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Valentine’s Day Recipes: Cookie Dough Truffles

I don’t want to alarm you, but are you aware that Valentine’s Day is upon us yet again?

If you’ve got a Valentine you’re looking to impress, might I suggest these sinfully rich chocolate-covered balls of cookie dough? They will scream your unending love and devotion with every bite and make this one of the most romantic and memorable Valentine’s Days you and your lovebird have ever had.

Or, you can just go with that Ziggy card you’ve got in the top drawer.  It’s your call.

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It’s Not the Super Bowl. It’s Chef Chiara! The Future of Food Network.

Five reasons why this kid is the real deal:

1.) Knows to cross from table to stove without breaking face from camera.  Not an easy talent to foster.
2.) Just like every chef host currently employed at Food Network, starts every sentence of instruction with the maddeningly condescending, “What you wanna do is…”
3.) Recognizes when it’s okay to give herself some major kitchen props (“My chopping skills are REALLY good!”).
4.) Recruits her best fans to be her audience (Note how Betsy Wetsy is so riveted by the proceedings, she doesn’t even notice the full baba staring her in the face).
5.) Already has her own catch phrase – “Tune in too-mah-woh!”

It’s true that little Chef Chiara might need to work on withholding reaction when her producer instructs her to throw to commercial, but this is a minor detail sure to worked out before her first weekend marathon.  Enjoy the birth of a future superstar.  And remember what website gave her her first big break!

Watch Chef Chiara’s Debut Performance

Superbowl Sunday Food: Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms

Can a man stand tall and proud when he’s hunching over to pull out baked stuffed mushrooms for him and his boyfriend to enjoy on a Sunday night while waiting to watch the one-hour premiere of Kirstie Alley’s Big Life? (I’ll leave out references to the powder blue oven mitt I got for Christmas). Two days later, I still am unsure of my answer to that question and would like to pass until the next round, Wink. I will say, however that there was not one bit of stuffed shroom left anywhere in my home within twenty minutes of turning down the oven and presenting them to a most-surprised and delighted MG. One might argue that it’s nearly impossible for anything to taste bad when slathered in a mixture of heated cream cheese, bacon, parmesan and Worcestershire sauce, but I would like to think that my ever-mounting kitchen skills had something to do with these coming out as awesome as they did.

I’m still not the biggest fan of the shroom, but the zesty aroma will make them hard to refuse. A definite must-bring to any pot-luck party. Just make sure your host has available oven space to cook them just before putting them out. (Geez, I sound like Martha Stewart! I’m tossing that powder blue oven mitt the minute I get home!)
Recipe for Bacon Stuffed Mushrooms

Superbowl Sunday Food: Prosciutto Pepper Puffs

Here’s a simple twist on the recipe for crab puffs I posted a while back to accomodate those heathens who dislike crab. There were more of them out there then I originally realized – my mother and father being two of them – so out with the crustacea and in with a hot and zesty one-two punch of prosciutto and serrano pepper that’ll keep these babies flying into your mouth faster than you can keep count. And being as light and mouth-watering as they are, you won’t want to keep count.

Recipe for Prosciutto Pepper Puffs

Superbowl Sunday Food: Jalapeno Popper Mac and Cheese

Once you start showing off what you’ve managed to learn to make in the kitchen (say, on a blog for example), you have to take a certain level of responsiblity when friends and family start making certain food assumptions about what you’ll prepare for them when you invite them over. I became accutely aware of that fact earlier this week when my friend Travis asked what I was going to be serving at my weekly LOST viewing party and dinner:

Travis: “What are you making tonight, Gary?”
Me: “I’m making this amazing jalapeno popper mac and cheese.”
Travis:  “Cool… what else?”
Me:  “What do you mean what else?”
Travis:  “I mean… what else are you making to go with it?  And what, no dessert?”

I guess my days of gliding by with spaghetti and meatballs served on plastic plates I stole from my college dining commons are over, but I’ll happily leave that era in my past. MG often reminds me of my typical day’s food rundown from our first year or so of dating. I don’t recall, but apparently I lived exclusively on Hot Pockets, McDonalds and Tombstone frozen pizzas. I’m guessing MG is happy I’ve left those days behind as well.

On to the mad mac and cheese recipe I found over at Let’s Cook.

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Superbowl Sunday Food: Three (or Four) Cheese Mac and Cheese with Herbs

There’s some serious cheese going on here, folks.  You need to be warned… I mean truly warned.  Take a good look at the photo below and ask yourself, “Do I have the fortitude to take on this recipe?”  All of the cheese in the photo below was grated  and melted into a mere 12 ounces of penne rigate to create the finished product.  You’ve been told.

And it doesn’t stop there.  There’s also butter!  There’s also bacon!  There’s also the fat from the bacon! There’s also white flour.  There’s also fresh sage, parsley, oregano and rosemary.  Some of that counts as vegetables, right?

Am I leaving anything out.  Oh yeah!  I accidentally doubled the amount of butter required by the recipe.  Oops!  I swear, it was unintentional.  And guess what, it totally didn’t ruin the meal!  Who’d have thought it?

I started preparing this at about 8:00 in the evening.  I started eating it at about 9.  By about 10, I was speaking in tongues and levitating three feet off the floor

The recipe can be found at StephenCooks.com, so send your thank you cards and/or the pants you are about to no longer be able to fit into his direction, not mine.  I didn’t come up with this.  I merely used it on a lonely Wednesday night to fill a hole in my heart.  Cheese is really the best way to overcome such things, don’t you think?

So take a read below for how to get ‘er done, and then head to the store for the ingredients you’re missing, because if you have this much cheese just sitting around your house already, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be spending your time reading blog posts.

Recipe for Super Bowl Style Mac and Cheese

Superbowl Sunday Food: Zesty Italian BBQ Meatballs

Sticking around all afternoon while the aroma of phenomenally good Italian Barbeque Meatballs slowly creeps its way through your apartment in an invisible flavor fog is utter self-torture.

Damn good meatballs though.

The potatoes were a last-minute addition.  I discovered I had one russet in my cabinet, so I diced it up, coated it with olive oil and a little dry onion soup mix and baked covered at 350 for about 45 minutes.  The tanginess provided a nice contrast to the hickory sweetness of the meatballs, and it wasn’t long before MG and I had everything on our plates mixed together in two giantic savory smokey food mountains.

And of course, you can’t serve a meal like this without a healthy slice of fresh French bread to cover the soppin’ duties at the end.  Barbecue-flavored butter!  There’s nothing better.

Recipe for Italian BBQ Meatballs

Superbowl Sunday Food: Baked Potato Skins

The King of Comfort Foods! Here’s how to make potato skins that put last year’s Super Bowl snacks to shame.

There’s a secret about how to make potato wedges no one ever tells you. Yes, cheese, sour cream, bacon and green onions don’t hurt, but the real secret to wham-bam, kick you in the face potato skins isn’t what you put in them… it’s what you put on them

Recipe for Super Bowl Potato Skins