Bacon and Cheddar Scones

Christmas Duck

Fried Chicken and Garlic Green Beans

Blue Cheese Spencers, Honey Chipotle Shrimp, and Grilled Corn

Eggs, Grits, Sausage, and Toast

I use Alton Brown's method, minus the cheddar, for cooking grits. If you wanna get really fatty, I mean fancy, use cream instead of milk. These were topped with some parmesean and fresh ground black pepper. We're in to the over-easy to over-medium eggs. The fresher the better, so your eggs don't spread so much in the pan and they're easy to flip.

Pan Fried Chicken with Ginger Glazed Carrots and Asparagus

Fried chicken and glazed carrots.

Veal Chop Pizziolo with Wild Mushroom Ravioli

Again, with the clearance meat! Veal is expensive ('cause baby cows are so small!), but we got some thick chops on clearance at the grocery store. We used this recipe. We also scored some mushroom ravioli on clearance, so half of it got the tomato sauce from the veal, and the other half was drizzled with some magical pan sauce that we made with chicken broth, white wine, and heavy cream.

Oh, and after you broil the veal chops, don't grab the pan handle that's been sitting in a 500 degree oven, or you'll find yourself with some second degree burns. Oops.

Bacon-Wrapped Pork Chop with Broccoli and Muddled Red Potatoes

We've been trying out some new cooking techniques lately. We got some super thick (about 1 1/2 inch) pork chops on clearance at the grocery store. We wanted to take advantage of their thickness, but not dry 'em out. We brined them for about 12 hours, and they increased in volume by about 25%! With these thick 'n' juicy chops ready for cooking, we opted for the America's Test Kitchen method of starting them in the oven under low heat (275 degrees), then finished them in the pan. Oh yeah, and be sure to par-cook the bacon in the microwave first.

Parmesean Crusted Halibut with Pasta Fresca and Artichokes

Guess what meat was on clearance at the grocery store... that's right, halibut! Chokes were a buck, and whole wheat pasta at Trader Joe's is always the best deal in town. Pretty fancy for a dinner for two that came in under $15. I'd had parm-crusted halibut at a restaurant recently, and mine was way better.

For the pasta, we opted for fresh, lighter flavor. On the pasta, we put some really tasty olive oil, chopped, seeded chopped tomatoes, toasted garlic, fresh basil, and parmesean. That's it, really. Try it, it's delicious.

Coq Au Vin

Caine and I found a Calphalon cast iron dutch oven for thirty bucks. Woo hoo! We decided do delve into something a little more complicated than usual...
Here's the recipe. The wine we used was Le Grand Pinot Noir - about eight bucks at trader joe's and SO goooood....