Explore. Cook. Eat.

My boyfriend Ben loves sweet potatoes. I swear he would eat them everyday if he could. While I don’t share Ben’s obsession I do think this is a nifty spud and I do enjoy having it on a regular basis. If you don’t think sweet potatoes are as versatile as a regular potato, you’re wrong. This recipe is a great example how you can have sweet potato for breakfast and make it with a southwester flare.

I’ve been making this recipe for years, and I originally got it from somewhere else, but darned if I remember where. I’m sure the recipe isn’t even exactly the same. This is a great example of my philosophy on cooking though. Recipes don’t have to be exact, make them your own. Try substituting different ingredients, spices, anything. Sweet potatoes are great with not only Latin flavors, but also Indian, and Italian blends too. So never limit yourself to exactly what the recipe says. But now back to the recipe:

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 2 sweet potatoes peeled and diced
• olive oil
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1/2 red onion diced
• about 1/2 lb breakfast sausage
• 4 eggs
• mixed shredded cheese to taste
• salt and pepper

Heat your skillet to medium-high heat. Add sausage and cook while crumbling sausage with spatula until done. Transfer sausage to bowl. Lower heat to medium. Put pan back on heat, add a little bit of olive oil (unless your sausage was really greasy) and make a single layer of potatoes across the bottom on the pan. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes. Its an important side note to know that the smaller you up your potatoes the quicker they’ll cook, but it is more important to cut them evenly so they’ll cook all at the same time. After about 5 minutes, mix potatoes and add onions, cumin, chili powder, salt, and peper. Cook until potatoes are soft to the touch.  Mix sausage back in and divide mixture between two plates.

Wipe out pan, and bring back to a medium low heat. Scramble eggs and add cheese just before done. Divide mixture between the two plates. Garnish with sour cream and enjoy something different for breakfast.

Sometimes I want to feel fancy in my own home. I can usually accomplish this by making almost any type of fish outside of tilapia or shrimp, or if I buy a really nice cut of steak to make at home. While I dream sometimes of being one of those fancy food bloggers that is constantly shaving truffles on their dishes or trying some exotic ingredient from their high priced specialty store, I am not one of them.

Ben and I are on a constant budget, and we buy almost all our meats from Costco, portion them and freeze them (or buy them frozen in the first place). I try to make it to the farmers’ market every week, not only for the fresh seasonal produce, but for the fact that it’s about 1/2 the price of the grocery store. Everything else is just bought at plain old Publix (the local grocery store here in Florida). The only time Ben and I can act snooty about our food purchases is when we bring green bags into the store instead of using plastic. Oh, and the only reason we do that is because it’s more convenient, not because we are on a crusade to save the planet.

I feel like I represent the regular cook. I’m on a budget, but that doesn’t mean that everything has to taste like cardboard, even if I can get the best ingredients.

On my birthday, Ben took me to one of the fanciest restaurants in town. I started to read reviews about what to get, and a bunch of them said get the mussels. So I was set on getting the mussels. However, since my birthday also falls on Valentine’s day we were not able to secure a dinner reservation and a late lunch had to do. Unfortunately, mussels were not on the lunch menu!

So, since then I have been craving a nice bowl of mussels with some crusty french bread to mop up the sauce. Mussels are one of the things that, if I serve at home, make me feel fancy and, on Saturday night, I wanted to be fancy damn it! So I used this recipe from Tyler Florence to make a dish of my own.

Here’ s what you’ll need

• 3 pounds mussels
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 leeks, white parts only, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/4 bunch fresh thyme
• 1 cup white wine
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

First Ben and I spent a half hour to clean and debeard the mussels. I guess being fancy takes some elbow grease. I think this is the most important step so don’t skip it. It helps get all the dirt and grit out of the mussels. A good soak will help too.

Next, you heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pot over medium-high heat. Saute the vegetables for about 5 minutes.

Toss in the mussels and mix everything together.

Add the white wine and cover the pot to let everything steam for maybe 10 minutes. It may take less time. You’ll know they’re done when the mussels are open. Add the rest of the butter, a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. Discard any mussels that don’t open during the cooking process, as they were dead before you cooked them.

This recipe is simple, but it’s fresh and easy. The best part is, mussels really aren’t that expensive. They just feel different from the everyday chicken.

Now sit down at the table with the rest of that bottle of wine, a loaf of crusty french bread, and enjoy being fancy, even if you are in your PJs.

What do you like to cook at home to make you feel fancy? Let me know in the comments below.

On Christmas Eve, our family had a big party. Food is buffet style, and usually has some polish inspired dishes. Christmas day will have the Italian fare with a formal sit down dinner, but on Christmas Eve it’s usually anything that can fit on a paper plate. Over the years we have pirogies in our family on this special night. Usually, they are just right out of the box frozen.

I had never had a homemade pirogi until last year when my family spent it first Christmas in 10 years up in Cleveland with the rest of the family that isn’t in Florida. Apart from being freezing and getting my first white Christmas, I had my first homemade pirogi! It came from west side market which is apparently a giant market of food! How awesome is that? Well, I unfortunately did not get to go on this outing as I was with another cousin while my parents and brother explored this place, but they met up with us later and brought fresh pirogies with them from the market.  These pirogies were so good. The filling was just right, and the dough was fantastic. I had never eaten such a good pirogi.

Let me stop here for a second and explain what a pirogi is for those of you scratching your heads right now wondering what the hell I’m talking about. A pirogi (pronounced pie-rouge-ee) is basically the polish ravioli. It is round pasta that is filled with many different things. I have heard of ones filled with mushrooms and a sauerkraut or cabbage. However the pirogi is typically found with some type of potato filling. This is the kind that is the nearest and dearest to my heart.

So this year for our Christmas eve celebration I decided to make homemade pirogies for everyone. While it is quite simple to make,  it is a bit time consuming. So grab your friend, husband, boyfriend, mother, kids, or day laborer and have them join in to make this a fun few hours of pirogi assembly.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Filling:

• 1.5lbs of potatoes peeled and chopped into same sized chunks
• about 1 cup Velveeta cheese (yes Velveeta trust me)
• Milk
• a pinch of garlic powder (onion powder would be good too but I had none)

Dough:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 egg
• 1 cup sour cream
• salt

Assembly

• Additional flour for rolling
• 1 egg beaten
• fork
• rolling pin
• round cookie cutter or cup
• cookie sheets

Start by getting those potatoes boiling in salted water. Boil for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are soft. You are making mashed cheesy potatoes. Drain, then transfer to a bowl. Add cheese (cut into small chunks so it’ll melt in the hot potato) milk and garlic powder and mash away. I like them really creamy. Add more cheese if you would like. The mixture needs to be yellow. You could do this the night before and put the mixture in the frig so it will be cool to work with when you are stuffing.

For the dough, mix all the ingredients together until thoroughly mixed and a ball has be formed. Let it sit in bowl for about 15-20 minutes with a wet towel over it. Now they are ready to assemble.

Pour some flour onto your rolling surface and your rolling pin. Grab about 1/3 of the dough and roll out to about 1/4 inch thickness. You don’t want it to be too too thin, but think a little thicker than ravioli. Now use your cookie cutter and cut the dough into rounds. You can reroll the leftover dough too so you won’t have to waste anything. Fill the rounds with a spoonful of potato mixture. Then brush one side with the egg and fold the dough over to close. Press shut with your fingers, and then use a fork to mash the end close.

Put finished pirogi on cookie sheets then freeze in freezer until frozen. You can then transfer them to bags and they can be kept in the freezer. I would guess for a good 3-6 months, but they have yet to make it that long. You will probably get about 3 dozen pirogies with this recipe.

After they are frozen you can cook them. The way my family likes them are like this: First boil them until the pirogies float. Then drain them and fry them up in a pan with a little oil or butter. Top them up with some onions that have been cooking in butter and some sour cream and enjoy the polish goodness!