Pretzel Topped Tuna Casserole

It’s week three of vintage month and it’s about time I made a casserole. Tuna Casserole has alway been a weird dish, I mean hot tuna? You could not have made me eat this when I was younger, but the first time I tried tuna casserole I was shocked at how good it was! For a dish that has been reduced to pre-made mixes in the grocery store, tuna casserole can impress when made from scratch. It’s surprisingly easy to make! I used pretzels to top mine because I always have to be a little different. Go ahead and make this easy to prepare meal, it’s sort of healthy!

• 2 cans of premium Tuna
• 1/2 cup of Frozen Peas
• 2 cups of Egg Noodles
• 1 1/2 cups Milk
• 2 cups Chicken Broth
• 1 Small Yellow Onion diced
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 3 tablespoons Flour
• 8 Large Pretzels coarsely crushed
• 1/4 cup Parmesan finely grated
• Salt and Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400°.
2. In a large sauce pan heat the olive oil and onion over medium high heat. Stirring on occasion until slightly colored. Add the flour and stir. Cook until the flour coating on the onion turns slightly brown. Some will have stuck to the bottom of the pan that’s okay. 
3. Deglaze the pan by adding the milk and chicken broth. Stir and bring to a boil.
4. While you’re waiting for the mixture to come to a boil start making the topping. Crush the pretzels with your fingers into a small bowl. Stir in the grated parmesan.
5. Once the mixture has come to a boil add the tuna, peas, noodles, salt and pepper.
6. Cook for about 7 minutes or until the noodles become soft.
7. Scoop the noodles and stuff into the baking vessel of your choice. I chose to use ramekins cause it adds a bit of classy, and this way you don’t end up eating the whole pan by yourself. Top with the pretzel parm mix and bake until the cheese has melted. I garnished mine with some pea shoots!
8. Enjoy!

Photos by Katy Weaver

Classy Joes (Sloppy Joes)

If you’re a regular visitor of this blog you know that I tend to make recipes that are a little more on the creative side. This has never been and never will be a Pinterest baking blog filled with quinoa and Oreo filled recipes. Instead of appealing to the masses I would rather move the culinary arts forward and present my reimagining of a school cafeteria staple, the Classy Joe. Sure the Classy Joe seems like a twisted pipe dream of a hairy lunch lady with aspirations of getting a Michelin Star.

Fun fact! When fried purple potatoes turn brown!

Gettin’ saucy!

• Challah Bread cubed 2×2 in
• 1/2 lbs Tri Tip Steak
• 1/2 cup Onion minced
• 1/2 cup Green Bell Pepper minced
• 1 Egg
• 1/3 cup Milk

Sauce

• 1/2 cup Ketchup
• 2 teaspoons Mustard Seed ground
• 2 tablespoons Worcester Sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
• 1 teaspoon Garlic Salt
• 2 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Brown Sugar

1. Mix all the sauce ingredients together in a small bowl. 
2. Be sure all the prep work gets done, like cutting the bread and mincing the vegetables, to ensure the dish gets created properly.
3. Make a egg and milk bath in a shallow small bowl. 
4. Cook the steak over medium high heat, one minute on the first side then one minute on the other side. Or just cook the steak to your liking.
5. Coat the bread cubes in the egg bath then sort of press the vegetables into the moist cube. Cook in a skillet over medium heat until goldenish brown (the cubes will be green thanks to the bell peppers.
6. Once you have a few cubes cooked then you plate how you wish. I made a column with my meat and bread topped with a slice of black radish and green onion. I also served it with some purple fingerling potato fries, that sort of turned brown after I fried them. 

As always Photos by Katy Weaver!

Split Pea Soup with Fish & Mint Meringues

If you’re a fan of this blog then you know that unusual combinations are sort of a running theme and this post is no different. The idea for fish meringues sprouted in my mind after a trip to the local Asian grocery store. It seemed too weird to be terrible. The fish meringues are like little pillows swimming atop a sea of green. The two work together to create a surprising perfect early spring dish. 

I don’t have anything funny to say about this post. But I do have a warning: if you decide to eat more than two servings of this split pea soup in one day, prepare for some green poops. Just accept it and own it. Maybe you can eat a bunch of this soup on March 16th then everything about you can be festive for St. Patricks day!

Split Pea Soup

• 1 lbs. (16 oz) Split Peas
• Chicken or Vegetable Stock
• 1/2 large Onion diced 
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 2 cloves Garlic minced
• 1/2 cup Milk
• 1/2 cup Water
• 1 teaspoon Coriander
•  Salt & Pepper to taste
• Spinach

1. Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil in a medium to large sauce pan over medium high heat. Add the coriander, salt and pepper. Continue sauteing until the onions are golden brown. 
2. Add the peas. Saute the peas with the onions for a few minutes. 
3. Add the stock, milk and water. Increase the heat to high and bring to a boil. Stir occasionally.
4. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer for 20-30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
5. Add half of the spinach to a food processor. Pour the soup into the food processor. Add the rest of the spinach and blend together for a minute.  
6. Serve in a bowl with the meringues and extra virgin olive oil.

Fish & Mint Meringues

• 3 Egg Whites
• 1 teaspoon Sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
• 1/4 teaspoon Fish Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Mint Leaves minced
• 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 325°
2. In a large mixing bowl whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer on medium speed until they get really foamy and bubbly, I’m sure there’s some French term for this.
3. Add the sugar and cream of tartar. Continue beating the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Whisk in the fish sauce, mint, and cayenne. 
4. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop out the meringue with a teaspoon and make dollops of meringue on the sheet. They don’t have to be fancy, they’re going to be crumbled up anyway.
5. Bake at 325° for 12 minutes. After the 12 minutes, turn the oven off and leave the meringues in the oven for another 10 minutes.  Take the meringues out of the oven and let them cool until the outer shell is hard. 
6. Once the meringues are cooled crumble them up and serve on top of the split pea soup.

All these peautiful picture taken by Katy Weaver

Miso Crusted Pork Chops

Fun fact of the day: encrusting anything in miso makes it taste 100 times better. There’s no question that adding it to a pork chop would make it that much more delicious. Not to mention the fact that it makes a perfect centerpiece for a dinner dish. Served amongst baked eggplant and asparagus with apple ginger chutney it makes any dinner the best dinner of your life.

There’s something funny about posting to this blog every week. It’s easy to get caught up in it and just accept it and not take account for anything else. For example I now expect everything I eat to be as delicious as all the food I make. I also expect it to look as beautiful as Katy’s photos make it look. Naturally that’s sort of an unrealistic expectation. But why should it be?

It’s a new year and that means new starts. Sure boxed mac and cheese is fine when you’re tired and don’t feel like cooking, but there’s no substitute for a perfectly cooked pork chop when you’re in the mood for it. In my personal opinion there’s been too much accepting the status quo in this country. What happened to the greatest country on Earth? I personally blame congress and the banking industry. But to get back on track, this is not a year to go with the flow. This is a year of getting better. Doing this blog every week reminds me that settling for anything less than the best isn’t an option.

Baked Eggplant and Asparagus

• 1 Eggplant chopped
• 1/2 pound Asparagus julienned
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
• 1 tablespoon Sesame Seeds
• 2 teaspoons Garlic Salt

1. Preheat your oven to 375°
2. In a large mixing bowl toss the Eggplant, Asparagus, Olive Oil, Sesame Seeds and Garlic Salt together.
3. Fill a small casserole pan with the vegetables and bake for 15 minutes. Stir halfway through baking.

Apple Ginger Chutney

• 1 Fuji Apple diced
• 1 tablespoon Ginger freshly grated 
• 3 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1 tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
• 1 Yellow Onion diced
• 1 tablespoon Brown Sugar

1. Heat the Apple Cider Vinegar, Balsamic, Onion and Apple over high. Boil out most of the moisture. 
2. Add the Ginger and Brown Sugar. Stir and cover. Heat over medium-low heat for 10 more minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Blend if a smoother chutney is desired. 

Miso Crusted Pork Chops

• 3 Pork Chops
• 2 packs of Yellow Miso Soup Mix
• Olive Oil

1. Heat just enough Olive Oil in a skillet to cover the pan over medium heat.
2. Pour the packets of Miso Soup into a shallow dish. Place the Pork Chops in the dish, cover both sides of each chop with the miso. Message the mix into the meat.
3. Place each pork chop in the skillet. Evenly cook on both sides. Don’t worry the miso will turn out a little black. Place the skillet in the oven to finish cooking if needed.
4. Serve with Apple Ginger Chutney, and Baked Eggplant and Asparagus. 

Go ahead and change things up for your meal tonight. Put a twist on an old favorite and make it something worth talking about instead of just filling the hole that is dinner.

Photos by the great and talented Katy Weaver

Beef Stroganoff with Gorgonzola Gnocchis

Before we get into this post I just want to mention that we have a holiday ecookbook on Google Play! Which can be downloaded by clicking here, here or here. Or you can click on that ad to the right. It’s a good way to support your favorite food bloggers!

This is our first post in a series entitled: Foods with Weird Names.  Sure Beef Stroganoff seems like an outdated dish, but adding the Gorgonzola Gnocchis turns this into a new modern classic. This is a perfect example of taking something from the past and making it fit today’s tastes. It’s not as hard as people make it out to be. 

Side note: I want to lick that steak. 

Beef Stroganoff

• 1 lb. Top Sirloin Steak sliced into strips about 1/4″ thick.
• 6 Mushrooms baby cremini–sliced 
• 1/2 medium Red Onion minced 
• 2 tablespoons Butter
• 1 clove Garlic minced 
• 1/4 cup Wine (Pinot Noir) 
• 3/4 cup Sour Cream
• 1 tablespoon Crushed Mustard Seeds
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Chives finely chopped

1. Melt the butter in a large skillet. Add the garlic and onions. Caramelize until caramel in color. 
2. Add the sliced mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper, sauté for about 3-5 minutes.  
3. Introduce the steak into the mix at this point. Sauté only until the steak turns slightly brown.
4. Stir in the wine and sour cream. Bring to a boil then reduce to a low simmer. Stirring occasionally let the sauce thicken up before serving. 

Gorgonzola Gnocchis

• 2 Potatoes boiled and mashed
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• 1 cup Flour (plus extra if needed) 
• 2 Eggs
• 4 oz. Gorgonzola crumbled

1. In a large bowl mix the mashed potatoes in with the butter and 1/4 cup of the flour.
2. Mix in the eggs and the rest of flour.
3. Sprinkle the gorgonzola into the mixture. Fold the cheese into the batter. Add more flour as needed. It should be the consistency of slightly tacky bread dough.
4. Transfer the dough into a ziplock bag. 
5. Heat several cups of cold water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. 
6. Cut the tip off the ziplock bag, that’s right – just the tip. Squeeze over the boiling pan while cutting the dough into tootsie roll sized pieces. 
7. Boil until each gnocchi floats in the pan.
8. Drain the water and serve with Beef Stroganoff on top. Garnish with chives. 

Photos as always by Katy Weaver (you probably know that by now)

Chicken and Dumplings

“Winter is coming.” Well screw you Ned Stark. I say winter doesn’t need to be a cold barren wasteland of ice, snow and family gatherings. It can be so much better and warmer with Chicken and Dumplings, which is basically like a hug in a bowl. Just remember even if there’s no one to keep you warm this winter at least there’s this soup to keep you warm, and hell you can even bring it to your office’s Holiday party! But don’t let Tim hog all the dumplings.

I had never made Chicken and Dumplings until someone on the Cooking with B.S. Facebook page suggested I make it. I’m glad I did, because this is one delicious dish and perfect for any winter day. So I before I made this dish I did a little research on the dish. It turns out that this dish originated from the Chinese province of Hunan when a village came together one freezing winter day, each farmer giving up a piece of that year’s crop to the soup that would feed the village and give the soldiers stationed at the village to fight off the invading Mongols. 

Well it turns out I was on the Sweet and Sour Chicken Wikipedia page and this dish actually originates from, I dunno the South? Maybe some place in Europe? If you really want to know, you’re at a computer look it up yourself! I have a recipe to write! 

Big news coming from Grub NorthWest and their line of salts. We’ll keep you posted!

• 3 Chicken Breasts
• 1 cup Flour
• 1/2 cup Buttermilk
• 1 Egg beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
• Salt & Pepper
• 3 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 Leek sliced
• 1 Carrot stick sliced
• 3 stalks Celery chopped 
• 1/2 medium Onion diced
• 4 Chanterelle Mushrooms chopped
• 52 oz. Chicken Stock
• 3 Bay Leaves
• 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
• 1/4 teaspoon Cumin
• 1 cup water

Dumplings

• 1 cup Buttermilk
• 1/2 cup Butter
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 1/2 cup Flour
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1. Get out your Dutch oven, and no I don’t mean that dutch oven. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the Dutch oven over medium heat. 
2. In two separate pie pans, create a buttermilk and egg bath, and a flour mixture of well flour, paprika, cayenne, salt and pepper. 
3. Coat the chicken in the buttermilk bath then coat it in the flour and place in the dutch oven. Evenly cook all three breasts until the middle of each is fully cooked. Should take 10-15 minutes. 
4. Remove the chicken from the pan. DO NOT GET RID OF THE DRIPPIN’s! 
5. Let the chicken cool enough to handle.
6. Add the onions, carrots, mushrooms, celery and leek to the pan. Sautee for a good 7 minutes. 
7. Then add the chicken stock, bay leaves, and other seasonings to the pot. Tear apart the chicken breast into small pieces, and dump into the pot. Continue cooking while you prepare the dumplings.
8. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. 
9. Melt the butter in a microwaveable safe bowl. Let the bowl cool down a skoch. Stir the buttermilk into the butter, which will solidify the butter. 
10. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture to create a dumpling mixture. Let’s take a moment to thank this week’s sponsor’s mixtures.
11. Using two soup spoons make little dolops of dumpling mixtures, and drop them right into the soup! Be sure to spread them out in the pot as to avoid clumping. Make as many dumplings as possible with the dumpling mixture. 
12. Bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cover with the lid until you’re ready to serve it up! Enjoy!

So, go start a fire and curl up with some chicken and dumplings this winter and you’ll fight off the cold at least for awhile.

All phantastic photos by Katy Weaver. Give her a Like would ya!

Homemade Butternut Squash Pasta with Flambeed Chanterelles

Before we get into this week’s post I want to make a quick shout out to our sponsor, Braised Food & Drink Digital Marketing. Braised takes the time to grow your food or beverage company’s online presence.

Making homemade pasta has always seemed like a daunting task to me. On par with making your own clothes, it seemed like something that was best left to professionals. But after making my own pasta for the first time I realized it is just as easy, nay easier than making your own clothes. All it takes is a little hard work and the fact that the pasta will be better than anything you can buy out of a box. I’ll be right back you guys, this burlap bag – I mean shirt, is itchy. I need to change. 

Yes, those are carrots and not some weird Brazilian root. I found them at the Portland Saturday Farmer’s market. Check it out sometime. The sage was foraged, and I would just like to thank my neighbors for not having a fence in their front yard and for never being home. Those chanterelles were also locally sourced, and I would just like to thank my roommate for never cleaning his room. 

Baked Butternut

• Butternut Squash
• Olive Oil

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Cut the tips off the butternut, just the tips. Quarter the squash and remove the seeds. Score the squash as pictured above. That means DON’T cut all the way through. 
2. Place in a baking pan and drizzle a little olive oil over the squash.
3. Bake for 40 minutes. 
4. Peel the skin and puree in a food processor until the consistency reaches a puree consistency. Puree. Consistency.
5. This can be added to pretty much anything. Like pasta for instance.

Homemade Butternut Squash Pasta

• 3 1/2 cups Flour
• 3 Eggs
• 1/3 cup Butternut squash pureed

1. Pile the flour on a clean counter. Make a well in it big enough for the eggs and squash. Work the eggs and squash into the flour with your fingers. Try to keep the dough together. Note not all the flour will be mixed into the dough.
2. Knead the dough for 3 minutes. Set the dough aside for 20 minutes and cover with plastic wrap.
3. Continue kneading for an additional 3 minutes, be sure to add more flour if the dough seems sticky in anyway. 
4. Use a rolling pin or pasta maker to roll the dough thin. Cut into desired pasta shape and voila you just made homemade pasta! 

Brown Sugared Carrots

• 2 Carrots sliced
• 2 tablespoons Butter
• 3 tablespoons Brown Sugar

1. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Melt butter. Add carrots and sugar, occasionally stir the carrots to avoid burning. Cook until the sugar becomes like a syrup consistency.
2. Serve with the white cheddar sauce from this post!

Flambeed Chanterelles

• 7 Chanterelles cleaned and halved
• 1 tablespoon Olive Oil 
• 1/2 cup Chardonnay
• 1/4 cup Rum

1. Soak the chanterelles in chardonnay for 5 minutes.
2. Add the olive oil to a large skillet and heat over medium. Add the chanterelles. Saute until all the moisture is removed from the mushrooms and they are sitting in the pan. Drain that liquid and add the rum.
3. If you have a gas stove use the flames to light the pan or use a pastry torch or that flamethrower that’s sitting in your garage.
4. Cook until the flames stop and the smell of alcohol is gone. Serve on top of pasta with walnuts.

Well there you have it vegetarians I finally made a dish that you can enjoy. Sorry vegans your future doesn’t look too bright on this blog, butter and cheese is my lifeblood. And that lifeblood is filled with cholesterol. Enjoy this dish!

All photos by Katy Weaver! Check out her site right now! You have nothing better to do, you just finished reading this post. Go!

Bacon Granny Smith Apple Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Everyone loves a good grilled cheese sandwich. It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, sometimes a grilled cheese sandwich is the perfect lunch. Yes, even lactose intolerant people love grilled cheeses, though their colons don’t. So get out your holy cheese and pray to Cheezus Crust, and make this divine grilled cheese sandwich or are you a naan believer?

In the words of Buster Bluth, “I was told there would be grilled cheese.” This isn’t any old grilled cheese though, it’s a grilled cheese that puts all others to shame. Sure, you could go with something simple and safe, but what’s the fun in that? I personally don’t understand people who take the safe route; life is for living, so add some apple and bacon to that sandwich! Some people will say apples don’t belong on a sandwich, but let them talk and have their wrong opinion. They don’t know the joy of something weird and different, so they can enjoy their meal of quiet judgement while you eat one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches of your life.

Yields one sandwich

• 2 slices of Sourdough Bread
• 2 tablespoons Butter
• 3 oz. Tillamook Cheddar Cheese grated 
• 2 oz. Gruyere cheese grated
• 1.5 Bacon Slices cooked
• 1 Granny Smith Apples thinly sliced 
• 1 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
• 1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper freshly ground

1. Heat up two CLEAN skillets over medium heat. That’s right two. 
2. Butter one side of each slice of yo’ bread. 
3. Add the mustard and pepper to one slice of bread (on the non-butter side, but you’re clever so you probably figured that out on your own). 
4. Pile on the cheeses. Stack 2 apple slices and the bacon strips to the pre-sandwich. Top it off with the other slice of bread, butter side up.
5. Place in one of the hot skillets. Let cook for 30 seconds. Take the other hot skillet and place on top of the sandwich and press down. This will help melt the cheese and make it easier to flip. After a minute or so, flip the sandwich over and continue cooking until both sides are golden brown. 
6. Serve with a little salad or some tomato or  butternut squash soup. 

It’s that easy to mix up the everyday routine and make something different and delicious. Don’t be afraid of people judging your fruity sandwich. Go ahead and make this great sandwich, because if you don’t I’ll be judging you.

Say cheese, all photos by Katy Weaver 

Pork Apple Barrel Spending Burger

Before I start this post I just want to let you guys know about our new sponsor, The Employment Branch, which is a temp agency for recently out-of-work non-essential government employees. That’s right, The Employment Branch, “Yes, you actually HAVE to work to get paid.”

I’ve been wanting to make this burger and put it up on the blog for a long time and we all know once you’ve built something up in your mind for such a long time, it always lives up to your expectations. Before I continue to ramble on about how perfect this burger is for an autumn weekend dinner, I want to explain the name of the burger. No I’m not going to explain the joke to you and why it works, but I do want to say that I took a page out of Bob’s Burgers book and made a burger of the day. If you don’t watch Bob’s Burgers then you probably should. Why? Because you’re reading this blog and you obviously have some brain functionality and like to laugh.

I’m not going to keep talking about a burger. It’s a pork burger with apple chutney, goat cheese, and onion rings served with a beet and goat cheese “salad”. That’s all you need to know, enjoy.

Pork Burgers

yields 5 burgers

• 1 lbs. Ground Pork
• 1/4 cup Oats
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Sage dried

1. Mix everything together in a large mixing bowl with your hands.
2. Make patties, should yield about 5. 
3. In a large skilled or if you have a grill, coat with a touch of oil. Turn the heat up to 11! Actually no, don’t do that, just turn it up to like medium high. Cook each side for about 2 minutes or until it’s golden brown.
4. Top your burger with the apple chutney, onion rings, and some goat cheese.

I like adding oats to my burgers, because it makes the meat go a bit further. And we all love meat that keeps on coming.

Apple Chutney

• 4 Apples quartered and seeded
• 2 Fiji
• 2 Gala
• 1/2 Red Onion sliced
• 2 teaspoons Olive Oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar
• 3 tablespoons packed Dark Brown Sugar
• 1 tablespoon Molasses
• 1/2 teaspoon Cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon Curry Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Garlic Salt
• 1/4 teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika

1. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat while you turn the onion and apples into pebble sized pieces with a food processor.
2. Stir the apples and onion into the hot oil. Stir all the other ingredients and let simmer for about 1 hour 30 minutes, be sure to stir occasionally. 

Baked Onion Rings

• 1/2 Red Onion thickly sliced
• 2 Eggs
• 1/3 cup Milk
• 1/2 cup Flour
• 1 cup Bread Crumbs
• Oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375°. 
2. Get small-ish mixing bowls. Put the flour in one, eggs and milk (whisked together) in another and the bread crumbs, salt and pepper in the last one. Lightly coat a baking pan with some oil. 
3. Coat the sliced onion rings in flour. Then dip in the egg and milk mixture and finally the breadcrumbs. Place in the baking pan and cook for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Flip halfway through cooking.

Baked Beet and Goat Cheese “Salad”

• 3 Beets
• 3 Golden Beets
• 2 tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar
• 5 oz. Goat Cheese
• Micro Greens

1. Prepare the beets for baking (cutting off the tail and the green stuff). Preheat the oven to 350. Place the beets in a baking pan and cover with tin foil.
2. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours. Take out of oven and let cool. The beets can be prepared the evening before. 
3. Remove the skin from the beets. Slice vertically to make beet discs, which also happens to be what I call records. 
4. Stack the beets and goat cheese together and top with micro greens.

Just because it’s fall that doesn’t mean you need to drench everything in pumpkin spice. Now go out there and make something delicious and avoid Starbuck’s pumpkin spice latte, it causes gourding.

All photos taken by Katy Weaver

Fig Dessert Pizza and Maple Coffee

Here at Cooking with B.S. Corp. we like to pride ourselves on knowing what recipes our followers want. You’ve spoken up and we’ve listened to your pleas for more fig recipes. I would also like to point out this is the No. 1 fig based blog outside of the Middle East and would like to use this title to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but first coffee.

Autumn came ushering in this year like a car swerving off the highway due to the first autumn rains. Instead of going outside and enjoying the crisp fall air, why not stay in drinking a hot cup of coffee with some maple whipped cream to top it off? And while you’re enjoying your ideal fall drink, read through some of your favorite Cooking with B.S. posts and click on an ad or three. 

I fully endorse coffee with dessert and from what I’ve seen it’s only my grandparents and their friends that partake in this post-dinner ritual. I wish more people my age would join in, but wishful thinking never solved anything except turning Pinocchio into a real boy.

Maple Whipped Cream Coffee

• 1/2 cup Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1 tablespoon Maple Syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1. Add everything to a mixing bowl and whisk until it’s all whippy. 
2. Add the delicious whipped cream to a cup of coffee.
3. Petition Starbucks to buy this recipe from me to replace the Pumpkin Spiced Latte as “The Fall Coffee Drink”.

Fig and Goat Cheese Dessert Pizza

• 2 Figs quartered
• 3 oz. Goat Cheese crumbled
• 1 tablespoon Honey
• 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
• Pizza dough

1. Once again I used America’s Test Kitchen‘s pizza dough recipe for this one. You can buy their new book, Cooking School Cookbook here!
2. Preheat the oven to 475°
3. Drizzle the honey over the stretched out pizza dough. Crumble on the goat cheese. Add the figs and sprinkle the cinnamon over the pizza.
4. Bake on a pizza baking stone for about 10 minutes or until the edges are crispy.
5. NOTE: the figs will make this pizza a little juicy so let the sugars cool and solidify before cutting into the dessert pizza.

Things can change at a moment’s notice; the weather, the season, the ripeness of figs, but instead of worrying about what’s coming next, take time out of your busy schedule to enjoy something sweet and the post-dinner buzz of the world’s favorite bean.  Enjoy!

All photos by THE Katy Weaver

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This whipped cream looks like a grumpy old man.