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Feb 19

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Roasted mushrooms, chorizo, and sweet potatoes with chipotle quinoa (plus more exciting announcements!)

Nearly two years ago, when we decided we were moving to Madison, I began seeking out other like-minded folks and food-related organizations to start getting to know my new hometown. Among many others, I was delighted to find a couple of other food bloggers (Vicky of Things I Made Today and Sarah of Wisconsin From Scratch) and the three of us have been getting together regularly over the past year or so to chat about our businesses and find ways to support each other.

Over time, we found there could be a lot of benefits of working together as a group – we could coordinate our efforts, cross-promote each other, brainstorm future collaborative projects … after a few meetings we had generated a pretty sizable list of ideas. So we’ve officially joined forces together as Wisconsin Whisk, a collective of food website coming together to share our love of cooking and of rooting our work here in Wisconsin. We even have an intern! (That’s official.)

There’s more to come on Whisk later – like a shiny new website! – but for now, we’re very excited to announce a rather fortuitous turn of events, unveiled today. Madison Magazine’s Best of Madison 2015 list was announced this morning, and the three of our sites have been listed as Madison’s best food blogs! Thanks most of all to all the readers (that’s you!) who helped vote us here. Woo hoo!

And in the spirit of collaboration, we’re teaming up to bring you a celebratory three-course meal, each of us contributing a recipe. I’m here today with the entree of the meal, an easy and flavorful one that’s been on my table at home a few times over the recent weeks.

Before I say too much more, let’s talk about what comes before and after (important to know what you’re in for!).

sun-dried-tomato-soupFirst course
Creamy sun-dried tomato soup

“I’ve been on kind of a sun dried tomato kick recently, and using them in soup form seemed like a logical next step. Obviously fresh tomatoes aren’t quite in their prime during winter, so the sun dried version is an excellent alternative …”

Full recipe from at Things I Made Today

Chipotle-quinoa-sweet-potato2Entree
Roasted chorizo, mushrooms, and sweet potatoes with chipotle quinoa

“… a wonderful, modern interpretation of some great Mexican flavors.”

See recipe below

blood-orange-cakeDessert
Blood orange cornmeal upside-down cake

“I swapped out the butter in the cake for olive oil, whose fruitiness I felt sure would complement the oranges. I added some coarse ground cornmeal for texture and  more rustic feel …”

Full recipe at Wisconsin From Scratch

My contribution is fairly simple to put together – perfect for a weeknight dinner; enough for two people with plenty of lunch leftovers the next day. Roasting chorizo, onion, and mushroom together is one of my favorite taco fillings, as I’ve written about here before, and it’s balanced perfectly by creamy roasted sweet potatoes. Adding chipotle to quinoa or any other grain is a perfect way to add some flavor and give it a kick, and topped with some basic Mexican-style garnishes (especially avocado, cheese, and/or crema if your quinoa ends up pretty spicy) this is a wonderful, modern interpretation of some great Mexican flavors. Read more

Feb 15

Caramelized banana malts (and a tiny little excuse)

Hello there! Happy day-after-Valentine’s. I bet what you need right now is another dessert recipe. Yes? Great. We’re on the same page.

Caramelized-banana-malt

Many apologies for my disappearing over the last few months. Three months, to be exact. Three fairly queasy, fatigued, food-averse months. That’s right, I’m using the little, tiny human growing inside me as my excuse, and believe me, it’s a pretty good one. I wouldn’t wish a job working with/talking about/thinking about food upon any newly pregnant lady, not ever.

But I’m coming back to life, step by step, or at least figuring out what life looks like in these somewhat disorienting circumstances. I’m certainly not in fighting form – a few days ago (one of my first non-teaching cooking attempts in the last three months), I transferred a skillet of pan-roasted chicken thighs from the oven back to the stove and almost immediately grabbed the searing hot handle of the skillet with my bare hand. After a few less-than-ladylike words and some quality time with a running tap of cold water, I turned back to the stove – and proceeded to do the exact same thing with the other hand.

This is your brain on pregnancy. Read more

Jan 23

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I’m still here!

Contrary to what this blog might otherwise suggest, I have not disappeared in 2015! I’m still here, prolonging my return to real life after the holidays and re-acclimating to the beast that is a Midwestern winter. I’m even cooking a little, and here’s some proof:

bao

That’s a pan of chicken and shitake-stuffed bao, ready for the steamer – testing the recipe in preparation for Wednesday’s Chinese dumplings class. This was a very successful holiday season for Bowen Appétit, and the private classes we booked along with the normal class schedule have kept us quite busy and the house quite full of activity.

But this also means there will be new recipes here soon! And plenty of helpful cooking advice to go along with it. To be honest, I find the beginning of the year to be the perfect time for simple, intuitive, comforting home cooking – roasted vegetables, simple pastas, big salads – and I love to enjoy that time before getting back into cooking projects and in-depth recipes. (Aside from the testing I do for classes, of course … and no one’s complaining about the bao we’ll be eating tonight!)

Hope you’re all making the best of 2015 thus far – I’ll see you here again soon!

Dec 11

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Sweet potato gratin w. Thai chilies, pepitas, and cilantro

Don’t fault me for two sweet potato recipes in a row. When you’re trying to focus on local ingredients during the winter in the Midwest (and when – shhh – I’m not the biggest potato enthusiast), sweet potatoes are going to show up fairly often. And I’m not too upset about that, at least at this point (ask me again in March).

A few weeks back I described this recipe to someone as my “it” recipe this season – when people have asked me for recipe recommendations lately, this is always at the top of my list. When we met up with some friends at a lake house earlier in the fall, I made this. When we had a “friendsgiving” in Brett’s program, I brought this. When we made our own little repeat Thanksgiving dinner so we could have leftovers (you know what I’m talking about), I made this.

Sweet potato gratin with goat cheese, Thai chilies, toasted pepitas, and cilantro. Beat that.

Sweet-potato-gratin2

Read more

Dec 4

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Meet Bowen Appétit + sweet potato hash with apples and sage

I’m very excited to share with you all the first in what will maybe (eventually, one day, sometime) be a series of videos highlighting Bowen Appétit cooking classes and the reasons I love being in the kitchen helping people create memorable meals. I was lucky to work with the incredibly talented Jane Duggan, a local videographer, to put together these scenes in the waning weeks of the outdoor Madison farmers’ market and then with a kitchen and table full of friends. I wanted to give a peek into what it’s like to take a Bowen Appétit class, and I think this video captures it perfectly.

I hope you love it as much as I do! Read more

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