Piggy Candy Bar

Guido, posing with our Applewood smoked bacon + Alder wood smoked salt + deep milk chocolate deliciousnessity.

Hi- this is the Mo's Bacon Bar. An 'Exotic' Candy Bar from Vosges Haut Chocolat. Yeah, you read that right. Bacon's in there.

It was salty, chocolate with specks of crunch that were smokey bits o'piggy.

We like piggy!!

I have been wanting one for about a year now, and refused to pay the $25 shipping charge from the Vosges warehouse to me in Burnin' Hot, FLA. Stumbled upon them at Fresh Market and due to it being hot here- we couldn't wait to get home and had to crack into it in the car. I liked it very much. I think it would go fantastic with wine. But then, I'm not a winer. I do bad things like throw ice cubes and V-8 Splash in my red wine, and add fresh fruit to my white wine- so, look away if you see me with onna these and a stem glass, because it's my piggy bar and I'll have it anyway I want it!!

Polenta Makes us Snicker with Glee

Polenta is one of those things that I can either love or loathe. I guess I really just don't love cleaning up afterward but that holds true for most of what I cook!

I made polenta the other night, and dumped it into tupperware thinking I would warm it up
nother night for my Guido (he's all about comfort food)
Then... I remembered Polenta Fries!

Take cold, leftover polenta and slice into fry shapes.
Toss in a small, blue, glass bowl (bowl must be blue, trust me) full of raw corn meal, to help it get crispy on the outside.
Prep cookie sheet with parchment, spritz with oil, lay your polenta fries in a nice row.
Bake at 400* Speedbake/Convection for 11 minutes per side, turning once and hit it with a few grinds of sea salt once you turn it. Wait around until they are brown, it's worth it.




Polenta (in my mind) is just Italian Grits.

For my Polenta I used 2.5 c organic chicken broth, 1/3 c half and half (I only had vanilla soy milk so I had to use the cow!) and 1 c fine ground cornmeal (it was gifted to me, so I decided to see if it would make good polenta!) - I brought the broth to a simmer, stirred in the polenta and prayed, added the half-n-half, stirred like a fool, s& p (lots of p!) and tasted- BLAHand (bland)
More pepper, more stirring and then I diced up a leftover hunk of mozz (from when I made the eggplant parm!) and THEN I added some butter.

If you want to do this all the same night, I'm willing to bet it's better if you let your polenta get cold in a thin layer- like maybe spread it out on a 11x17 or something... You'll get more 'fry' looking pieces.

Guido ate his with Heinz (gag) - I just had mine plain.




Wait! No I didn't... I also made Hoagies, and topped mine with leftova chimmichurri sauce- so I ended up dragging the fries through that.

Obaby.

So- the Hoagie is a beautiful, fanciful creature that some people call a 'sub'. I am not one of those people. Relax, I only ate 1/2 of it. Yea, it was a biggunn! Peeking out from the roll is yellow Florida tomato (so nice) and some turkey, some pastrami, and my chimmichurri (LOVE IT)
Note: the extra cheddar balanced on the rim at 10:45 is for my dogs. It's a good way to get them off my back when I'm tryin to eat while watching t.v.

Hoagie = Good roll, cold cuts, s&p, oil & vinegar, produce of your liking, cheese, banana peppers & love. I like a tiny schmear of mayo & spicy brown on the roll. I do not believe in excessive lettuce, it just falls out and makes crazy stains on your shirt, shoes, tie, whatever...

Ima lousy blogger

Seriously, my attentiveness to this blog is lackluster. Ok, it stinks. However I am trying to do better. I have been sick for the first time in FOREVER and have only been stuffing tissues up my nose... Nothing else is getting stuffed, believe me.

Tonight I was tired of chicken soup (and I had leftover dough because I was too sicky to make the Easter Breads that I am famous for) so I forced Guido to help me fashion some funky sauce-less pizza boards. Worked fine, with some large slices of Boar's Head Pepperoni.
The sweet thing about my husband is that he REALLY TRIES. He has no background in the kitchen except as an eager participant in the end result. He was a jock in High School and knows only that he should cook on HIGH with BUTTER- and he fries eggs really good. But he did great and I love him for it.
This pizza-board was drizzled with extra v olive earl, shredded mozz, grated krap err kraft parm and lots of spices that I had him grind in his manly man-hands- he didn't like that part.