Bacon Wrapped Asparagus

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Bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon bacon! Yeah, you could say I like it. A bit. Kinda. It's the reason I'm not a vegetarian. Whatever.

Bacon is a treat food for me.  For a lot of reasons, it's just not something I buy often. But every now and then, I just gotta have it. Like when I bought some beautiful local asparagus, and all I could think about was how delicious it would be wrapped in bacon.  Then I couldn't get the thought of it out of my head and I had Other Half make a special trip to the store, just for bacon.

The concept behind this is simple. Bacon. Asparagus. Wrapped. Done. The flavour behind this is so much more than that. The asparagus is perfectly al dente and the "leafy" end gets amazingly crispy and delicious.  The bacon is salty and meaty and chewy and crispy. Together, they become the thing that disappears fastest.

Confessing my Love for Butter Chicken

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Apparently I really love sharing with you, because here are three little confessions for you.

1. I hate it when people go to restaurants and always order the same thing. I think "Why? Why not try something different? You have a whole menu of options to choose from!" The problem is, I am one of those people. When I'm at an Indian restaurant, I always, always, order butter chicken. And you know what? I'm okay that, because butter chicken is fracking delicious. Luckily though, I'm also into the whole "sharing" thing, so I never eat just butter chicken, but I definitely like it to be on my table.

2. I am constantly trying to make "restuarant" dishes at home in my own kitchen, to see if I can replicate the deliciousness. The answer is always yes, but it has to be a balance of effort and outcome if I'm actually going to do it.

3. I LOVE cookbooks. If I didn't picture the look on Other Half's face everytime I brought yet another cookbook home, I would be classified as a cookbook hoarder. We are talking floor-to-ceiling shelving. I can dream, can't I?

And so it is with these confessions I bring to you, a very adapted version of Butter Chicken.  This was always a "restaurant only" dish for me for a long time, but  about 4 years ago when I brought home yet another cookbook all about curries, that all changed. For the most part, the recipes in that book are only okay, but I've played around with this recipe so much, that the page the original recipe is on barely resembles itself and is covered in chicken scratch writing of new quantities of just about every ingredient, and the omission/addition of others. This recipe is 4 years in the making. And this edition of it is by far my favourite.

Playing with my food: Pulled Pork Enchiladas

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The strangest thing happened to me the other day... I was day-dreaming about the pulled pork I had recently made (that's right, I day-dream about food ... on a regular basis) and I thought to myself "mmm I would really like to make enchiladas with this." Then I remembered I've never made enchiladas before, and I had no trusty bookmarks to point me in the right direction.

Then, not an hour later, Best Recipes posted a link to their chicken enchiladas on twitter.  Obviously, at this point, I knew it was meant to be!

I didn't have the right ingredients to follow along with their recipe, or with the recipes I dug out in a few of my favourite cookbooks, sooooo it was time to start playing!

This was a lesson in how major improvisation in the kitchen can be such a good thing! Other Half also agreed by exclaiming "you're a genius." No biggie.

I wanted these to be saucy, cheesy and bursting with that irresistible pulled pork, so I didn't scrimp on the good stuff, and neither should you.

These are indulgent and filling and ooey-gooey goodness. Seconds, please! Read more for the recipe...

Recreating Momofuku's Pulled Pork

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 When Other Half and I went to New York last year, I spent hours developing a "must eat" list.  I even mapped it out so that we could maximize our few days in the city with great eats. Of all the things we ate that long weekend (and there were A LOT - we ate enough for about a week in just 4 days), there are three absolute stand outs.

One is the Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookie from Levain Bakery on the upper west side.  These were so good that I have considered flying back to New York specifically to get a cookie.

Another, is the food cart we encountered at 53rd and 6th.  This was our first meal in the city and after eating it, we contemplated ditching the food list and just eating there every day.

And the last was Kimchi Stew at Momofuku Noodle Bar. It featured kimchi (obviously) and the super tender pulled pork shoulder. Drool.

I'm not sure that I'll be using this pulled pork in a kimchi stew, but I will be fondly remembering our days in New York as I devour all this delicious-ness.