The Food Matters Project: Seared Bean Sprouts with Beef and Sesame Orange Sauce

photos by scott haydon

Hi everyone! I love love love that the Food Matters Project gives me a culinary challenge every single week. This week's recipe (Seared Bean Sprouts with Beef and Sesame Orange Sauce) was hosted by Dominica and you can see her take here.

I've never really spent much time thinking about, preparing, or eating bean sprouts and I was a little nervous when I bought them at the store the other day. I could see eating them raw in a salad but I was pretty hesitant about what would happen to them in a stirfry. I should have known that Mark Bittman would steer us in a solid direction. This dish was very tasty.

Nutella Cheesecake Mousse Brownie.

photo by scott haydon

Scott asked me to make something with Nutella. He didn't really care what. And maybe I went a little overboard but the result was definitely worth it. Prepare to be delighted.

The Food Matters Project: Baked Casarecce with Brussel Sprouts, Apple & Gruyere

photos by scott haydon

Welcome to the fourth week of the great Food Matters Project. I'm having an excellent time participating in this project. When I first checked out the Food Matters Cookbook from the library all I could think was: oh but it's so basic. Now I see that the very nature of the majority of Mark Bittman's recipes leads to an unfurling of the creative culinary mind. You can see this quite clearly when you look at all of the different directions people participating in this process take when given a single recipe each week.

This week the assigned recipe is Baked Rigatoni with Brussels Sprouts, Figs, and Blue Cheese. You can find the original recipe (and the host for this recipe) here.

The Food Matters Project: Roasted Red Pepper Pesto

this photo by scott haydon

Hi there, this is the third week of The Food Matters Project and I was especially excited about this week's recipe, Roasted Red Pepper and Walnut "Pesto", which can be found here.

I substituted the walnuts with almonds. And I really like the result. The basil, red peppers, garlic, almonds, and olive oil complement each other wonderfully. So far I've only tried it on a couple of crackers but I have plans on using it on some kind of pasta-type supper in the next couple of days.

Rogue Voodoo Donut Bacon Maple Ale (Bread).

all photos on this post by the great scott haydon

We were gifted a very special bottle of beer the other day from our friend Sandy. Rogue Ales collaborated with Voodoo Donut to make Rogue Voodoo Donut Bacon Maple Ale. The result is a beer that is truly something else. It is like someone stuffed a very sweet and savory breakfast into a bottle of beer and shook it up. It is a beer that I took one sip of and could only think - this beer is begging to be a baked good. I know what you're thinking, that this beer was co-created by a BAKERY, of course it would cause one to think of baked goods. I can't fault your logic there. But still! Let's make magic.