Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower - Recipe Test

If you're like me you probably get into a dining rut once in a while. Whether your eating at the same places all the time or cooking the same old recipes at home. Boring.

Breaking the routine isn't easy but social media certainly helps. Whether you're on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, whatever... you are usually subjected to a recipe or two every day. Every now and then one of these recipes seems to pick up steam and when ten or more of your friends share it out it becomes pretty hard to ignore.

That was the case with this recipe for Spicy Whole Roasted Cauliflower by someone known as Ask. Dr. Nandi. Not sure who this guy is but this recipe was shared on Facebook over 300,000 times. There are also over 3,000 Facebook comments that can be evenly divided into two camps:

Try This at Home - Ancho Chile & Cilantro Short Rib with Sweet Corn Purée

My wife Shelly made this for dinner recently and I have to tell you it is one of the best, new home-cooked meals we've had in along time.

Credit for the original recipe is here. We made one small adaptation, noted in yellow below.  The meat will be much more tender if allowed to cook for longer than the originally suggested 3-45 minutes.

Ancho Chile & Cilantro Short Rib with Sweet Corn Purée by Bren

The Omnivore's Delight - Kansas City Butcher Shops

Categorizing myself as an omnivore feels like an understatement. The list of foods I don't eat is so small that my friends can probably recite it from memory (in case you care: blue cheese, raw celery, black licorice). And while this blog leans heavily on the eating out part of my life, you should know that I also cook and eat in quite often as well.

I cook meat all year round but there's nothing quite as exciting as the summer grilling (and smoking) season. Most of us have been grilling at least since Memorial Day but I wonder how many have been taking advantage of of Kansas City's local butchers as the source for their meat. After all, your meal is only as good as the ingredients you start with.

For a city its size Kansas City is fortunate to have quite a few quality butcher shops available. Here are the ones I frequent and some of the reasons why:

I've Shed A Few Pounds Recently. Here's How...

It probably goes without saying that I have a voracious appetite for good food and adult beverages. Readers of this blog and followers of my Facebook and Twitter food photos have asked how it is that I don't weigh 250+ pounds. Honestly, until recently it was reasonably easy to balance my caloric intake with an appropriate amount of exercise to keep my weight in check. Unfortunately vices have a way of sneaking up on you at age 47 much more than they did at 37. So it was that after a particularly festive and decadent 2012 holiday season I found myself looking for ways to trim down a bit.

Reducing alcohol consumption seemed like a good way
to shed some pounds right? Well... maybe.

Alcohol consumption seemed like low hanging fruit ready to be pruned. I was enjoying several glasses of wine nearly every weeknight as well as wine, beer, and cocktails on weekends. My thought was to create a clear delineation between weekends and weekdays, drinking days vs. non-drinking days. Now for my purposes the weekend always starts on Thursday so I decided beer, wine and cocktails were OK on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Alcohol would be off-limits Sunday through Wednesday. (It's worth pointing out here that my wife is an active participant in all this. She is an enthusiastic partner in both the vices and the remedies.)

For me, the alcohol deprivation was (is) extremely boring and only marginally effective. Between mid-January and March 1st I was happy to see about five pounds go away. But that's where it leveled off. Five pounds lighter and a cup of hot herbal tea watching Game of Thrones on Sunday night? Meh.

So, Your Kid Is Going To Kansas State Next Year? Bring Home the Butter...

Congratulations! Your son/daughter is heading to Manhattan, Kansas. The Little Apple. Home of the Wildcats. Aggieville. Bill Snyder. Call Hall. OK, maybe you haven't heard of that last one but if you like to eat (you do like to eat, right?), and if you cook (even a little) you'll want to find Call Hall and make it a regular stop during your day trips to campus.

Built in 1963, Call Hall is named for Dr. Leland Everett Call, who joined the K-State faculty in 1907. Call served 21 years as dean of agriculture, beginning in 1925. A year after it was built, the building became home to the K-State Dairy Processing Plant and the Dairy Bar (photo). The Dairy Bar has always been a favorite of those seeking their made-on-the-premises ice creams. It's good stuff and you should try it. But do not leave campus without some butter. Sold in one-pound bricks this butter is some of the most wonderful 16 ounces of churned goodness you can find.