown sugar
1/4 t salt
1/8 t tarragon leaves
pinch of pepper
2 T brandy

Place spinach, celery and onions in serving dish. Fry bacon until crisp, drain on paper towel and reserve. Remove all but 1 T bacon fat from skillet. Stir brown sugar, vinegar, salt, tarragon and pepper into fat in skillet. Heat just to boiling, stir in bacon. Heat until bacon is hot, pour on spinach, celery and onions.

Heat brandy just until warm, ignite and pour on salad. Toss and serve immediately.

I'm all for a warm bacon dressing on spinach...but lighting it on fire? WTF?