Buffalo Mac’n’Cheese

I’m downright excited! You know why? This week is my mom’s birthday week (Happy Birthday Mom!!!) and for her birthday we are headed to New York City. A girls weekend to be filled with shopping, Mary Poppins and cupcakes! I’ve been to New York a many number of times, but this will only be Mom’s second trip to the big city. Second trip in the winter, maybe the third time we should shoot for the summer?

Say hello to delicious

There are many things that I love doing while in New York. In general I’ll be there with boyfriend and we love to wander the streets, popping into cute shops we find along the way. Every time we go, we find ourselves in someplace we’ve never been before. The first few times we visited the city (back in the summer of 2003) we were without our handy iPhones. We relied on guidebooks and maps to help us find our way through the streets. When it was time for a meal we would wander aimlessly, somehow missing all of the restaurants along the way. How? I have no idea.

These days we have GPS, Open Table and a better sense of direction. The last few trips to the city we went with more of a plan, places we wanted to visit and reservations. We’ve dined at Asian fusion joints, American bistros and English pubs, but my favorite place is just a hole in the wall. Located on 12th St near 1st Ave is S’mac. What do they serve? Macaroni and cheese. And it’s delicious.

Sadly S’mac is in New York and I am not. So, I decided that it was necessary to replicate my favorite dish, the Buffalo Mac’n’Cheese. And maybe to drag my mom to S’mac next weekend…

Spicy Peanut Noodles

How is your New Year going? I know it’s only a week in, but that’s 1/52nd of the year! Now doesn’t that sound like a lot of time? Aside from my VERY important resolutions, I’m working on a few smaller goals. One of those is to try and do more things that scare me. I’ve found, in the past, doing these scary things have yielded amazing results.





A number of years ago I joined my first gym. For the first year I spent a good amount of time on the elliptical machine. Walking in place, uphill, downhill. Very fulfilling. Got some killer calves from that year, rock hard. After a while I got a little bored and decided to try out the weight room floor. All those shiny machines were calling to me. After a personal trainer showed me the ropes I dove in, hit those machines, usually on Fridays. This lead to some nice arms and a few too many offers of friendship from the muscle-bound men.

Look at all that color!  Delicious!

The final hurdle I jumped was going to the group fitness classes. I decided that I liked this the best. Not only would I have awesome arms and calves, but I would be able to work my whole body! Pilates, body sculpting, yoga it was all so much fun! But what really caught my eye? One night I spied a kickboxing class while pedaling away on my elliptical. Punching and kicking, all the members in unison like one of those Bally’s commercials. I could do that, right? You bet! Although it took an introductory class and a pair of new shoes to get me into the rhythm with the rest of them. But now I can round house kick like Chuck Norris.  Totally worth it!

The scary thing for this week? I stopped at that imposing looking Asian market on my walk home from work. Walking inside and being greeted with strange candies and bad lighting. I walked up and down the aisles, looking over the bottles and jars with words written in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. I decided to bring home some of these sauces, even though I wasn’t quite sure what they all were. Dinner would be spicy tonight, because the bottle we’re using tonight says chili!

Cupcake 24-7 - The Spaghetti & Meatball Cupcake

Are you ready for something a little crazy? We enter our second week of “Cupcake 24-7” with dinner! I know, cupcakes for dinner is wacky. I like a little protein for dinner. I like something not made of sugar and piled high with frosting. Well, you’re in luck. We at Cupcake 24-7 are not only bakers, we are also chefs. Fine dining chefs who make perfectly portioned dinners, in cupcake form. I present to you, my hungry diners, The Spaghetti & Meatball Cupcake.

Have one, maybe even two. You’ve had a long day and deserve some dinner. This is truly a savory cupcake. Although I’m not sure when cupcake ends and muffin begins, but I’m pretty sure it’s not with the spaghetti cupcake. A little bit ridiculous, a lot of tastiness, the spaghetti & meatball cupcake is a lot of fun. It’s like tapas, have one. Share a plateful of them. Laugh at how ridiculous the concept is. Just be sure to sprinkle them with parmesan cheese.

Asparagus, Bacon and Cheese Orzo

Sometimes I have no time to cook. Okay, usually I have no time to cook. There are a lot of things going on around here that need my attention! The chemicals need to be mixed together in flasks. The Amazing Race needs to be watched, otherwise Phil will be sad. No one else is using the brand new fitness equipment in my building, so I just have to break them in. These are all very important things that must be done, and cooking sometimes falls by the wayside.

Sure, you’re looking at the posts thinking “but you must eat like a queen! Look at all these tasty dishes!” Most of these dishes are prepared between eleven and five on Sunday. After I’ve had time to break in those treadmills and before the sun sets. This is the only time of the week that my kitchen sees action. I prepare all my food for the week in six hours. I'm a multitasking machine.  It’s fantastically fulfilling. You finish cooking and baking and you are left with a fridge full of prepared meals. It’s like I’m running my own nutrisystem center, except my food tastes like food.

However, every once and a while, I make it home before eight o’clock, there are the necessary ingredients in the fridge and I worked out in the morning. On these days, I actually cook dinner. I’m not talking a five course meal, I’m talking pasta. Simple asparagus and orzo pasta. You cook the bacon in the same pot that you make the orzo. This whole dish can be finished in twenty minutes. That way you can sit down in front of your DVR and catch up on what Phil has been up to.

Acorn Squash Ravioli with Cranberry Walnut Sauce

We all have those mountains in life that seem too high, too challenging of a climb. You think to yourself “Look at that mountain! Who would be crazy enough to climb that? Why bother when I have this delicious sandwich right here? I think I’ll just sit here and eat my delicious sandwich. I’ll bet that there aren’t delicious sandwiches on top of that mountain!” Hmm, I seem to have hit a tangent. Let’s get back on track…

Culinary mountains. Those food items that seem just too overwhelming to take on. And usually we have good reason not to attempt these culinary mountains. Why make your own puff pastry when you can buy it in the freezer section? Why make your own donuts when you live across the street from Dunkin’ Donuts? (Or maybe I’m just lucky enough to live in the center of a triangle of D. Do’s) And finally, why bother to mix, roll out and cut up your own pasta? Especially when pasta is seriously, a dollar. Really, sometimes it’s on sale two for a dollar.

We make pasta because we want to fill it with deliciousness. In my attempt to embrace fall, I took on the mountain of making homemade ravioli. And let me say, it was much easier than I thought it would be. The only change I would make, is to buy and use a pasta maker. Pasta dough is a tough item to roll out. It wants to spring back on you, shrinking back into a smaller shape. Work those muscles people, and you will be rewarded with one tasty dinner.

The flavor of the acorn squash is perfectly offset with the spices in the filling. The browned butter plays so well with the sweet cranberries and nutty walnuts. This dish packs major flavor. Set aside several hours to prepare the pasta. You can make them in the morning and cook them later in the night. Just be sure to let the ravioli dry at room temperature, then cover them and put them in the fridge until you are ready to eat. Don’t let the pasta mountain defeat you, you can do this. There might not be tasty sandwiches at the top of this mountain, but there is this…

Fusilli with Walnut Pesto

I don’t know about where you are, but here on the East Coast it’s been hot. Equatorial hot. I’m talking ninety-five degree, two thousand percent humidity hot. My one mile walk to work in the morning (and I leave the house at 7am) leaves me a sweaty mess by the time I get to work. Luckily my workplace is over air-conditioned and pleasant.

When it comes to making dinner in this type of oppressive heat I like to do as little as possible. Since I never turn on the air conditioning (because I like it hot) I try not to turn on the oven that much during the summer (because I don’t like it that hot). What I cook this time of the year leans toward easy, quick and with as little preparation as possible.

Pesto is a great choice for those hot summer nights. All you have to do is boil up some pasta and grind together some other ingredients in the food processor. This meal can be thrown together in fifteen minutes, which is a good thing after you’ve walked the mile home and are now really tired and sweaty.

Or maybe you can find someone nice to make this for you? Print out the recipe and leave it in a conspicuous place. Perhaps someone will feel bad for you when you melt into the floor.

Don't you wish you had a salt pig as cute as this!??!!