Cooking in Columbus: Apple-Stuffed Pork Loin et al.

Hello, Food Fans! It's been a while for many things, as they relate to this blog, chief among them being a meal post. Last night, Brianne and I ventured to a local Meijer and amidst a growing sense of hunger bought a slew of ingredients which will eventually find a place here. For dinner, and in under an hour and a half, we pulled together a meal which stuffed ourselves with ingredients costing in total no more than $15. On the menu: apple-stuffed pork loin with toasted white rice, seasoned kale with bacon, and angel food cake with strawberry-rhubarb compote.

Autumn Apples and Foodie Fun on the Farm

Last Sunday, the composite aroma from light dustings of cinnamon mingling with warm, buttery caramel and natural sugars from the interplay of cooked down Melrose, Rome, and Suncrisp apples filled my kitchen as I took out my first attempt at tarte tain out of the oven. A few weeks prior, in the midst of midterms, I joined some of my anthro friends at Lynd Fruit Farm (Pataskala, OH) to pick apples, get through a superhero-themed maize maze, and select a pumpkin for last Saturday's pumpkin carving party hosted by Erin and Tim. (Unfortunately, the original pumpkin I picked didn't make it to the party.) With about 12 pounds of apples, a few more than I knew what to do with, I settled on trying my hand at creating my own rendition of the aforementioned "accidental" [1,2] dessert for Bluescreek Farm Meat's ox roast and potluck on their Marysville farm.

Textural Tastes in Bacon, Apple, and Brie

For the past week or two, I have been especially craving bacon (in actuality, when is this never the case?). And with an apple I still had sitting around from Bloomington, and leftover brie and puff pastry from last week's Paving the Way dinner, I finally got around to mixing all the textural tastes of bacon, apple, and brie in a tartlet form on two days ago.

A Five-Course Dinner for 16 for Less than $5 Per Person: Paving the Way Ambassador Dinner

Happy National Cherries Jubilee Day! And happy second day of the fall season! Unfortunately, I don't have a cherries jubilee recipe for you today (though that would be an appropriate dessert for this cooler fall weather today), but I do have a meal you can prepare for less than $5 per person (given a sizable group). This past Tuesday, I cooked a five-course dinner for our office's pre-orientation program staff, the dinner of which was gastronomically themed "fall flavours and the last bit of summer." On the menu: TAB (turkey, apple, and brie) tartlet, Italian-marinated chicken with bow tie pasta, roasted vegetable salad, s'more brownies, and lemon-nectarine granita with lemon and berry garnish.

School Is Most Certainly in Session

Greetings, dear Reader! As you may have recognised, the start of the academic year has arrived and gone, bringing out the anxiety and excitement of a new year of possibilities, as well as the expected lack of time to take a break and cook. In the midst of these seemingly long time away from the blogosphere, it's surprising to realise that my last post was only three weeks ago (though I assure you I feel like I haven't sat down to write in at least a month). As can also be expected, the new year also brought about many food gatherings which resulted in me not necessarily needing to cook. To bring you all up to speed--because I have an even more exciting post in the works--I wanted to share some photos and short stories that have been filed away on my computer for far too long. ps/ The above photo is the salted caramel bacon brownie variation of the salted caramel brownie I made in late August.