Creamy Bacon and Mushroom Polenta

All of your wonderful submissions for our bacon marmalade contest have been lip linkingly good! We were so  excited about doing our first contest / giveaway that we wound up doing our own entry on Tuesday night! We put together a creamy bacon and mushroom polenta that definitely rocked the polenta world. We pushed off posting this just in case anyone came up with the same idea, and if you did, then you might just win! So far I haven't seen it done yet, but theres still time left as we write this! Fall is coming to a very wintery finish here in the Bay Area and the Christmas season has gotten into full swing. Christmas stuff everywhere? Check. Certain closets / drawers / rooms people are not allowed to look in? Check. A front yard thats so bright it can be seen from space? Double Check. It also means nearly everything we cook is hearty and warm and goes well with cuddling by the fire. A huge dish of polenta that smells like bacon fits that description! If you've never had polenta, this is really a good starter for you. It's creamy and full of familiar flavors but carries that unique soup like texture that makes polenta... well... polenta. Definitely something to serve with a side of family!

Speaking of family, we wanted to make mention over the next week or so of a charity that Eric has been a huge fan of and contributer too. The charity is called Child's Play and is organized to provide toys and games to children's hospitals around the world. They are partnered with over 70 different hospitals and staffed entirely by volunteers during the holiday season, so every dime donated goes straight to help make long hospital stays for children with life threatening illnesses a little easier. We know that everyone is stretched to their limits these days but anything that you can donate really does make a difference. You can donate directly to a chosen hospital (see the website for the worldwide map of partnered hospitals) or simply donate via paypal or the tech friendly out there can text GAMERS to 50555 to donate $5.00 (its added to your cell phone bill). Check the website for the TaxID and other donation deduction help!

Red Beet Gnocchi with Mushrooms, Peas, and Frizzled Sage

Charisse is an artist by trade and by profession. She makes things pretty for a living. Vibrant complimentary colors with the occasional contrast thrown in for effect flow around pleasing shapes and enjoyable images. This is just the way she is. Eric on the other hand subscribes to the practical, doesn't-have-to-be-pretty-just-has-to-work school of doing things. You can even see this in our food, the prettier it is, the more Charisse had to do with it. These discussions have been the foundation of many of our disagreements, 99% of which end with "Eric your wrong because I said so". Every now and again, Eric does get to win, but that is usually regulated to picking between multiple pre-selected choices of the "which of these chairs do you like?" variety or futzing in the garage. Over the weekend, Eric got to actually win something on his own. We needed better lighting in the kitchen for our pictures, so Eric mounted some movable lights and flash-mounts to the ceiling to help even out our light sources. Not exactly pretty, but they do work, which just goes to show that sometimes the power drill is mightier than the paintbrush. Not often. But sometimes.

Our dinner Saturday night was very much Charisse's meal, the red beets became a vibrant red pasta topped with a very rustic sauce. Charisse has actually struggled with cooking Gnocchi, which was tough for her because it is one of her favorite foods. Gnocchi are very delicate to cook right, too long and they turn very mushy and you end up with more of a soup than a pasta. Trust us, we know. Pizza was good that night. Charisse played with it a few times and finally figured it out. These ones came out light and fluffy and bright red, but only carried a enough of a hint of beet flavor to add that extra something. We topped them with a sauce that tasted creamy, but actually had very little in it. With the frizzled sage on top, the dish came out very rustic looking, and tasted rustic too. Now if your not sure what rustic actually tastes like, try making this sauce, but be warned, theres a good chance you'll end up licking the plates clean like we did.

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! With the big holiday weekend coming up we're on a foodie related vacation today! We were invited to a big foodie event about 3 hours north of here, an Abalone Dive and Foodie Picnic! We've been super excited about this for months and now the day is finally here (well okay, it'll be here around 5AM tomorrow when we leave the house). Unfortunately with all the prep work (2 dishes for 100 people! Yikes!) we haven't had the chance to get a post prepared for today. We're hoping to get a post prepackaged to show up on Monday morning, but we might not be able too. Instead we've decided to provide you with some pictures from a local farm around here called Hidden Villa that we took about a month ago.

Also, we wanted to take this chance to announce a new feature that is in development and introduce our first partner BTTR Ventures! BTTR Ventures (pronounced "Better") is a small company focused on urban, sustainable food, and their first product is simply amazing: a home grow kit for food grade mushrooms! Many cooks grow their own herbs and produce, but growing mushrooms can be problematic and downright dangerous to do on your own. BTTR's solution is a read made kit that will grow a crop of edible oyster mushrooms every 10 - 14 days, grown from recycled Pete's Coffee grounds. Sustainability AND caffeine, Charisse and I are super excited about this.



Next weekend we will get the chance to tour their urban mushroom farm and get a great understanding of their product, process and future plans. We'll be taking pictures and coming up with recipe ideas to showcase the mushrooms in a number of dishes for you all. They sent us a sample BTTR Gourmet Garden, and our mushrooms are growing as we speak or at least as we type. We're really excited about these mushrooms (one of the few times we can use that phrase and not get concerned looks) and can't wait to try them out. Look for some pictures next week, and recipes soon after!


The BTTR Gourmet Garden can be purchased through Amazon.com or through participating Pete's Coffee locations! Any links in this post direct you to our Amazon.com affiliates area. Any purchase from Amazon.com made by going through our links gives us a small return, and helps keep this blog running and us cooking!

Pictures of the Farm! 
 (after the break)