And we’re back!  It’s Day 3 of Dancing Deer’s CEO Trish Karter’s 1,500 mile bicycle trek from Atlanta to Boston, which she is doing it to raise awareness for family homelessness.  Hopefully you’re following her progress on Dancing Deer‘s website.

Anyway, family homelessness is a sour subject, but maybe we can add a little sweetness with:

Peppermint Brownie Trifle

Now, I realize technically my picture is a parfait, but you know, this is my blog and I get to make the rules!  And yes, I don’t own a trifle glass so I can’t really make a trifle.  But the concept is the same.  Take delicious Dancing Deer peppermint brownies (for which my wife pines during the year since they only sell them in Kansas City during the Christmas season), add layers of peppermint whipped cream, and crushed peppermint candies and you have dessert.

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Well this is officially of Day 2 Dancing Deer’s CEO Trish Karter’s 1,500 mile bicycle trek from Atlanta to Boston.  She’s doing it to raise awareness for family homelessness while I am writing for the next fourteen days to both share her story and to evangelize Dancing Deer products.  Even before I found out about the ride, I loved Dancing Deer brownies.  Now I’m proud to tell the world about their products and to share this recipe for:

Caramel Brownie Phyllo Cups

So me, the master un-baker, really got excited about this recipe since it was a way to use that oven thingy to make a dessert without actually having to bake.  Yay science!  I also got to use the little decorative phyllo cups you can find in the freezer section at your local grocer, which I think look cool.  (BTW, we’re not done with phyllo.  Not by a long shot!)

Now, for this recipe, I used the peanut butter brownies because I like peanut butter and caramel.  My wife (who ate about 8 of the cups) said she would have preferred caramel or chocolate chunk brownies, but obviously she wasn’t too concerned. 
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So, there’s a lot going on in this blog post today. Let’s start with:

Dancing Deer Brownies (@DancingDeer) Tagged Me

First and foremost, I was tagged to talk about comfort food and home. Which you know I think I might just be able to do! But I’ll get to that in a second.

Dancing Deer Tagged Me For a Good Cause

Dancing Deer CEO Trish Karter is going to be riding her bike 1,500 miles from Atlanta to Boston in order to raise awareness for family homelessness, in particular this cause (see: http://tinyurl.com/dzynh5). She’ll also be recording stories from the women she meets along the way asking them about their experiences. One question she’ll ask them are what foods remind them of home.

And I Get to Eat Brownies

I could not be more excited that for the next two weeks, I am going to be writing about Dancing Deer brownies everyday and doing what I can to help raise awareness about family homelessness.

Then Share The Recipes With You

Dancing Deer was great. They gave me more brownies and cookies than I have ever seen in my life, so stay tuned for some recipes made from some of the most AMAZING brownies, cookies, and cake in the world. (Seriously, I’m not just saying that.) We’ll be featuring brownies baked in phyllo, ice cream sandwiches, brownie ice cream, trifles, and who knows what else I have up my sleeve.

Even better, all the recipes are made from cooked brownies which means no baking for people like me!! Cooked brownies FTW.

Okay, with that said, I’ve been tagged and it’s a sacred obligation.

Foods that Remind Me of Home.

More than anything, the food that reminds me of home is Cincinnati-style chili. If you don’t know what that means, apparently Cincinnati started what you might know as chili mac, or taking macaroni or spaghetti noodles and covering them with meaty chili, cheese, and raw onions.

Let it be known that for years, I despised Cincinnati-style chili. And I blame my father.

See, at first I liked it just fine, but as a young boy, WE NEVER HAD SPAGHETTI WITH MARINARA AT HOME. We only had spaghetti topped with chili. I would beg my father to make regular spaghetti… but no. It had to be chili. And half the time it was chili from a can.

(At this point I’d like to thank Dancing Deer for dredging up painful childhood memories. )

So fast forward a few years to my adulthood. See, when you fly back from Columbus, OH to Kansas City, MO you have a layover in Cincinnati that is usually long enough to grab dinner. A very tired me is in search of dinner when I happen to come across a giant mural that reads “Cincinnati Style Chili” with a hunger-inducing image of a big steaming bowl of noodles, chili, cheese and onions. And I start to drool.

At that point, all I can think about are all the great times I’d had as a kid eating Cincinnati-style chili with my Dad. I guess sometimes travel delirium makes it so you only remember the good times. And there for a few minutes in a busy airport after I’d been traveling for several days, I knew that I had found a little piece of home a nice person could serve me in a bowl.

With that being said, I still vow to never serve Cincinnati-style chili in my own home, but at least I have something to look forward to when next I travel.

And I Choose to Tag

Okay you Stupendous Seven, here’s who I am going to tag:

1. Anna Bassham www.shoesmitten.com @ShoeSmitten
2. Kristin www.dineanddish.net @DineAndDish
3. Gourmet Girl www.gourmetgirlmagazine.com @TheGourmetGirl
4. Cook Local www.cooklocal.com @CookLocal
5. Anne Coleman www.cookingwithanne.blogspot.com @Anniepooh
6. Rachel Ferrucci touchd.net @RachelFerruci
7. Courtney Ferrucci cferrucci.blogspot.com @cferrucci

**And the rules**
Link your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
* Share what food reminds you of home
* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
* Let them know that they’ve been tagged
*Please Copy and paste the description below:
Dancing Deer’s Sweet Home Initiative raises money for scholarships to help educate homeless women and end family homelessness. As a part oft his initiative, our CEO, Trish Karter, will be riding her bike 1,500 miles from Atlanta to Boston visiting family shelters in each city to raise awareness about this cause (see: http://tinyurl.com/dzynh5 ). She’ll also be recording stories from the women she meets along the way asking them about their experiences. One question she’ll ask them are what foods remind them of home.

Good luck! Now, come back tomorrow for my first recipe. You won’t regret it!

So last week I got the chance to eat at The American Restaurant where I had a pretty darn good meal (read my review here.  I actually used the word supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.)  And while Chef Debbie Gold was the star of the evening, there someone else whose company I found very enjoyable: Mister Willie, who has tended bar at The American from the day it opened thirty-five years ago.  In fact, he was handpicked by the owners for the position even before the restaurant opened.

Willie is everything you would expect a man who had worked thirty-five years in one of Kansas City’s finest dining establishments to be: calm, courteous, patient, and quick with a story.  He was more than game for the challenge of keeping my water glass full.

When we weren’t sitting and listening to the piano player fill the restaurant with soft melodies, he and I talked about food and life.  He told me how he taught himself to cook and where to buy a deep fried turkey.  He told me about his grandkids.  All his grandkids. 

We talked about the twelve to fifteen chefs (by his recollection) who had run the kitchen since it opened (he gave thumbs up to Chef Gold) and we talked about the interior design of the restaurant.  He assured me that The American looks now how it did when it opened and that it would look the same fifty years from now.

Chef Gold taught me about lamb belly, molecular gastromy, and ramps.  Willie taught me about the restaurant’s soul.  I am deeply grateful to both.

I don’t think there are many Willies left.  Do you anyone who has worked in the same place for the last thirty-five years?  How about someone who has worked at the same place six nights per week from the afternoon until the late hours of the night?

No, probably not many Willies left.  But for now, you, too, can meet Willie and shake his hand.  He’ll serve you with a kind word and he’ll hum to the piano whether he realizes it or not.  In all the glamor, finery, and great food that is The American, Willie will be at the top of the steps, keeping people’s drink glasses full and their faces smiling.

And despite the spectacular view, when next I go to The American, I’ll be sorely tempted to take my seat at the bar instead of at the table so that I can talk some more with Mister Willie.

In my recipe for Orange Rice, I mentioned my friend Carissa was a good enough chef to
“own the recipe.”  I didn’t talk much about it, but I got to thinking about it later.

I wrote that entire post off the cuff sort since I am between series right now and thought the recipe might come in handy.  Plus, I wanted to warn everyone of the dangers (at least to my taste buds ) of over citrusing rice.  Anyway, the term she could “own the recipe” got typed without me consciously typing it.

Later, though, it hit me what I had written and I started to think about what I really meant to own a recipe.

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4 Ingredients + 3 Stores + 30 Minutes = 1 Hot Valentine’s Day

This is the post for those people who held off on Valentine’s Day until the last minute.  I know you’re out there.  It was the same for Christmas and her/his her birthday.  It’s okay.  We’re all busy!

The good news is BlogWellDone.com is here to help! If you can buy four ingredients, a good bottle of wine, and a store bought dessert from a nice place you will have:

The Easiest Valentine’s Day Menu Ever!

Seriously, I threw this menu together in about 5 minutes.  It only uses four ingredients you may have to purchase from the store (plus salt, pepper, cooking oil, and butter if you have it), then you buy a good bottle of wine (suggestions below) and his/her favorite dessert from a bakery or restaurant.  That’s all you need for love to be in the air in less than 30.  I promise.

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Okay everyone, I am featuring a guest post, the talented Chef Matthew from Pro Chef 360, a blog created and maintained by the culinary minded.

I had asked him to talk about how to get good produce during the winter and if South America was a good option.  Here is what he said:

It is particularly difficult to get hold of decent fruits during the winter.  Fortunately, South American fruits are seemingly filling the void during the cold months of winter.  These are the products from Mexico, Chile, Belize and Honduras.  For years, they have been satiating the stomach of US customers during winter.

It is now fairly common to find Christmas shopper lining up in supermarkets decked in their winter clothes busily selecting and buying summer fruits like grapes, raspberries and blueberries.  These are the produce of South American countries.  These fruits are no longer just seasonal because people can now have access to these fruits the whole year through.  People can now satisfy their palates with clementines even during winter.

South American Fruit Market Taking Off

Over the past decade the South American fruit market has risen steadily.  There are many factors that can be attributed to this.  The primary reason, however, lies on the fact that the consumer market wants to have their fruits all year round.  Over the past decade, exports of Latin American fruits have risen considerably.  Millions of tons of fruits are exported to various foreign countries experiencing fruit void due to the winter season.  Accordingly, over a billion dollars are expended to South American fruit and produce exports.

Other factors that helped in the growth of South American fruit export include fast and easy transportation, improvement in storages and large-scale distribution.  Often, South American fruit farmers and exporters spend time carefully selecting and picking out their best produce to send abroad, so the fruits are able to weather long transportation.

The Popular South American Fruits

Curiously, there seems to be growing trend towards less common fruits.  Nowadays, it is common to find mangoes, papayas and dragon fruits in your local grocery store.  Chile and Mexico are the most successful players when it comes to exporting these fruits.  Their exports account to a substantial percentage of fruit imports during winter in many countries especially the United States.  Some have considered these countries threats to local fruit industry, but what can local farmers do?  There is a huge demand for these foreign produce especially during winter.  Besides, that is the nature and characteristic of global competition.  Local farmers and growers have quite adapted well.

So, are South American fruits filling the fruit void during the winter? Definitely!  There should be no more argument about that.  This is the trend and it seems to be permanent.

Chef Matthew

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Thanks Chef!  Great insight.  I know we’d all like to eat local during the winter, but in Kansas that’s HARD.  While I will still support my local CSAs during the winter as I can, ata least I know I have options in a pinch.

It’s 8:30 AM… The time has come to introduce something new… (cue the theme from 2001 please.)

The world of food is all about pairing things that go together: peanut butter and jelly, surf and turf, fried and lean pockets.  All timeless, all delicious.

The world of food is also about pairing food with other great things.  Food + Competition = Top Chef.  Food + Wine = a necessity of life.  Food + Sex = BrokeAssGourmet.com

What is BrokeAssGourmet.com?

You want the scoop?  Here’s esteemed Food Blogger Gabi Moskowitz to explain:

Interview with Gabi

In other words, the recession has hit us all, but so what? We gotta eat.  We gotta drink.  We gotta be merry (and by merry I mean something a bit more adult), right?

Enter BrokeAssGourmet.com.

First off, you get food like this:

• A great meal under $20 that looks and tastes like you paid $200.
• No food from a box with a talking glove on it.
• Tips on stocking your bar on the cheap
• The Chef Challenge: 1 big name chef + $20 + 2 blocks + 1 hour = Dinner?

And we are talking some great meals like veggie lasagna in under 40 minutes, red wine beef stew, and salmon/spinch burgers with cilantro brown rice…

Then you get a twist.

Once you’re done with your meal, it’s time for sex, sex, sex.

Well, kind of.   But if it is, go for it.  Seriously.  You can read blogs later.

Either way, what you you’re gonna get from BrokeAssGourmet.com is sex and advice from Violet Blue, writer for (O) Oprah Magazine and Forbes, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s weekly sex columnist.  Every other week, you’re going to learn how to take the heat you made in the kitchen and move it into the bedroom, the living room, the chimney if there’s room… Oh yeah, it’s going there.

Oh, and did I mention they are launching TODAY.  Like right now.  They wouldn’t let me tell you about the site until it went live.  So go.  Now.

What?  Need More Reasons to go to BrokeAssGourmet.com?

Okay, how about this.  This recipe will be featured on a future post on BrokeAssGourmet.com.  See the price sheet?  See the delicious?  Good…go see the site!!

Kale-Cannelini Soup with Garlic Crostini

This delicious, hearty soup is a great way to show your dinner companion a little love. From the heart-healthy olive oil to the fiber-rich beans and kale, this soup is full of healthful, whole ingredients, so you can feel good about what you’re serving. The crostini is the perfect sponge for sopping up the rich broth and also works nicely served as a large crouton atop the soup. Also, since the soup is a one-pot meal, whomever you’re cooking for can spend less time doing the dishes and more time—ahem—thanking you for all your hard work.
Ingredients
    3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the crostini—pantry item
    4 cloves garlic, chopped, plus 1 clove cut in half for the crostini—pantry item
    3 stems fresh oregano—minced—$2
    1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste—$1
    2 tablespoons red wine vinegar—pantry item
    2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed–$3
    4 cups water—free!
    salt and freshly ground black pepper—pantry item
    1 small bunch kale, cleaned and chopped (stems removed)—$3
    1 mini baguette–$2

__________________________________________________________

Total Cost of Recipe: $11

Heat oil in a large pot. Add garlic and oregano and cook no more than a minute. Add tomato paste and vinegar, and cook another minute. Add beans and stock and bring to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper. Add kale and simmer, partially covered, for 1 hour. Season, to taste, again with salt and pepper before serving.

Preheat oven to 375. Slice baguette on a heavy angle to create long slices and drizzle with a little olive oil. Lay the baguette slices on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for 6-8 minutes. Rub on both sides with half of a garlic clove and sprinkle lightly with salt. Serve alongside the soup.

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I hope you’ve seen why BrokeAssGourmet.com is the only Broke Ass Eating/Sex site I personally recommend with my BlogWellDone seal of approval.  Seriously, though give it a look when you’re not at work.  And enjoy me saying ass.  It’s the only time I’ll ever swear on my blog.  Ass.

Okay, enjoy!!  Ass.

Chocolate.  Chocolate is the force that brings us together tonight for the #gno Tweetup on Twitter.  The topic is supposed to be Love and Chocolate, though most of the questions I have gotten so far seem to center around just the chocolate.  Love, it appears, has no place in Valentine’s Day.

Chocolate

So, to honor tonight’s extra-chocolatey, somewhat love-y Tweetup, I have decided to compile some of my favorite chocolate dishes into one list, complete with recipes.  Most of these recipes aren’t mine (again, dessert cooking + me = BAD consequences) but I think you’ll enjoy them nonetheless.

Oh, and I had to add a little chocolate food porn.  Because first you eat the chocolate with your eyes and then with your mouth.  Enjoy!

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Maybe it’s just clever marketing, but I am starting to believe the hype: maybe 2009 is the start of something grand.  Right now our economy is in the tank, we are at war, and the ranks of the jobless swell every day.  The experts say 2009 is the year that we pay for the excesses of the past.  As a world we’ve got real comfortable with greed and overindulgence, but it didn’t make us happy.  It got us into a mess.

But there’s reason to hope.  Some people point to a new president and a new attitude in the White House, but I’ve noticed there is something going on that is far more grassroots.  Not only do people seem to be more willing to work smarter, but they seem to want to work greener, cleaner, happier, healthier, friendlier, and with deeper passion for what is truly important.  The change is inspiring.

It is in this spirit of hope and renewal that I would have my ultimate meal.  I would invite several couples and single friends to my table with the ultimate goal of sparking thoughts of four different types of renewal:

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