Spaghetti Carbonara DJ and Mack style

Our mom would make this when we were kids and it was an all-around favorite. Do yourself and me a favor and make it exactly per the instructions the first time before you go fancying it up.
Also, I strongly recommend reading the instructions through once because the end part after the pasta is cooked goes quickly and you're not going to want to be running back and forth between the pasta and the recipe (it's pretty straightforward).
I've made the core instructions bold in case you want to skip my commentary.

Ingredients:

• Bacon - one package, regular type, whatever thickness you like
• Spaghetti - one package (you can use linguine or angel hair the first time but save the fancier shapes and the whole wheat for next time)
• One egg - regular chicken egg is good, anything fancier would be a waste
• Parmesan - get the shredded kind that looks like little sticks. The powder-type won't work and this is not worth hand-shredding your own. Trust me, just don't. You'll want the 5 oz container but more cheese never hurt anyone. If you have a whole foods you can get the stuff they shred in-store (get the tall container, it's easy to use up extra parmesan) but we grew up with belgioioso or whatever the standard grocery store one is so don't go out of your way to whole foods.
• White pepper - This is in the spice aisle and the only "fancy" ingredient you need. It is significantly different from black pepper and you definitely need it. I know it's tempting to ignore this one, but don't.

Directions:

1. Put some water on to boil. If you salt your pasta water, go ahead and salt the water.
2. While that's heating up, cook the bacon. You can do it on the stove or in the oven or in the microwave or however you normally do it. You want the bacon to be done before the pasta because you're going to cut it up and put it in the pasta later.
3. Get a bowl large enough to accommodate the spaghetti later and crack an egg in the bottom. Scramble it up a bit with a fork and set aside. You can do this step at any point before the pasta goes in.
4. Put the pasta in the water when it's boiling.
5. Chop up the bacon while the pasta is cooking, set aside. If you're a slow chopper you might start this early. The pieces should be roughly square (with side length the width of the bacon) but this is a very rough guideline, do not bother measuring or even trying to make the pieces remotely uniform. If you've made your bacon crispy you can even crumble it by hand if you want (though try to keep at least some of the crumbs larger)
6. When the pasta is al dente, drain it in a colander and then immediately dump it on the scrambly egg you prepared earlier. Stir immediately to mix the egg in with the pasta. Yes, you are dumping pasta onto a raw egg. The pasta has just come out of the boiling water and will cook the egg completely as you stir it in. Do not skip this step.
7. Once it's stirred enough that you won't get a giant scrambled egg lump (usually just 4 - 6 stirs), dump in the cheese. If you got the 5 oz container, dump it all. If you got more than that start with about 5 oz (eyeball it, this is not an exact science) and add more as desired.
8. Sprinkle some white pepper over the cheese. A little goes a long way so just give it one or two light shakes.
9. Stir the cheese and pepper in, add bacon when it's mostly incorporated, then stir until it's even enough for your liking.
10. Enjoy!

This is great left over if you manage not to eat it all right away.
The original recipe doesn't need improving but you can certainly play around with it and add in veggies or use different pasta or swap out the bacon for pancetta (probably more authentic). All I ask is that you try it the regular way first.

Avocado Toast

When I first heard about Avocado Toast, I rolled my eyes so hard they almost fell out. But I like avocados and I like toast so I did give in and try it. And it is fantastic. What I don't like though, is going to a restaurant and paying a lot of money for things that are simple and much less costly to make at home. So I try to avoid getting out.
Here's my basic Recipe

Ingredients:

• Bread - I usually go for one of the bakery multigrains, you want something sturdy, not the soft floppy stuff
• Avocados (ripe obviously)
• Olive Oil
• Large Grain salt (sea salt, flake salt, Himalayan pink, whatever your preferred fancy salt)
• Red Pepper Flakes (like the kind in the shaker at the pizza place)
• Pepper (whatever your pepper grinder has in it is fine)

Directions:

1. Toast the bread. I personally enjoy toasting the bread in my cast iron skillet with a bit of olive oil. This method is totally optional and if you think it's too much of a pain or if you just don't have a suitable skillet, just use whatever your preferred toastng method is.
2. Place the toasted bread slices onto a plate
3. Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit. Use a fork to scoop out the part that you actually eat and kind of mash it onto the toasts in a thick layer.
4. Sprinkle each slice generously with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with the red pepper flakes to your preference
5. If you did not toast the bread in olive oil, you may wish to drizzle a small amount on top.
6. Enjoy!

If you can make toast and cut an avocado in half you can make this yourself. There are many variations to avocado toast, so I encourage you to experiment with additional toppings and spices. Leave a comment with your favorite toppings!

Mackenzie (a grilled cheese sandwich)

In Brooklyn there is a fantastic bar called Noorman's Kil. They serve whiskey and grilled cheese.  I could not recommend this place enough.  If you ever go to NYC with me, I will probably drag you there.  I won their first annual Grilled Cheese competition last year and was granted an automatic entry into this year's competition.  Here is the 2015 recipe!

Ingredients:

• Bread*
• Fontina
• Asiago
• Gorgonzola
• Mozzarella**
• Garlic
• Sun Dried Tomatoes (in oil)
• Basil

Directions:

1. The garlic and sun dried tomatoes get made into a spread.  I use an 8.5 oz jar of tomatoes for about three large cloves of garlic.  This will make enough for about 4-6 sandwiches.  Pulse the garlic in the food processor until it is minced.  Drain the oil off the tomatoes, squeezing a bit (some left is ok but you don't want them dripping), then add them to the food processor for a few seconds  You are looking for them to be blended into tiny bits but it does not need to be smooth.  Extra spread goes great on crackers and stores fairly well in the fridge too.
2. Spread a thin layer of this on one slice of bread
3. Layer the cheeses.  I did them in the order listed above because that was the easiest structurally with the cheese formats I used.  The gorgonzola is a strong cheese so you probably want to use about half as much as any of the other cheeses.  I had the other ones roughly equal, but you don't need to be exact.
4. Snip one large or two medium leaves of basil into little bits and sprinkle atop the cheeses. If you do not have fresh basil, a generous sprinkle of the dried stuff is just fine.  Plop the other bread slice on top.
5. Press that sandwich on a panini press.  If you don't have one, you can try cooking it the regular way in a pan but it's going to be very tricky with the amount of cheese you've crammed in.
6. Slice in half and enjoy.

In case you were wondering, I came in first place (again). I don't have the official dates yet for the sandwich but it will probably be on the menu for May.

* For the competition it was required that we use Orwashers bread so I used their Cabernet Rustica. For testing I used Trader Joe's Tuscan Pane Loaf.  You can use anything similar.  This sandwich would go great on ciabatta, which is probably what they will serve it on at the bar.

** I used the bag of pre-shredded mozzarella.  The fresh stuff is quite delicious but it does not melt the same.

Buffalo Mac and Cheese

I used to live near a bar that used to offer this as an appetizer and it was so delicious I had to replicate it at home.  The recipe is for one box of pasta which feeds two hungry people for dinner with leftovers for lunch the next day.

Ingredients:

• Pasta (elbows, shells, twirlies are all good)
• Cheddar (for one box of pasta I used 2 cups shredded)
• Blue Cheese (you can buy the crumbles or a wedge, however much you want)
• Milk (you will only need a bit so if you're not a milk drinker or coffee-er just buy the smallest amount.  Any percent is fine, I use skim because it's what I drink and there isn't a noticeable difference)
• Cooked Chicken* (2 breasts)
• Frank's RedHot sauce (I just dump and taste but I'm going to guess 1/3 cup)

Directions:

1. If you bought your cheese in blocks, shred it now
2. Put a pot of water in to boil.  Dump some salt in.
3. When it boils, add the pasta.
4. When the pasta is done* drain it and dump it back in the pot.  Do NOT run it under cold water.  Then turn the burner to the lowest setting
5. Dump in the cheddar and some blue cheese (I only put a bit in at this point) and mix until evenly coated.  If the cheese looks stringy, don't worry.
6. Dump in one "glug" of milk and mix until thoroughly combined.  If it still looks stringy, put a bit more milk.  You are going for a creamy or gooey sauce texture.  You shouldn't need more than two glugs of milk for this.
7. Dump in the Frank's and mix until combined***.
8. Scoop a bowlful and top with additional blue cheese crumbles for a fancy dinner!

It is tasty without chicken too but not as filling.

Make sure to add the Frank's last.  If you add it before the cheese, the cheese doesn't melt right and it ends up as these little bitty globs instead of a nice creamy sauce.  The flavor is the same but the texture is not as good.

If you are ambitious and want to screw around in the kitchen you can try making the cheese sauce separately by starting with a roux.  This has been quite finicky in my experience and is more trouble than it's really worth.

*I most recently made this with chicken I made in the crockpot.  To make the crockpot chicken, simply place the chicken in the crockpot and turn it on low for 6-7 hours.  Then shred.  If you want to make this right now, pan frying the chicken works as well.  Simply dice your chicken, then dump it into a skillet with a bit of oil until it is cooked through.
**You can do what the box says or you can stand around stirring it every couple minutes and then taking one pasta out, running it under cold water, and eating it to see if it's un-crunchy yet.
***If you aren't sure how much to put, dump a little less than you think, mix, and taste.  It is not an exact science.  Not enough Frank's? Add a bit more?  Too much?  Add more cheese!  Wayyyy too much? Better luck next time :/

Ada (a grilled cheese sandwich)

In Brooklyn there is a fantastic bar called Noorman's Kil. They serve whiskey and grilled cheese.  I could not recommend this place enough.  If you ever go to NYC with me, I will probably drag you there.  Anyway they decided to have a grilled cheese competition and of course I decided I would enter it (why not!).  I tested out at least eight different recipes and this one was the clear winner.  I submitted this recipe and they picked it as a finalist so I got to compete in their grill-off.

Ingredients:

• Bread*
• Smoked Gouda
• Cheddar**
• Gruyere**
• Vidalia Onions (you will caramelize them)
• Butter
• Balsamic Vinegar

Directions:

1. Chop your onions.
2. Heat some butter in a heavy pot and when it's melted, dump in the onions.
3. The goal here is to caramelize the onions, so basically keep it pretty low, stir it every once in a while but not too too much.  If you have never done this before, look it up.  There are far better directions on other sites.
4. Once you have caramelized onions,, take them off the heat and add some balsamic vinegar.  Don't go too crazy.  Taste it and add more if you need it.
5. Grate your cheeses.  If you slice it, it won't melt as evenly.  You can go the lazy route but if you have a nice grater*** it's not too much extra effort.
6. Assemble your sandwich. Bread. Tiny sprinkling of cheddar/gruyere. Thick layer of smoked gouda. Thin layer of balsamic onions. Thick layer of cheddar gruyere. Bread
7. Press that sandwich on a panini press.  If you don't have one, you can try cooking it the regular way in a pan but it's going to be trickier.
8. Slice in half and enjoy.

In case you were wondering, I came in first place. If you go during May of this year (2014) you can order it off of their menu.

* For the competition it was required that we use Orwashers bread so I used their Chardonnay Miche. For testing I used Trader Joe's Tuscan Pane Loaf.  You can use anything similar.

** If you have a Trader Joe's you can use their "Cheddar Gruyere Melange" cheese.  That's what I did.  If you don't, you can buy some of each kind of cheese and just mix them yourself.

*** I think this is the one I have.  It is definitely worth the money.  I've had it for years and it is hands down the best cheese grater I have used in my entire life.

Banana "froyo"

Do you own a food processor?
Do you like bananas at all?

If you answered "yes" to both of those you should seriously try this.  Not only is this delicious, it's also healthy and vegan!

Ingredients:

• Bananas

Optional Ingredients:

• Peanut Butter
• Cocoa Powder
• Chocolate
• Caramel syrup
• Nuts
• Anything else you can think of

Directions:

1. Wait for your bananas to get brown spots.
2. Peel the bananas and break them into 1.5" (ish) chunks and put them on a wax paper lined plate in the freezer.
3. Once frozen, transfer to a bag until ready to make banana "froyo"
4. Put the fully frozen bananas in the food processor
5. Turn the food processor on
6. Wait
7. The bananas will turn into little bits that are about dippin' dots size.  This is a good time to turn the food processor off and add any mix-ins
8. Scrape down the sides and turn the food processor back on
9. The bananas will form a giant glob and barely touch the blade.  When this happens, take a break from processing and smush the blob down to sort-of evenly distributed around blade-level
10. Process some more until fully blended and froyo-like consistency
11. Eat immediately

The banana "froyo" stores ok but not great so it's best if you blend this up when you are about to eat it.  You can try re-blending the frozen froyo too but it won't be quite the same.

Brown bananas are best since they are sweeter than the yellow and green ones, also the nearly mushy consistency that makes them less desirable for regular snacking is what makes them blend so well.

Don't skip step 2.  Bananas are way easier to peel and cut before they are frozen.

The result tastes like banana flavored froyo.  Some people will tell you this doesn't taste like bananas at all but they are lying. 

Vegan "Shepherdess" Pie

I'm vegan for lent this year (as I have done before) and this is so far my favorite vegan dish of all time.  So good in fact that you can serve it to your non-vegan friends.  Brian even said it was "really good".  If you're not vegan and not feeding vegans you can substitute the soy products with their dairy equivalents.

Ingredients:

• Mushrooms (I used 1 to 1.5 of the 10 oz cartons of both "white button" and "cremini")
• Onion (I used a med-large yellow onion)
• Garlic (3 cloves?  depends on how much you like garlic)
• Carrots (I used 2-4 handfuls of baby carrots because that's what I had.  Full size is fine too)
• Peas (frozen is fine, I used between 1/2 and 1.5 cups)
• Potatoes (a potful of any mashable sort)
• Soymilk (PLAIN!)
• Vegan butter substitute (I used Earth Balance which tastes just like butter)
• Mustard
• Red wine or vermouth (I used sweet (red) vermouth because I didn't have any wine open)
• Rosemary and maybe Thyme
• Salt/Pepper

Directions:

1. Set a pot of water on the stove and peel your potatoes.  If you're smart you'll do this part first.
2. Add your potatoes to the pot of water and turn it on to high.
3. Cut up your mushrooms, onion, and garlic.  I cut my mushrooms to pretty small dice to kind of mimic ground meat and I cut the onion to about pea-sized bits.  Do the garlic however you want, some people are smashers and some people are mincers and some people use a garlic press.  Whatever.
4. Add all that stuff to a pan with some olive (or other) oil.  I did this in my cast iron skillet and it was lovely.  A regular frying pan should do just fine though.  You will most likely need to do this in parts, allowing the mushrooms to cook down a bit.  I just added them as I chopped but if you're slow at chopping you might want to get a head start.
5. This is probably a good time to preheat the oven.  350 or 375 is good I guess.  I'm not very good at this.
6. Cut up the carrots while all that is cooking down.  I cut my baby carrots into 4-5 cylindrical pieces each)
7. Make a well in the center of the pan and add the carrots.  Put some of the mushroom/onion mixture on top.
8. Check on your potatoes and see if they are done yet
9. Mix the vegetables up again and make another well in the center for the peas.  
10. Add the peas.
11. Add a generous sprinkle of rosemary (thyme would probably be good too but I'm out). Add some brownish kind of mustard.  I made some circles and called it art.
12. Mix it up.
13. If your potatoes still aren't done, just put your veggies on the lowest setting and stir periodically until the potatoes finish.
14. Drain your potatoes and mash them up with your soymilk and fake butter (I promise these are very convincing mashed potatoes)
15. If you used a cast iron skillet you can just plop your mashed potatoes on top of your veggies, if you used a pan that isn't oven safe, put your veggies in a casserole dish and put your potatoes on top.
16. Put the whole ensemble into the oven for 20 minutes or so
17. Eat.