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.

Pear Cake with Pine Nuts

If you haven’t noticed by now, breakfast is my favorite meal. I think that I could eat pastries, French toast or pancakes for every meal of the day. I try to make my breakfasts somewhat healthy by eating some fruit alongside my carbohydrates and drinking a glass of skim milk. I’m a bit strange in another manner, I don’t like to eat eggs for breakfast. Yuk. If you find me eating sunny-side up eggs, it is most likely nine at night, not nine in the morning. For some reason eggs at night are a meal, whereas eggs in the morning are gross. Ooo, unless they are on a sandwich, with some bacon.

Luckily today we are getting our fruit baked right into our breakfast pastry. This means that you can save time and be out the door in a snap! The fruit of the moment? Pears! I love pears because you can eat just about the whole thing. Many years ago I realized that you can just rip out the stem of a pear and then you can eat the whole top of the fruit. This also makes it super easy to slice pears into easy discs. Slice circles off of the pear until you hit the seeds. You can cut around the outside of the pear or just move onto another piece of fruit. (I suggest you just eat the bottom third)

So simple to make, this pastry is perfect for a lazy weekend morning. A simple coffee cake, fancied up with pears and pine nuts, this is just perfect. The leftovers (if there are any) can be kept in the fridge until tomorrow. Reheating is simple. Cut yourself a slice, heat in the microwave for 1 minute on half power. Once you learn to use the power settings in your microwave you will be amazed at what it can do. Play around, it’s fun! You can get non-rubbery pasta leftovers, perfectly thawed bread slices and even scrambled eggs.

NoBloPoMo?

Thanks right everyone, November is NaBloPoMo.  Or to those of you confused out there, National Blog Post Month!  That one special month of the year that bloggers attempt to post, every single day.  Now I think being a food blogger puts you at a bit of a disadvantage for this challenge.  Posting everyday means a whole lot of cooking, baking and general dirtying up of the kitchen. 

So get ready for an onslaught of delicious recipes and perhaps the odd disappointment.  With posting everyday I don't think I'll have to luxury of not posting my failures!  Since we are heading into fall in the northern hemisphere, and approaching thanksgiving in the US, I will be posting lots of fall-inspired foods that hopefully help you out in planning your thanksgiving feast.

But until then, here is a picture of my dog...