A Duo of Chefs

Grapefruit Pound Cake

2012-01-24T06:05:00.000-06:00

I have been lacking motivation to get into the kitchen a bake for a long while. I'm not sure why that is, since the inspiration has been there. Yet whenever I got around to executing, something always distracted me. Then the January 2012 issue of Cooking Light arrived and I couldn't get the grapefruit pound cake recipe out of my head. It's a simple enough recipe that packs the perfect

Loaded Baked Potato Dip

2012-01-19T06:03:00.000-06:00

Dan has talked about our addiction to Pinterest before, and here's another recipe based off of a pin I discovered. Often when I find an interesting recipe on Pinterest, I'll take a look at the ingredients to get a general idea of how it's made and then I go into the recipe and make it my own way based off the flavors I like or what I have in my cupboards. That's exactly what I did with this

Wisconsin Maple Cheddar and Breakfast Sausage Frittata

2012-01-17T06:19:00.000-06:00

Meal ideas can come from many places. Sometimes it's from a craving, sometimes it's from cookbook. In this case, it's from an ingredient. One of the Christmas presents we got this year was a Brennan's Market gift card from my mom. Melissa went one day to the store and bough several items, Wisconsin maple cheddar cheese among them. This cheese is enticing: A deep maple aroma assaults your

Chicken Caesar Sandwiches

2012-01-11T06:29:00.000-06:00

Chicken: It's been what's for dinner for quite a few meals for us recently. Part of that is that we had some frozen chicken breasts sitting in our chest freezer for quite some time. And we're as much of fans of Caesar salads as Annie is. That's why we had to try out her Chicken Caesar Sandwiches recipe. We opted for ciabatta rolls to make the meal a bit smaller, but even so it was filling.

Herb-Seasoned Snack Crackers

2012-01-10T06:52:00.000-06:00

Melissa was exploring Pinterest recently when she came across a recipe from The Finer Things in Life. The recipe reminded her of snacks her mom used to make when she was growing up, so she decided to try the recipe out, only she made a ranch seasoning from scratch. That recipe was based off of one from AllRecipes.com for Dry Ranch Style Seasoning for Dip or Dressing. Melissa adds 2 tablespoons

Our 10 Favorite Recipes from 2011

2012-01-03T07:01:00.000-06:00

2011 was quite a year for us: We welcomed a new Westie puppy into our household as well as expanded our garden and tried our hands at canning for the first time. And those are just the major points that we covered on our blog. Of course there was more happiness, sadness, anger and frustration. But through it all, we cooked; we might not have done as much as we would have liked, but we cooked.

A Duo of Chefs Best of 2011

2011-12-30T06:03:00.000-06:00

I noticed something interesting when I sat down with Google Analytics to see what our most-viewed stories of 2011 were. The top 4 posts viewed in 2011 were among the top 10 viewed in 2010 -- and some were published in 2009. Clearly, this reinforces something Melissa and I thought: 2011 was a lackluster year for us in the kitchen. Part of it was we were devoid of inspiration, but another part was

Chocolate-Covered Wisconsin Brandied Tart Cherries

2011-12-20T07:05:00.004-06:00

Christmas is almost here, but before you settle in with your family around the tree, we've got a couple of more holiday treat recipes for you to try. This summer when we made Brandied Door County Tart Cherries, we knew we would want to use some of them come Christmastime. We simply covered a bunch in chocolate for some homemade Chocolate-Covered Wisconsin Brandied Tart Cherries. Our friends

Wisconsin Jam Thumbprint Cookies

2011-12-16T06:50:00.000-06:00

Wisconsin strawberry jam thumbprint cookies December is a time for many things: Family, friends and marathon baking. And it's the cycle of marathon baking that we've been enduring during the past few weeks. We sat down during our Thanksgiving weekend and planned out our baking schedule, both what we were baking and when we were baking it. For the past few years, Melissa and I have

A Food Fight for a Cause: FoodFightMKE

2011-12-13T06:25:00.000-06:00

When I was growing up, I would have been reprimanded for causing a food fight. Unless it was for a good cause. This is for one of those good causes. FoodFightMKE, its website says, is a movement initiated by young adults dedicated to educating, engaging, energizing and inspiring local residents to beat hunger in Milwaukee. Proceeds raised will be donated to the Hunger Task Force. If you want to

Lime Bars

2011-12-06T11:25:00.000-06:00

Melissa was in the mood to bake lately, so she went on the hunt for something to make. Her search ended, as it usually does, with America's Test Kitchen. This time, with its Best Key Lime Bars recipe (link leads to premium content). Bonus: The recipe is simple, just a few steps, but we used regular limes instead of Key limes. The crust is baked after being made of crushed animal cookies, a

Super Sloppy Joes

2011-12-05T10:49:00.000-06:00

For the past few weeks, we've been on a fairly strict diet of super simple meals. Ones that don't take a lot of cooking and preparation time and don't call for a laundry list of ingredients. You can say we've been trying to uncomplicate our lives in the kitchen. Those are the types of meals we've been aiming to cook when we sit down on the weekends and plan our menu calendar for the week. So

Vegetable Fried Rice

2011-12-01T10:33:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, we met up with some other tea lovers in the Milwaukee area for a Twitter #teaclub meeting. The meeting place? P.F. Chang's. We don't eat Asian cuisine with much frequently, but after we ate there, we had a big ol' hankering for fried rice. So we grabbed a few veggies and set out to make some homemade Vegetable Fried Rice. Frying mushrooms, bean sprouts and carrots in

Breakfast Pizza

2011-11-29T09:09:00.000-06:00

When the colder weather hits, we turn to two things: Pizza and soup. We make soup as often as possible (nearly weekly so far this fall) and pizza every weekend. Our Saturday night and Sunday lunch pizzas are great, and they're usually green peppers, mushrooms, onions with some seasonings. But then there's times when we get tired of that mainstay pizza and crave something different. It was on

Jammin' Peach and Clove Cranberry Sauce

2011-11-28T09:27:00.000-06:00

An odd thing happened on the way to Thanksgiving: We were not sure if we were going to be making anything for our family gatherings, so when Thanksgiving week approached and we started planning for one, we were left wondering what we should make. With Wisconsin cranberries on sale, how could we go wrong trying to make some delicious cranberry sauce? Like last year, we made two cranberry sauces.

MKEfoodies Holiday Bake Sale

2011-11-21T09:51:00.000-06:00

Earlier this year we participated in a bake sale that raised money for a good charity. We're happy to announce that we're doing so again, this time in December. The #MKEfoodies are back again with a Holiday Bake Sale to benefit Cookies for Kids' Cancer. Here's the details: What: MKE Foodies Holiday Bake Sale to benefit Cookies for Kids' Cancer When: Noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10 Where:

Black Bean Burgers with Frickles

2011-10-28T11:08:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, we made some frickles (fried pickles if you've never heard of the term) with some of our canned pickles. As we were sitting around last weekend planning our meals, Melissa said that she would love to have frickles again. Even though the previous week we had had Black Bean Burgers with Tangy Citrus Mayo, I suggested we have it again, only this time topped with the frickles. We

Zucchini and Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-10-25T10:40:00.000-05:00

Zucchini. The word alone is enough to haunt me for the next year. Such is the case when you have 55 cups of it shredded and frozen. Thankfully I found a recipe on Pinterest for Zucchini and Chocolate Chip Cookies. It seemed like a good recipe to use up some of that frozen foodstuffs. Considering I'm going to have to make room in that freezer for next year's crop of shredded zucchini, I want to

Classic Chicken Dumpling Soup

2011-10-24T11:15:00.000-05:00

Soup has been on our minds lately, and we've tried to fulfill those desires with creamy tomato soup and a Classic Chicken Dumpling Soup. America's Test Kitchen assisted, providing the recipes. Interestingly, ATK's dumpling soup recipe suggests using a rotisserie chicken to keep the flavor while decreasing the cooking time. We had a lot of chicken frozen in our chest freezer, so we decided to

Bread and Butter, Hamburger Dill and Dill Pickles

2011-10-05T13:47:00.000-05:00

The calendar has reached October, and for us that has meant that we've toned down our canning efforts. But we were busy shoring up our winter stock of garden-grown food nearly every weekend in July and August. And one ingredient that we had a ton of was cucumbers, pickling cucumbers in particular. Pickle harvest from West Allis Farmers Market When we were deciding how to preserve those

Nutella Meringues

2011-10-03T10:43:00.000-05:00

In August, the #MKEfoodies group -- it's a loose group comprised of food bloggers and food lovers from the Milwaukee area -- met in Wauwatosa at Hart Park for the first MKEfoodies picnic. There was a potluck component of the picnic and we brought some desserts. The main dish we brought was Nutella meringues. It was a simple recipe inspired by Pinterest, our newest love. We haven't used

Canned Fruit Jam

2011-09-28T09:22:00.000-05:00

Melissa and I do not eat jam a lot. In fact, it's very infrequently when we do. It's not because we don't like it; it's because it's not worth buying from the grocery store. Now, when you make your own fruit jam, well, then I'll eat it by the half-pint full. Strawberry, blueberry, peach and tart cherry jams. All in a summer's work. Strawberries This is the first year in quite some time that

Toasted Pecan Waffles with Cinnamon-Butter Glaze

2011-09-26T09:08:00.000-05:00

West Bend Appliance Co. celebrated 100 years of business this past weekend. As part of their 100th anniversary, the company gave away several appliances through contests hosted by other Wisconsin food bloggers. Thankfully, Melissa was lucky enough to win a waffle maker from #MKEfoodies. The day we received the waffle maker, Melissa was struck with dinner inspiration. She made waffles based

Carrot, Banana and Oat Dog Treats

2011-09-18T13:15:00.000-05:00

It's not a surprise to regular readers that we have two dogs, both almost out of their puppy stage. Our Westies love treats (and, really, what dog doesn't?). We have toyed with the idea of making homemade treats for them for a while. Recently Melissa found we had an abundance of carrots from the West Allis Farmers Market, so she decided to use that ingredient for the basis for dog treats and

Baked Potato Deep Dish Pizza

2011-09-15T10:05:00.000-05:00

I don't know if it's the calendar change into September or the brief temperature plummet that came around the same time, but Melissa and I have been craving pizza as of late. And, as coincidences go, Uno's Pizzeria recently said it will be closing its Elm Grove restaurant. Melissa had eaten there and loved an appetizer they had: a baked potato deep dish pizza. That meant it was time to