Comfort Foods and Indulgences

I seldom watch football. But, I never pass up a Super Bowl party. It’s not the football game that lures me. It’s the food. Super Bowl Sunday is one of the best food days of the year. While the football fans hoot and holler, you’ll find me dipping chips, nibbling spicy chicken wings, loading up a bowl of chili with lots of toppings, slipping sliders onto my plate and maybe grabbing a slice of pizza.

My contributions to the Super Bowl feast this year will include a couple of these Super Bowl Pizza Rolls. It doesn’t take long to assemble a roll with refrigerated pizza crust dough, meat, Italian seasoning blend and plenty of cheese.

I made one Pizza Roll just before my husband came home for lunch, using hot Italian sausage as the meat. By the time he headed back to work, the long loaf was just about gone.

Yesterday I started out wanting to make traditional Baklava and ended up making cookies! I saw a picture in a magazine where filo dough was cut and placed in mini muffin tins then filled with a quiche mixture. My Baklava Cookies evolved from that idea, and I absolutely love them.

I started by putting pecans, bread crumbs, sugar, honey and spices in a food processor and whizzing it all up. It looked a bit dry, so I drizzled in a bit more honey and mixed it well.

Then I layered filo sheets with melted butter and cut them into small enough pieces to fit into mini muffin tins. Once I put them in the tins, I placed a teaspoon of the nut mixture in each one, added one chocolate chunk, and then folded the filo sheets over and pressed down.

I brushed each with melted butter and baked them into wonderful little balls of nuttiness.

Every Friday growing up I had a tuna sandwich in my lunch box.  The bread was usually soggy by the time lunch came around, caused by the use of too much mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish.  Friday was also the only day I was allowed to have a soda pop accompany my lunch.  It was usually RC Cola in the can, wrapped in tin foil to keep cold.  The RC Cola also kept my sandwich cool, a bonus as far as I was concerned.

While I still love tuna with mayo and pickle relish, I like the idea of capers, lemon and oregano taking the tuna to a different level.  Add the sliced tomato and provolone cheese blistered by the broiler....whoa, now that's a sandwich.

You must try this, it was quite a hit around here!

Dining out is one of the best favorite forms of culinary inspiration. Last weekend I went out for brunch at Eats on Clement Street and ordered the Waffle Bacon which was described as bacon pressed in a waffle, cheddar, Hungarian peppers and a sunny up egg. It was a wonderful combination of gooey, chewy and crisp and had many classic flavors associated with breakfast. It was definitely the sauteed peppers that tied the bacon, egg, cheese and waffle together and took the dish to the next level. I knew this was something I had to order again or better yet, try to duplicate at home.

Instead of using Hungarian peppers I took the easy route and used diced green chiles from a can. The result? Oh my. It was delicious! The truth is, a bacon waffle topped with chiles and cheese is actually quite good without the egg as well, though you can imagine how the yolk forms a lovely sauce for the bacon waffle. Sometimes more is better, and it's the excess of this recipe that makes it so satisfying. Who doesn't love bacon, cheddar or green chiles? They are my go to ingredients for making everything from eggs to soups or stews taste better.