‘Tis the season to call together your peeps for the annual holiday parties.  And, while your peeps most definitely know you rock it out in the kitchen, this year you can really wow them with this uber simple, totally amazing appetizer.  Crunchy kettle-cooked potato chips are topped with an herbed cream cheese, teensy slices of smoked salmon, and salty capers to create the easiest, most impressive, most undeniably amazing party h’ordeuvres ever.

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Eyeball Soup

I saw the idea for this in a “good things” section in Martha Stewart Living years ago. I always thought it was the coolest idea, even though I’m really not into the gross and creepy for Halloween. Maybe I figure, that as disgusting as “eyeball soup” may sound, you can really never go wrong with a killer tomato soup and fresh mozzarella.

This tomato soup is easy as a snap—almost as easy as Campbell’s traditional condensed tomato—but it has so much more flavor. It’s basically just three packaged things thrown together. I feel like Sandra Lee or something. But it’s a great soup, and anyone can make it. I love it.

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Sure, there are bacon-wrapped jalapeños everywhere these days. I mean, once Ree does them, the whole world knows. Right? But alas, I am bringing them to you here because, well, I like to use a whole half a slice of bacon in mine, okay? That’s different. Worlds apart. Okay. So, it’s not that different, but there is the sweet aspect.

Yes, you can add a sweet aspect to those bacon-wrapped jalapeños that will make your mouth smile with joy. The stars will shine and world peace will arrive. Okay, so maybe not on that world peace bit, but really, you should try it. Haven’t you ever wondered why so many restaurants serve their poppers with berry sauce? It’s not just to cut the heat. It’s because it’s durn good. Continue reading »

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Jenny Flake of Picky-Palate is no stranger to culinary success.  She’s won a multitude of noteable recipe contests and was twice featured on the Food Network’s Ultimate Recipe Showdown.  After years of careful study, recipe research, and practice, she has honed a remarkable ability to combine everyday ingredients in new, unique, and tasty ways.  Take, for instance, one of her most recent cookie concoctions.  Three-ingredient Fluffernutter that are so simple to make, you are left wondering, “why didn’t I think of that?”  

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This is my snack. It’s a buttered English muffin, and it will be consumed with a cup of hot tea. It is the best snack in the world. Whenever I have it, I’m reminded of the line in T. S. Eliot’s epic poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” in which it is written that “there will be time…for a hundred visions and revisions/before the taking of toast and tea.” I don’t mean to get existential on you on a Friday morning, but it’s true: This is a snack to think by. It is a humble pleasure, the kind of thing to make when you’re all by yourself and you’ve got something on your mind. A lot is said about the joy of cooking for other people, for the way that you can nourish bonds with a meal. But there is something to be said, too, for the very humble charms of a piece of crunchy bread spread with butter, eaten when you’re all by yourself. There is no better recipe for a little peace of mind. Especially when you’ve got a t-ball game with 20 three-year-old kids tomorrow morning.

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If there is one cookie most kids can agree on, it’s Oreo’s.  I suppose the same could be said for grown-up’s as well.  The classic cookie-and-cream flavor combination has found it’s way from cookie form into ice creams, candy bars, s’mores, rice krispies, and a hundred other recipes incarnations.  Chocolate cookie, vanilla creme.  An absolutely classic flavor.  Add to that the winning combination of green peppermint, and the subtle coolness of a cream cheese based cupcake, and this is one recipe everyone will love.

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I was once a grill girl at Hooper Country Store.  I stood behind the meat counter, tucked behind shelves of Tab and Diet Rite soda, canvas bags of farm supplies, and the other sorts of random items a person might need when living in a city called Hooper.  Twangy country music incessantly droned from a small metal boom box by the fryer.  Dirt covered cowmen in dirt covered worksuits would find their way to the back of the store, shout for me to come and make them a burger or two, then lumber their thick bodies around the tiny chairs of the waiting area.  It all sounds rather unpleasant now, but I rather loved the feel of the place back then.  It was quaint and comfortable, filled with the deep conversations of hard working men taking well-deserved breaks.  It was where I learned to love myself some mean country music.  And, it was where I learned to make the meanest burger this side of the Mississipi.

The burgers made by a Hooper Country Store grill girl weren’t fancy.  They didn’t have high culinary add-in’s, or the glorious melding of fresh flavors.  What they did have was meat.  And {as Summer Criddle told me while smashing a half pound of meat into the burger press one day, then dowsing  the hamburger with an obscene amount of seasoning salt} they were big and tasted good.

As it turns out, that’s the very sort of burger most of the men in Hooper liked.  And, it’s the kind my hubby prefers.  Two weeks ago, after saying goodbye to some dinner guests, I turned and sighed, “that was the best grilled burger I have ever made in my life,” I said of my Thai Infused Sloppy Joes.  John shrugged his shoulders and crinkled his freckled nose, “I don’t know,” he said, “I like my burgers plain.

So, on behalf of men everywhere this Father’s Day, here is everything you need to know about making one heck of a plain-old, good, and tasty burger.  Filthy overalls not required.

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