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Bacon, Blue Cheese & Jalapeño Twice Baked Potatoes

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September is here and with it comes football. My favorite thing about football? Tailgating food, sickness of course. Sure, public health I love a good college football game, but the real treat is the afternoon beer, wings, nachos and potato skins. In honor of Michigan defeating Notre Dame last weekend (hopefully Michigan State will do the same this weekend), I’m posting football-friendly food all week. And I’m kicking it off with Bacon, Blue Cheese and Jalapeno Twice Baked Potatoes.

The nice people over at Ile de France sent me a nice St. Agur Blue Cheese, which was the perfect ingredient for this amazing side. The filling is spicy and smoky, creamy and blue cheese-y, and the skins are crisp and chewy. If you’re making steak, these should be your side dish. And even if you’re not making steak, you should make these anyway. I promise you won’t have any leftovers.

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Pasta Salad w/Steak & Blue Cheese Avocado Dressing

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Pasta Salad w/Steak & Blue Cheese Avocado Dressing

I don’t want to get into a whole thing about girly foods versus manly foods. As a woman, read more I do love my salads, food dainty cheese tarts and chocolate. But not any more than I love big, beefy burgers, buffalo wings and nachos. Food is delicious and I will not take sides!

Even after all that, I have to say, this pasta salad is a manly salad. It’s hearty and bold and full of freshly grilled steak. It is not a side dish. It’s an aggressive, filling entree. The first time I made this, I tossed everything with a little vinaigrette and topped it with diced avocado and crumbled blue cheese. It was good, but it was missing something to tie it together.

I tried again, this time making a creamy dressing with the avocado and blue cheese and … success! The dressing pulled everything together like mayonnaise usually does. The rest of the ingredients – pasta, tomatoes, red onion and steak – completed the salad.

I loved it, Tom loved it. This is a salad for all the sexes.

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Buffalo Sweet Potato & Blue Cheese Pizza

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Buffalo Sweet Potato & Blue Cheese Pizza

Vegetarian bar food is usually relegated to deep-fried cheese sticks, no rx greasy potato skins without bacon and mayo-filled spinach and artichoke dip. Those are fine and dandy, but sometimes you want something a little healthier, and sometime you just want some bright orange, tangy and spicy buffalo sauce.

I came up with this recipe by accident. After discovering potato pizza, I’ve been dying to make a version with sweet potato. So, that was all planned. I was going to put pancetta and goat cheese on it and call it a day. But then I spied the half-full bottle of buffalo sauce taking up precious space in my refrigerator. I knew the sweetness of the potatoes would be perfect with the spicy, vinegary tang of the buffalo sauce. And once you’ve got buffalo in the mix, you’ve got to top it all off with blue cheese.

This pizza is nothing short of awesome. The potatoes give it a sweet and creamy base, the buffalo sauce gives it a hefty kick and the blue cheese adds deep flavor and a little decadence. Even if you’re not vegetarian, I can’t imagine a better pizza for a Friday night or Sunday afternoon. The perfect accompaniment to a frosty pint of beer.

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black mission fig & prosciutto pizza

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black mission fig & prosciutto pizza

The end of June is one of the best times of the year. The sun rises early and sets late, pharmacy the 4th of July is just around the corner and black mission figs are finally in season! I love figs, and while I’ll never pass up dried figs, there’s nothing like a fresh one. I think people are scared off my their weird appearance, or maybe they’re just traumatized by Fig Newtons. Whatever the case, nobody seems to buy them at my local grocery store, which just leaves more for me.

black mission figs

I love them caramelized, grilled, drizzled with honey and especially on a pizza. They add just enough sweetness to complement the salty prosciutto and cheese without being cloying. Delicious! Go get them now before they’re gone for the summer. A tip on storing them: Keep them in the fridge. They grow mold quickly if it’s hot an humid out.

Now put the mold out of your mind and go get your fig on…

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buffalo chicken

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buffalo chicken sandwich

As if Chorizo nachos weren’t enough, meningitis there was more to Sunday’s Superbowl feast. So, resuscitator I have a guilty pleasure. I absolutely love boneless buffalo wings, psychiatrist which are essentially chicken fingers with buffalo sauce smothered on them. Gross, I know, but we all have our weaknesses and this is (one of) mine. That said, I never order them because I know that they’re over processed, previously frozen, fried and terribly bad for me. I thought that I’d try to make my own, but didn’t really expect much. I used naturally raised boneless chicken thighs, whole wheat panko breadcrumbs and organic (I swear!) buffalo sauce that I found at The Fresh Market.

After a quick brine, I breaded the thighs and threw them in the oven (ok, the Crisper) for 20 minutes and then covered them in sauce. Voila! Homemade buffalo wings! And they were better, much better, than any sampler platter at a sports bar. A perfect Superbowl Sunday treat.

They were also pretty darn tasty the next day on a sprouted whole wheat bun with some reduced fat blue cheese and greens.

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