What's cookin' PDX?

Recently K and I took a decadent trip to Portland Oregon for our 8 year wedding anniversary.  We stayed at the luxurious Nines Hotel on Morrison Street, downtown.  It was so freaking lovely we almost didn't want to come home.  A thought kept repeating in my head.  "Why does P-Town have better food than Seattle?"  "Why does P-Town have better shopping than Seattle?"  "Why does Portland have so much awesome street food when Seattle has so little?"  Okay, I know what you're saying.  "If you like Portland so much better than Seattle then why don't you move there?"  The answer to that question is a complicated one.  I love Seattle for the same reason that I hate Seattle.  Seattle is a small city trying to be a big city.  I like living in the city but at the same time Seattle is confused in thinking that to become a large city we have to remove all of it's small city charm.  It has become a place where independent business owners can't make a living, vacant plastic condos are spreading like hipsters on a white belt sale, and people just don't seem to give a shit.  I want cute boutiques to shop in, consistent and delicious restaurants to eat at, and affordable freaking housing to live in.  Is that so wrong?  I'm easy like that.  I'm hoping over the next few years we find our identity again and stop all this nonsense.  I also hope we get a goddamn grilled cheese truck!

Day 1 - Portland Oregon:

After running all over Seattle trying to get someone to rent me a car (apparently, car rental companies think you're a deadbeat if all you have is a credit union debit card) we finally got rolling after taping up some bloody toes (don't ask) and picking my pride up off the floor.  A short couple of hours later we arrived at the Nines Hotel in downtown PDX.  It's a beautiful French antique/retro modern luxury hotel that gets it just right.  The kind of place you could see someone arrive stepping out of their Aston Martin Vantage wearing a vintage Chanel couture ball gown.  We're not rich but we pretend it very well.  As a matter of fact, it costs us as much to stay here as it would've the Red Lion Hotel so whateva.

For Dinner we walked through junkie infested waters to the very hip Ace Hotel where underneath resides the lovely restaurant Clyde Commons.  It was packed but we managed to grab a couple of window bar seats.  It was loud and full of young professionals (perhaps professional douchbags, I'm not sure) giving us the stink eye.  After everyone got a look at the beautiful ladies that just enlightened their evening they went back to stuffing their faces and talking about which car made them look more attractive.  We staved off a couple of panic attacks and perhaps physical ones (I thought Kelleen was going to elbow the drunk woman behind her in the head if she bumped her one more time). The staff was very friendly and we ordered a couple of cocktails. I got the East of Eden which consisted of Bombay Dry Gin, fresh lemon juice, elderflower liqueur, a Gewurtzraminer reduction, and egg whites. It was silky and sour and freaking delicious. It calmed me down right quick. K got a cocktail which I can't remember the name but it consisted of bourbon and ginger soda. Also very tasty. For a starter we ordered a crispy fried pork terrine with pistachios, frisée and a Dijon vinaigrette. After the initial crunch of the breading, the pork was melt in your mouth amazingness. This appetizer was so good I wanted like ten more of them. The dish was perfectly balanced and all of the flavors complimented each other so well. I wanted to ask for the recipe but the bartender looked busy. For the entrees I ordered the grilled trout with smoked beef tongue, potato hash, fried eggs, and béarnaise sauce and Kelleen ordered the fresh pappardelle with lamb sugo, raisins, and pine nuts.  Holy Hell this meal was fantastic.  Probably the best trout I had ever eaten.  It was nice and charred from the grill and the smokiness of the beef tongue and the creaminess of the sauce blew my mind a little bit.  I thought K was going to crawl inside of the fish and live there she liked it so much.  I rarely order pasta when I'm at a restaurant because it's relatively simple for me to make at home but the papperadelle was another story.  The noodles were unearthly with just the right amount of al dente spring to them and the lamb sugo (kind of like a ragout) had an elegant balance of spice and sweetness.  The drunk lady had left our side, the cocktails had kicked in, the food was phenomenal, and everything seemed all right.

Day 2 - Portland

Following a lovely night of sleep we headed off to Clinton Street for a Scandinavian breakfast at Broder.  The small cafe had a beautiful, sunny disposition.  After deciding that perhaps sitting almost in the restrooms was not conducive to the enjoyment of a meal we moved to a more appropriate spot where we ordered the Swedish breakfast bord which consisted of house-made gravlax, salami, Swedish hard cheese, grapefruit, rye crisps, fresh made yogurt with honey and lingonberries.  I also ordered the Pytt I Panna (Swedish hash), a tasty mash up of potato, duroc ham, roast beef, onions, and peppers topped with fried eggs and served with walnut toast and lingonberry jam.  We also had a few sides of potato pancakes.  Everything was so simple and tasty.  After the fact I wish we had tried the aebleskiver (Danish pancakes).  Something to look forward to next time.

After a such a large breakfast and full day of shopping we pretty much skipped lunch except for the amazing snack we had at the Grilled Cheese Truck.  Grilled cheese truck you say?  Why yes, there is an amazing grilled cheese truck on Alberta Street.  We had one with blue cheese, apples, and bacon.  It was so good and I love the fact that they had converted the Partridge Family school bus into a dining hall.  So stinking genius.  Portland has tons and tons of street food.  Buses, carts, vacant lots with smokers on them.  Everywhere you go there are at a few carts of every kind of food you can think of.  We saw the usual taco trucks and hotdog carts but also saw Egyptian, Chinese, Polish, Thai, and Lebanese stalls and waffle and ice cream carts.  This made me angry with jealousy.  Why are Seattle regulations and taxes so unreasonable.  I need more food in portable form.  I demand it!!!  Oh, and check out this for Portland's food cart scene: foodcartsportland

So before dinner we headed off to get some cocktails at the Teardrop Lounge.  They make all of their own tinctures and bitters.  Very inspired cocktails.  I had the Corpse Reviver which consisted of gin, absinthe, Cointreau, Lillet Blanc, fresh lemon, and I can't remember what else.  This cocktail kicked my ass.  For a minute of two I thought I was on acid but not in a bad way.  I think too that it was my first time drinking absinthe.  Kelleen had the White Noise which was made of tequila, white miso, Nocino, spiced pomelo soda, and lime.  So good it hurt.  You definitely can't say they aren't innovative.  I love that mixology is starting to make a presence in the culinary world.

For dinner I made reservations at Ten 01 in the Pearl district.  I promised K that I wouldn't take any pictures of our food, it being our anniversary dinner and all.  They had learned of our special occasion and brought us a few glasses of champagne which I though was very classy of them.  The staff was amazing and it was probably some of the best service I've ever had.  They were like fancy ninjas that would fold your napkin while you weren't looking.  I thought that perhaps we had magic water glasses that never dried up.

So we started up with some oysters on the half shell.  If I see these on the menu I have to have them.  I think I am addicted to raw oysters.  If there was a dealer in the alley behind my apartment that sold raw oysters with perhaps a little mignonette I would probably have to sign my paychecks over to him for my daily fix.  Actually I'm glad there is no such thing as back alley oyster dealers (at least that I'm aware of).  We had some Kumamoto and some Willapa Bay oysters with a jalapeno-champagne mignonette.  Super yummy.  We weren't that hungry so we headed straight for the entrees.  I got the lavender duck breast with white beans, lacinato kale, and balsamic gibier jus.  This was one of the top 5 things I've ever put into my mouth.  The duck was perfectly cooked with angel dust or some kind of addictive substance.  The lavender gave it a subtle floral flavor.  The beans had just the right amount of give and were creamy on the inside.  I have never had kale as good as this.  There was no bitterness what-so-ever.  The whole dish made perfect sense.  I snapped out of my absinthe induced haze and the world made total sense for the duration of the meal.  An epiphany in a cut of meat.  Kelleen ordered the seared sea scallops with parsnip puree, brussel sprouts, and fresh roasted chestnuts.  They were by far the best scallops we had ever eaten.  What mad genius would ever think to pair up sea scallops and roasted chestnuts?  It makes no sense!  "Is this chef insane?" I thought to myself.  So delicious.  We were sent desert and even though we were stuffed we made room.  It was a peanut butter and chocolate bread pudding with malted milk ice cream.  More of a cake than a pudding, it was decadent and once again completely original.  I also had a trio of cheese on house made sea salt crackers.    Before we could leave they also sent us a chocolate chip cookie and house made chocolates.  There was a lot of talk about the place going downhill with a new chef arriving and all that business.  The new chef Benjamin Parks has me as a fan.  This was one of the best meals I've ever had.

Day 3 - Portland

I still have dreams about the Reggie at Pine State Biscuits.  The Reggie is fried chicken, thick slab bacon, and cheddar cheese layered into a cream-top buttermilk biscuit and topped with sausage gravy.  You can get it "deluxed" by adding a fried egg to the situation (which I thought about but decided that veering at the last minute in a "game of chicken" with a potential heart attack wasn't worth it).  We also had a plate of biscuits and gravy, some Hash Up -hash browns with ham, onions, mushrooms, and melted cheese (in Waffle House lingo we would call these hash browns, scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, and capped), and an order of fried green tomatoes.

  These kids would make any Southern grandmother proud.  I haven't had Southern food so good since I was a little girl in Georgia.  My god, those biscuits were like eating buttery air.  I wanted to do a couple of backstroke laps in a pool of that gravy.  In fact, I may have to replace all the liquid I drink with a steady supply of Pine State Biscuit sausage gravy.  You may have to wait in a very long line and smack a horde of kids so hip they have the word "irony" tattooed on their foreheads out of your way to get a seat at one of three small tables but hell yes it is worth it.

Once again we had eaten so much before doing some more shopping I almost had to shop in the maternity sections of the boutiques we perused.  Thank god for the empire waist, that's all.  As the day faded away and our appetites begrudgingly returned to us we headed off to Bluehour for some cocktails before dinner.  Kelleen had a New Stone Fence (vodka, apple cider, angostura, applejack maple foam) and I had a Diva (house infused citrus vodka, blood orange, lime).  Go ahead, have your little laugh at my drink and say things like "...of course your drink was called the diva Violet, what else would you have?  Didn't they have a drink called the Spoiled Princess Latina Diva?"  No they didn't if they had, I would've gotten it.  The drinks were tasty if not up to par with Teardrops innovative concoctions but perhaps the comparison is unfair.  Of course after seeing raw oysters on the menu I ordered a half a dozen.  My one complaint is the music.  I felt like we were being transported to some scary world where John Tesh and Moby had lots of babies and formed world music bands together.  I didn't like that.

For dinner we tried to go to Le Pigeon but it was packed and the wait was too long with no place to wait. Then we tried Pok Pok but it was packed and so cold that the diners looked like they were trying to enjoy Southeast Asian food while ice fishing.  Everyone looked like they were in pain so we opted against waiting.  Finally we arrived at Laurelhurst Market.  Butchershop by day, steak restaurant by night.  The wait was long but at least we could wait inside by the meat case.  The fact that LM is it's own butcher shop means that there is no middle-man so the amazing steaks are unbelievably affordable.  K had a medium rare bavette steak with garlic smashed potatoes, and chimichurri.  The bavette comes from right above the loin on the cow and is similar to skirt steak.  It was lip-smacking heaven.  Nothing like a perfectly cooked steak.  I got the Cassoulet Toulousaine  (duck confit, pork belly, Toulouse sausage, and Viridian Farms tarbais beans).  Once again I found myself saying "best meal I've had".  Everything was just so amazing.  I wish we had tried some of the cocktails at LM.  Mixologist Evan Zimmerman is supposed to be a genius with his house-made tonics and bitters but I was liquored out.  Back to the hotel for an early morning drive back to Seattle.

Portland treated us amazingly well.  Every meal we ate was fantastic.  Tons of great shopping.  Really nice people.  Our hotel treated us like royalty.  It's always hard to go back to your busy life from vacation.  Work days seem like they never end, bills should just pay themselves, and your super creepy idiot of a noisy downstairs neighbor seems like he's perhaps dangling in a creepy sex swing and barking like a dog louder than ever.  But home is home, and that's where my heart is.

The Hunger Presents: White Trash Girl - Episode 1

I spent roughly 12 years of my life in a place called Woodstock Georgia, about 45 minutes outside of Atlanta. My mother had a pretty hard time making friends in the South being born in Cuba and raised in New York. The Southerners back in our little neck of the woods (and I do mean woods, we were kind of in the middle of Deliverance country) were friendly enough from a distance but didn't want the brown people at their party if ya know what I'm saying. I think we were the only ethnic people within a ten mile radius. Hell, I don't think I even saw a black person until I went to junior high. Pretty messed up. Anyways, my mother had an interesting cooking style. She cooked a lot of Cuban food and some Italian (my godfather is Italian) but she also adapted to the South by trying out all these 50's Americana, Southern white trash sort of dishes. Things like tuna noodle casserole, hamburger mac, fried bologna sandwiches, etc. I loved the stuff. I have a serious addiction for these kind of dishes. I definitely do not have a salt or cheese deficiency. This kind of food is a part of my history. Now that were in another semi-depression these kind of meals are becoming more and more popular. They're cheap to make and they are filling. As you can probably tell, I am not a food snob. While I love organic, local, sustainable foods I also have a deep respect for down and dirty food. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to use crap ingredients. You can elevate white trash food by using local, high quality ingredients. In my mind you are still cooking with white trash spirit which is good enough for me. Even though I am part Cuban, Chinese, and French Canadian, once you live in the South, it becomes a part of you. I still hear my Southern twang come out once in a while and I still love my hot dog and tater tot casseroles.

Spicy Taco-Mac

16 oz. macaroni pasta
1 lb. ground beef
2 cups half and half
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp AP flour
1 packet of taco seasoning (or make your own)
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper tt
2 1/2 cups cheddar cheese (my fave is Beecher's Flagship cheese), grated
your favorite hot sauce (Tapatio is mine)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 12 baking dish. Cook pasta in salted boiling water until cooked al dente. Set aside. Meanwhile, brown the ground beef whole in a skillet on medium high heat until just cooked through. Mix the taco seasoning in a 1/2 cup of water. Add to the beef and simmer until the sauce thickens. Add a few good dashed of the hot sauce. Set aside.

Heat butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Whisk in the flour making sure there are no lumps and cook the roux, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 minutes. Whisk in half and half, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat. Stir in the cheese until melted. Stir in the taco beef. Pour pasta into the cheese sauce and mix well. Pour mixture into the baking dish and bake 30 minutes until golden brown. If you want to get really white trash, crumble nacho flavored Doritos with a little butter and sprinkle over the top before baking. Enjoy and leave your guilty feeling at the door.

Sovereign State #7 Argentina

Argentina

Entraña Asado con Chimichurri (Grilled Skirt Steak with Chimichurri)
Puré de Patatas con Ajo (Garlic Mashed Potatoes)
Pizza Argentina con Jamón y Aceitunas Verdes (Pizza with Pancetta and Castellino Olives)
Pizza Argentina Margherita (Pizza with Heirloom Tomatoes and Fresh Basil)

Argentina is an interesting amalgam of European cultures. Like an adopted child, it knows that it's biological parents are of Spanish descent but it has been raised in German and Italian foster homes for most of it's life so Argentina has taken on a German, Italian sort of attitude. "Yeah sure, I'll eat my empanadas but you better serve some spaghetti and grilled sausages with it." Pretty much the red meat capitol of the world, and with the amount of cow that they eat I'm surprised these nice people aren't dropping like flies from heart attacks.

Grilled meat is pretty much the holy grail of Argentinean cuisine. Being an apartment dweller I had to use my trusty grill pan to achieve a lovely "pho-grill" seared steak. I grilled a beautiful skirt steak that I first marinated for an hour or two in some olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper, garlic, and rosemary. I turned a burner up to medium high and grilled the steak about 2 minutes each side until perfectly medium rare. Then I let it rest for 5 minutes. Always let your meat rest after cooking. Never cut into your meat right after cooking. Resting helps the the juices redistribute and seals in all the moisture. I wish I could use a charcoal grill to get that nice smokey flavor only an outdoor grill can provide but alas, here I am in my lovely little kitchen. Perhaps next summer I'll build a little window ledge and put a grill on it. As long as it doesn't drop three stories and take someone's head off or burn the building down, I think it'll work. Don't you? Is that a fire hazard? I'll just put it right next to my indoor smoker that has a rigged exhaust pipe that goes directly into my annoying neighbors apartment. Okay, okay don't get all ready to call the fire marshal on me. I'm just kidding, my little grill pan works just fine. So anyways, the condiment of choice in Argentina is chimichurri. A tasty salsa minus the tomatoes. It's basically, parsley, garlic, red pepper flakes, olive oil, and sherry vinegar thrown in a blender (salt and pepper tt). I love the acidity it brings to the melty fattiness of the meat. I served the skirt steak and chimichurri with garlic mashed potatoes and a little basic green salad. The next day I made steak sandwiches with my go to cheese Beechers Flagship and a little chimichurri mayo. Served up with my favorite salt and pepper chips. I could eat that skirt steak for every meal it was so good. Such basic, clean flavors. No need to muck it up with a bunch of nonsense.

Argentineans love pizza. You heard me right, they love Italian food. So much so that they pretty much eat pasta and pizza every second of every day. Seriously. Okay maybe not that much but Italian cuisine has definitely crept into the homes of these South American peoples to the point of having something covered in tomato sauce and cheese on nearly every menu. Pizza and Argentina go together like junkies and crack rock, ya know. They love the stuff. Maybe even more than Americans. Argentina is said to have the best Italian food outside of Italy, and who am I to argue? I've only had American Italian food so as far as I'm concerned, it's probably true. So the day after steak-fest 09 I decided to truly represent Argentina I had to make pizza. I made one with pancetta, pitted, green castellino olives, and fresh mozzarella and one with black krin heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, roasted goat-horn peppers, and fresh mozzarella. The dough was a little sticky but the result was a super crusty, chewy crust. I cranked my oven to 525 degrees (as high as it goes) for about an hour and cooked the pies for about 8-10 minutes, turning them once for even cooking. The results were definitely awesome. Best pizzas I ever made. I used Elise's dough recipe from Simply Recipes and it worked out really well. I used my quick tomato sauce recipe and it added just the right flavor. So stinkin' good. I just a ate a slice cold for breakfast. Yum.

Chimichurri
1 cup (packed) fresh Italian parsley
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup sherry wine vinegar
3 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp dried crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fresh black pepper


Puree all ingredients in blender or processor. Eat with steak or fish.

Quick Pizza Sauce
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 15 oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 garlic cloves, minced
a few fresh basil leaves
kosher slat and fresh cracked black pepper tt



In an unheated sauce pan add the olive oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes. Turn the heat up to low and cook for a minute or two until the garlic becomes fragrant. Meanwhile in a food processor, add the tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper and pulse it a few times. Add the tomatoes to the pan and stir to combine. Cook for a few minutes and then remove from the heat. Top a pizza with it or whatever else you can think of.

sisters...

Shannon was K's amazingly awesome sister and best friend. She is missed and loved. To remember her and celebrate her birthday we went to the beach, ate her favorite tuna fish sandwiches on white bread with BBQ chips, and watched one of her favorite movies, Fletch.

Here's my recipe for my tuna fish sandwich. I'm sure she would've liked of my version.

your favorite bread, I like rye, baguette, or kaiser rolls.
6 oz white albacore tuns, drained
1 Tbsp Mayo
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 scallion, chopped
1 Tbsp Spanish Olives, chopped
2 dashes of hot sauce (Tapatio is my go to)

Mix everything but the bread. Put the tuna salad in between two pieces of bread. You can insert lettuce and tomato if you like. Sometimes I'll add cheese. When I'm feeling especially like the fancy white trash that I sometimes am I"ll broil them open faced with American cheese on them as a tuna melt. Eat with pickles and chips. Watch with a good Chevy Chase or Bill Murray movie.

Violet had a little lamb...

I have the flu and haven't cooked for a few days unless you count pressing buttons on the microwave or heating up leftovers. For some reason when I feel like death I crave steak and meat and bloody burgers. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the body needs protein when it's fighting off a cold. I didn't want to blog about the can of SpaghettiOs and meatballs I ate for lunch today (You heard me right. So a girl craves her childhood food when she's sick too, so don't judge!) so instead I'll give you a nice recipe for my delicious Lamb Burger with spinach, smoked gouda cheese, and poblano pepper aoili. Now, more orange juice and back to bed.

Violet's Lamb Burger
1 lb ground lamb
3 scallions, chopped
1 clove garlic chopped
1 Tbsp bread crumbs
1 egg
2 tsp fresh chopped oregano
2 tsp Pickapeppa Sauce
a few dashes of hot sauce
salt and pepper tt

Combine ingredients thoroughly. Don't over work the meat though. Seperate into four patties. Broil the burgers (about 5 inches from the heat) for about 4 minutes each side or until medium rare. Top with slices of smoked gouda for the last minute. Serve on toasted buns with with spinach, and poblano aioli (recipe follows).

Roasted Poblano Aioli

2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons spicy Dijon mustard
1 minced clove garlic
2 teaspoons lemon juice
6 ounces roasted and peeled poblano peppers
1 cup olive oil
kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper tt

1. Combine everything but the olive oil in a food processor. Blend until smooth and then drizzle the olive oil into the mixture slowly in a thin stream. Season with salt and pepper and keep cold until serving.

Sovereign State #6 Antigua & Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda
The Menu:
Antiguan Pepperpot
Fungee

There's a sale on sovereign states this week! Two for the price of one. That's right folks, step right up and see the mysterious Caribbean nation with two heads. I wonder if the people of Antigua and Barbuda ever get mad at each for being lumped together. I mean, they are two separate islands. I wonder if they get pissed off, kind of like how when you ask a New Yorker if they're from New Jersey. It's not pretty and you might end up with a black eye. And we're not even mentioning the bird guano covered, feral goat infested, volcanic rock island of Redonda which in my opinion should be added to the nation's name. It should be Antigua, Barbuda, and Feral Goat Infested Redonda. There, I said it.

There is a small war going on in the internets. What exactly is Antigua, Barbuda, and FGIR's national dish? Is it pepperpot like most people claim? Or is it the sweet potato and coconut infused dukana like some protest? Or maybe that crazy woman that I talked to on the Caribbean Grace Foods forums was right in insisting that bananas was the national dish. I thought about just taking a picture of a banana and calling it a day but I figured that you, my dear reader, would not be satisfied with that post. I decided to go with majority rules (in most cases majority blows) and cook the dishes that I thought best represented the islands. Pepperpot is a pretty common dish in a lot of Caribbean countries and the difference in this version is the addition of eddo leaves, pigeon peas, pork knuckle, and yucca. It also has calabaza squash, orange yams, habanero peppers, and pork belly. The day after I cooked this stew, fall weather arrived so you can all thank me for ending summer for you. This is a serious cool weather dish.

Fungee (pronounced 'fun-jee') is basically corn meal or polenta cooked until it forms a ball. It's pretty difficult to make because it splatters and you are required to keep stirring now matter how much of your hand get burned and blistered. When cooking this dish, the wooden spoon becomes like a crude torture device, stirring and scalding. Next time I'll wear mittens. Corn meal, water, butter, mittens, and a stacked set of guns (arm muscles). That's all you need to make this simple but effective side dish. I have to say, it goes pretty damn well with the pepperpot. As the stew infiltrates the fungee it becomes almost dumpling like in texture. Very tasty. Information was hard to come by on this nation but I'm glad I was able to find a piece of the islands and cook it in my kitchen. I just hope I never come across any feral goats.

For more info on this project, read this: 203 Sovereign States

...and now for something completely delicious.

...and I wonder why I can't seem to lose my lil' booze gut. Sure it's a little one but it ruins any chances I have of becoming America's next top model. Oh well, at least I have twenty portions of mac n' cheese in front of me. Ya know, if there was one thing I could've learned in culinary school it would've been how to cook for two people. I blame my bad portioning skills on my mother. Her and my grandmother had three rules when it came to food. 1) Everyone is probably hungry all the time. 2) Why just make a little bit when you can make more than enough to feed the whole neighborhood? 3) If you're not currently eating there must be a problem. I don't know how many times in my childhood I heard "Why aren't you eating? Are you sick?" Ummm, I just ate breakfast 20 freaking minutes ago. That's why I'm not hungry. Let a kid rest without a sandwich in their hand. Sheesh. So yes, I have become like her. I have adopted the very same rules that plagued me my whole life. I make too much food, all the time, and I can't moderately portion food to save my life. I just hope my aging, rusty metabolism keeps puttering along. I guess, in a way, it is comforting to know that there is always something comforting to snack on.

Baked Penne & Beecher's Flagship Cheese with Spicy Lamb Sausage -or-
Mac N' Cheese with Sausage (depends on whether you're feeling fancy or not)

16 oz. penne pasta
1/2 lb. spicy lamb sausage (merguez would work as well)
3 cups half and half
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp AP flour
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper tt
1 tsp pimenton picante
2 1/2 - 3 cups Beecher's Smoked Flagship cheese, grated (or mix it up with your favorites)
1 cup fine bread crumbs
1 Tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 12 baking dish. Cook pasta in salted boiling water until cooked al dente. Set aside. Meanwhile, brown sausage whole in a skillet until just cooked through. Let the meat rest before slicing. Heat butter in a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat.
Whisk in the flour making sure there are no lumps and cook the roux, stirring occasionally, for 2-3 minutes. Whisk in half and half, stirring constantly, until thickened, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and add pimenton. Remove from heat. Stir in the cheese until melted. Pour pasta into cheese sauce. Add sausage. Mix well. Pour into prepared pan. Combine bread crumbs and the Tbsp of melted butter. Sprinkle over macaroni and cheese. Bake 30 minutes until golden brown.