Welcome Fall!

This first recipe is a California BLT from the Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook. Mac and I both think it's the best BLT we've had. You roast the bacon in the oven for about 20 minutes, and it comes out crunchy and delicious.
I made these Buffalo Chicken Wings for a lazy football afternoon. You cook them in the broiler, so they take less than 15 minutes total and are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. Love them!

This delightful breakfast treat is called a Tri-Berry Oven Pancake. Tri usually stands for 3, but when a half pint of blueberries are $5, mine is just going to have 2 berries. This pancake batter is much thinner than the ones from Bisquick that we're used to. You heat up the individual gratin dishes and then cook the batter in the oven for about 13 minutes. The pancakes puff up out of the dishes and then you can pour the fruit and some maple syrup in the middle. This was an amazing discovery, because sometimes regular pancakes can be heavy, and these have a consistency closer to crepes. I'll definitely be making these again.

This recipe is Roasted Striped Bass with left over Tomato Rice Pilaf. You cook skinless filets of bass in a baking dish with peeled, deveined shrimp and mussels with a tomato and wine sauce on top. This dish was good, but not one of my favorites from Ina. However, the tomato rice pilaf is quite tasty, and is a good rice side dish to have in the repertoire.
Mac loves bread pudding, so when I saw this Croissant Bread Pudding I knew it would be a winner. You layer croissants with raisins and then top them with the other half of the croissants and pour the egg and half-and-half custard over top of it all.

These Provencal Tomatoes are light and fresh tasting. The tomatoes are cut in half and are stuffed with an herb, garlic, and bread crumb mixture. They would be great as a side dish or a vegetarian lunch. There's melted Gruyere on top that makes them even better.

I'd never made Creme Brulee before, so when it came out succesfully...Victory! I didn't even need one of those fancy blow torches, the broiler made the top crispy and brown.

There's the Tomato Rice Pilaf with Tuscan Lemon Chicken. The chicken needed to be flattened which meant that both the breast bone and back bone were removed. Thankfully the guy at Whole Foods did this for me, because it looked kind of gross. The chicken marinated overnight in an olive oil, lemon, rosemary, garlic marinade and then was grilled with a weight on it to get some great grill marks. Another great chicken dish!

I've made Indonesian Ginger Chicken before and loved it, so I knew this Indonesian Grilled Swordfish would be outstanding as well. We didn't get the pretty grill marks on this one because the propane on our little grill went out mid cooking. We put a new tank on and everything was great, but next time it will be more photogenic! The Moroccan Couscous beside the swordfish has butternut squash, zucchini, onions, and sweet potato, and it's a keeper for sure!

Parker's Beef Stew is a classic that's made even better with the sustainable, grass-fed beef that is in it from our CSA from Cedar Valley Farms. The stewing beef marinates overnight in red wine, garlic and bay leaves. It cooks in a dutch oven for a couple of hours with lots of veggies, including sun-dried tomatoes (which I normally don't like, but because they re-hydrate in the stew they are much better and don't have as intense of a flavor).

This recipe is easy, but it seems so fancy! Prosciutto Roasted Bass with Autumn Vegetables was a lovely way to welcome fall into the kitchen! The vegetables that are underneath the bass are yukon gold potatoes, butternut squash, parsnips, and carrots.

We brought this French Chocolate Bark over to Susan and Mark's with some Raisin Pecan Oatmeal Cookies for an Ina inspired dessert. Both were a hit! The chocolate bark has both semi and bittersweet chocolate and is topped with roasted cashews, dried cherries and apricots, crystallized ginger, and golden raisins. Yum!

This is a delightful salad! The Cape Cod Chopped Salad has so many great ingredients, it's difficult not to like. It is topped with a citrus vinaigrette and has bacon, apple, walnuts, dried cranberries, and blue cheese.

This is Ina's version of classic garlic bread. Garlic Ciabatta Bread is really easy to make when you have a food processor do all the chopping for you. I really like this garlic bread, because it calls for fresh oregano as opposed to the dried oregano which can have a really overwhelming flavor.

You know, I tried and tried to get this picture to rotate the right way, but I just don't think it wants to. This is a Sunrise Smoothie which is made with watermelon, strawberries, peaches, raspberry sorbet, and fresh-squeezed orange juice.

Recipes found in this post:

Sunrise Smoothie- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/sunrise-smoothie-recipe/index.html

Garlic Ciabatta Bread- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/garlic-bread-recipe/index.html

Cape Cod Chopped Salad- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/cape-cod-chopped-salad-recipe/index.html

French Chocolate Bark- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/french-chocolate-bark-recipe/index.html

Prosciutto Roasted Bass with Autumn Vegetables- Not Available Online. Back to Basics Cookbook.

Parker's Beef Stew- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/parkers-beef-stew-recipe/index.html

Indonesian Grilled Swordfish- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/indonesian-grilled-swordfish-recipe/index.html

Moroccan Couscous- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/moroccan-couscous-recipe/index.html

Tuscan Lemon Chicken-

Tomato Rice Pilaf-

Creme Brulee- http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/creme-brulee-recipe/index.html

Provencal Tomatoes-

Croissant Bread Pudding-

Roasted Striped Bass-

Tri-Berry Oven Pancake-

Buffalo Chicken Wings-

California BLT-

Some More...

French Bistro Steaks with Provencal Butter and Creamy Cheddar Grits

The steak recipe called for hanger steaks, but both Treasure Island and Whole Foods did not carry them so I just got some filets. The butter on top is made with garlic, anchovy, capers, chives, thyme, lemon zest, and herbs de Provence. This mixture would definitely be good on a steak sandwich the next day, if you have any left over.

The grits are a little difficult to see (sorry!), but they are so easy and tasty. They're an alternative to mashed potatoes or polenta, and they are as easy to make as couscous. These grits were made super tasty with the addition of half and half (don't make these when you're dieting! Or you could use skim milk...), cheddar cheese, green onions, and maybe a dash or two of hot sauce when you serve them!

Bay Scallop Gratins

My go to recipe for scallops is in Ina's Barefoot in Paris cookbook, and they're called Scallops Provencal. This recipe is similar to that one, but has a couple of ingredients that really make awesome flavor! It's also fun to make individual portions in gratin dishes :). These scallops are made with Pernod, which is a French liquor that smells like black licorice. It adds a really interesting dimension to the butter, wine, shallot, garlic flavors that are in the Provencal recipe. This also has a little bit of prosciutto, and that's always a welcome addition to a recipe!

Happy Birthday Mac!

In honor of the blog, Mac went without his classic, Duncan Hines yellow cake with chocolate frosting so that I could try Beatty's Chocolate Cake. I think he was okay with the substitution! This was the most moist, delicious cake we've ever had! You add a little brewed coffee to the batter, and I think that must make a difference. Yum!

Dinner Spanakopitas with Oven-roasted Vegetables

This is a delicious vegetarian meal! The spanakopitas are filled with spinach, onions, Parmesan cheese, feta, and pine nuts. Mac used his flag folding skills from elementary school to wrap up these pockets of goodness in phyllo dough. The oven-roasted vegetables include fingerling potatoes, fennel, green beans, and asparagus. It was a really nice combination.

Let me know if you try any of these!

Recipes from this post:

Dinner Spanakopitas - Back to Basics

Creamy Cheddar Grits - Back to Basics Unfortunately, this recipe is not available online.

Bay Scallop Gratins - Back to Basics

French Bistro Steaks with Provencal Butter - Back to Basics Unfortunately, this recipe is not available online.

Beatty's Chocolate Cake - Barefoot Contessa at Home

Oven-roasted Vegetables - Back to Basics Unfortunately, this recipe is not available online.