A Good Appetite

Clementine Braised Chicken

2012-01-24T08:11:00.000-06:00

I had some chicken thighs in the freezer that I wanted to use for dinner the other night. My initial thought was to do a Moroccan Chicken like this one or this one, but then I saw that bowl of clementines on the counter and decided on an orange chicken instead. Matt was a little leery about the idea, I think he thought I was going to do one of those breaded chicken things in a sweet citrus

Brewing Beer and Weekly Menu 1/23 - 1/27/12

2012-01-23T09:30:00.000-06:00

We are certainly happy to be done with the latest round of construction on our house and back home. Getting new doors and windows in the middle of a Minnesota January cold snap is a lot of fun, but the house is toastier. A good thing with the nasty, icy cold weather we're having. But it is the perfect weather to spend a few hours in the kitchen brewing beer. Matt got the Brooklyn Brew Shop's

For the Love of Kale

2012-01-17T16:10:00.001-06:00

Once again our house is under construction leaving us without the ability to cook at home. Luckily, it is only a few days this time. In the meantime, I thought I'd give you a recipe guide to one of our favorite winter leafy greens, kale. Kale is one of the main things we grow in our garden each year. It does well in our northern midwestern climate and we can usually get a couple of harvests

Cornbread Pudding

2012-01-12T10:40:00.000-06:00

This past New Year's Eve we got together with family for a late dinner of barbecued ribs with corn bread and slaw. There was a lot of cornbread leftover, so I decided to turn some of it into a bread pudding type side dish for another night. A little milk, egg, bacon and cheese later and we had the best leftover cornbread. It's sweet with a hint of smokey saltiness from the bacon. The custard

Crock Pot Bean and Sausage Soup

2012-01-10T09:47:00.001-06:00

We are all about the comfort foods right now and this soup came about because of a craving for cassoulet. Now, this is by no means a cassoulet, but it's a kissing cousin with its slow cooked beans and sausage. You could not get much easier than this dinner. It's pretty much a throw everything in the crock pot and let it simmer all day sort of thing, I didn't even bother crisping the bacon before

Smoked Fisherman's Pie

2012-01-05T08:20:00.000-06:00

We love a good savory pie, shepherd's, cottage and recently, fisherman's. For this version I used smoked salmon in the filling and played on the smokey flavor by also using smoked gouda in the toping. For the filling, I thought of what would make a good salmon chowder, cream, capers, leeks and worked from that idea. I think the two ingredients that really gave the filling its best flavor, other

Kale and Mushroom Risotto

2012-01-03T13:30:00.000-06:00

We are back home from the holidays and craving some easy, hearty comfort food. The fact that it's 18 degrees just adds to the craving. This risotto take care of that craving perfectly. This is a dish that is just full of earthy flavors from the kale and mushrooms. The garlic is cooked slowly with the risotto and tastes almost like you roasted it. It's hearty and warming, just the thing in front

Weekly Menu 1/2/12 - 1/7/12

2012-01-02T08:44:00.004-06:00

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all rang it in festively. We spent this year with family, lots of craft beers and a mess o' ribs. (Sam Adams' Infinium, it's the true "champagne of beers" and ribs cooked the way my dad ib Memphis does them.) Today we are going to cook up a batch of home brewed New Year's Beer and experiment with making a gallon of beer at a time. Sounds much smarter then

Eggs and Kale in Puff Pastry

2011-12-27T09:00:00.000-06:00

Last week we were getting ready to leave town for Christmas, so I didn't want to buy any groceries. That meant I had to get creative with what we had in the house. Luckily, I think I keep a pretty well stocked freezer and pantry. I had a couple eggs and some cheese in the fridge plus bacon, puff pastry and blanched kale in the freezer. The resulting meal was good enough that you would have

Happy Holidays

2011-12-23T12:45:00.000-06:00

Matt and I wish you happy eating and all the best for Christmas and the New Year. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations &

Bourbon Pork with Apple Cider Syrup

2011-12-20T12:29:00.001-06:00

This past weekend Matt and I had a sort of pre-Christmas celebration. We opened the gifts we didn't want to take with us while traveling, had a big leisurely breakfast and a lovely roast for dinner. Matt was in charge of the roast pork tenderloin. He had an idea for it that had been mulling around in his head for awhile. The idea grew from an article he read about someone who was making and

Our Day on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

2011-12-06T12:08:00.001-06:00

Over Thanksgiving weekend, Matt and I received a rather cryptic email from our favorite local pizza place, Pizzeria Lola. They wanted to know if we were available to be part of a shoot for a national television program the following week. Well, we were too intrigued to say no. We were told to show up Tuesday at 2:15 sharp prepared to be on filmed and interviewed and to keep the whole thing a

Weekly Menu 12/5 - 12/10/11

2011-12-05T11:34:00.001-06:00

Well, look who's finally back. Yes, it has been a crazy couple of weeks. I survived my first craft fair this weekend quite successfully, but oh did preparing for it take over my life for a month or so. We also spent an afternoon on the set of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives at Pizzeria Lola. I'll tell you that whole story later this week... (photo from Pizzeria Lola) On to Menu Planning Monday

Classic

2011-11-25T08:00:00.000-06:00

It was time to make the whipped cream to top the pumpkin pie and my mom pulled out her hand mixer, the one she got as a wedding present 46 years ago. A Deluxe Handmixer in a lovely shade of turquoise. It looks brand new and works like a charm (where I've gone through two hand mixers in the last 4 years). A perfect pairing with a blue pyrex bowl that I think may be just as old. Hope everyone

Weekly Menu 11/21 - 11/26/11

2011-11-21T10:10:00.001-06:00

This weekend marked the long awaited opening on the new Fulton Brewery in downtown Minneapolis. Fulton Brewing is one of those micro-brewery success stories you are hearing more and more of these days. Four guys start brewing in their garage with dreams of their own brewery. A few years later, here they are with beer on tap at almost every local bar and restaurant, bottles available in stores and

Penne with Creamy Squash and Red Pepper Sauce

2011-11-17T08:51:00.001-06:00

This is another one of those dishes that tastes a lot better than it photographes. But believe me it is so delicious. Matt was a little leery of my adding red pepper to the sauce, but it pairs really well with the squash and I think keeps it from being overly sweet. In my mind, the red pepper actually makes this sauce. This is a great busy day dinner as it has very little hands on prep time

Maple Squash with Gorgonzola

2011-11-15T08:54:00.001-06:00

I'm trying to get Matt and I out of our potatoes as a side dish rut, especially when we are having something like roast chicken. We always forget how much we love the orange vegetables, squash and sweet potatoes. This side dish was inspired by a salad we saw in the deli case at our local grocery store. It is super simple to make with very few ingredients. But oh, do those ingredients pack a

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos

2011-11-08T08:54:00.001-06:00

It's the end of our farmers market season and one of the things we are going to miss is the sweet potato and black bean tacos from Chef Shack. We've tried making versions at home, but they were never quite right until this week. This time I think we really got it. Roasting the potatoes with a spices and then turning them into a mash makes them the perfect sweet base for the savory beans, peppers

Weekly Menu 11/7 - 11/12/11

2011-11-07T07:54:00.001-06:00

I think we might be getting to the end of the construction here at chez Good Appetite, well at least the major indoor stuff, we still have a roof and gutter being replaced and then all the windows and doors in January. Hopefully, that means we'll get the house back to normal and feel like getting in the kitchen to do some experimenting soon. I've sewing reindeer pillow after reindeer pillow

Pumpkin Beer Tasting

2011-11-03T17:42:00.000-05:00

Recently, Matt and I got a couple of friends together to taste a bunch of the different pumpkins beers currently in stores. You can read all about it on CBS Minnesota. If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo

Biscuits with Sausage and Coffee Gravy

2011-11-01T10:00:00.000-05:00

Sun Street Bread had buttermilk biscuits at the farmers market on Sunday, so we decided to pick some up and make biscuits and gravy for dinner. Yes, yes, I can make my own biscuits, but with such fantastic ones easily on hand there is no need to. Ok, there is really no pretty way to photograph this dish, believe me I tried, but what it lacks in looks it totally makes up for in taste. Sausage

Farmers Market Finds and Weekly Menu 10/31 - 11/5/11

2011-10-31T10:35:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween everyone! Where the heck did this year go? Here we are showing the the final haul from the Kingfield Farmers Market for the season. Seeing all this bounty makes me sad to see it over for the year. Here's what we got... Yukon Potatoes Squash - These store nicely in a cool, dark place for quite a while. Red Peppers Leeks Eggs Parsnips Garlis Green Bean Ground Beef - To stock the

Korean-Style Crock Pot Short Ribs

2011-10-27T08:38:00.002-05:00

We've had some short ribs in the freezer for awhile that I had mental tags for Korean short ribs. I know they are often gilled, but I wanted to do them in a chock pot. Why? Because cooking in the crock pot is so easy. I'm sure these are not traditional in anyway, but I looked at lots of different recipes for the sauce and they are seemed to have very similar ingredients. It's a pretty simple

Weekly Menu 10/24 - 10/29/11

2011-10-24T08:38:00.005-05:00

Some of you may know I write a craft blog as well as this food blog. Recently, that blog changed names to Just Crafty Enough and I'm writing it with my good friend Susi in San Francisco. I've been doing a few posts over there about throwing an adult Halloween party which, of course, calls for a special cocktail. Matt came up with this drink that he calls the Harvest Campfire. It features the

Squash Pizza

2011-10-21T09:45:00.000-05:00

Where did this week go? Oh, I know, it's been filled with home remodeling woes from upside-down light to tiles of different dye lots. Ah well, at least we had a really good pizza this week. This is just one of those perfect fall pairings, squash, bacon and goat cheese. It doesn't look like enough toppings, but its full of sweet, salty, spicy and tangy flavors. Have leftover squash from dinner?