Rebecca and I have been traveling a lot recently, often improvising, cooking in new kitchens and without access to our own pantry supplies. This Potato Crusted Quiche with Bacon and Caramelized Onions is a slam dunk for these situations. It is a reliable crowd-pleaser built on a simple shredded potato crust and easy pantry staples (milk, cream, eggs, onions, and bacon). The result is a sublime quiche with caramelized onions, a creamy custard, and smokey bacon. This recipe is also very adaptable...add cheese for extra richness....take out the bacon to make it vegetarian...or substitute your favorite topping.

It's moving day for us at The Hungry Hounds. Fueled by donuts, coffee and tons of moving help from family and friends, we are on our way from Pennsylvania to Indiana for our final goodbyes with Paul's family before we leave for Haiti. Cooking and eating in our kitchen for the past few weeks has been a bit of an awkward experience with many frustrated sighs and the frequent realization, '...oh right, we packed that already, didn't we!?' One of the last dishes we made when our kitchen was still in full swing was this tasty Flammkuchen, a comfort pizza-like-classic from the Alsatian and South German regions, with many variations and names. We modeled ours after the classic version, a thin crusted flatbread pizza with a creamy, slightly tangy sauce, smoky bacon, a smattering of cheese, and the succulent sweetness of caramelized onions.

Rebecca has always had strong food cravings; from adventures across the city to find the most mouth puckering sour candy, to a months long quest to reproduce a Vietnamese street food from our travels. While spousal cravings can get a bad rap, I'm personally a big fan. Spur-of-the moment homemade rice crispy treats, check. Ten versions of fried potatoes in a week, twist my arm. Or, most recently, a grilled cheese to beat all other grilled cheese sandwiches: perfectly crisped bread, an extra creamy cheese mix (including cream cheese), and smokey bacon. Not an everyday meal, but a craving induced celebratory treat. In addition to our upcoming move to Haiti, Rebecca and I are celebrating another exciting life change. Rebecca is just entering her third trimester of pregnancy, and we couldn't be happier! We're expecting our little son or daughter to make an appearance in early February, with a planned delivery in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. And if they come out craving ooey gooey cheese...we'll know why!

Brussels sprouts are a miniature member of the cabbage family that has seen a well deserved rise in popularity in recent years; with restaurants now featuring dishes ranging from Brussels sprouts brushcetta, Brussels grilled cheese, raw Brussels slaw, to charred Brussels pizza. As with all cabbage relatives, we particularly love our Brussels cooked at high heat with punchy accents of garlic, vinegar, salt, and bacon. Brussels Sprouts With Bacon is simple and delicious; a perfect fall side. If you are looking for more Brussels inspiration, check out our Barley Risotto With Roasted Brussels Sprouts.

It’s the first day of September, an in-between season, with one foot in summer and the other inching towards fall. We created these Bison Bacon Burgers for this time of year, a last hurrah to warm summer grilling, with a nod towards cooler evenings. These are woodsy bison and beef burgers with hints of rosemary, smoky bacon and heaps of sweet caramelized onions. Honestly, these are fantastic burgers, bison lover or not, this burger will captivate your taste buds. And for the labor day weekend, celebrate with a last round of homemade burgers; Smokey Ancho Cheddar Burgers, Portobello Burgers with Green Olive Tapenade, or, my favorite, Turkey Feta Burgers with Yogurt Curry Sauce.  

It’s a holiday week, and we’re eating hotdogs. To be honest, hotdogs have long been a favorite of mine, and our freezer is stockpiled, prepper-style, in case of a global shortage. We got sick of the soggy, too large buns and obvious condiments, and for this grilling season we’ve gotten creative and kicked out the bun, brought on the tortilla, and seriously ramped up the flavors for gourmet Loaded Hotdogs. We wanted to share our favorite flavor combination; where ketchup and mustard are supplanted by tart homemade quick pickled red onions, tangy guacamole, creamy queso fresco cheese, and if you are feeling decadent, crispy bacon.

Grilled Potato Salad with Jalapeno, Bacon, and Blue Cheese is inspired by my father-in-law’s love of bacon, blue cheese, and caramelized onions. This 'salad' is decadent and packed with rich flavors. The grilled new potatoes are tossed in a garlic jalapeno vinaigrette and layered with smoky slices of thick-cut grilled bacon, sweet charred red onions, and pungent blue cheese. Move over mayo, there's a new potato salad in town! 

Paul was feeling like a hearty sandwich this week. Our Grilled Chicken Sandwich with Avocado Herb Spread is the delicious result. We figured we would start with the bread, so Paul made a dense sourdough loaf while we pondered the fixings.

Kale Cobb Salad with Avocado Green Goddess is Paul's favorite salad. Let me back up a step to highlight the significance of this statement. To say Paul is not 'saladly inclined,' is to put it mildly. In fact, the one time I saw Paul order a salad in a restaurant, to my slack-jawed amazement, it turned out he was sick. But Paul's disinclination to eat raw leafy greens has not stopped me in my quest to make a salad that he will love. A few years ago I whipped up this cobb salad, and to my delight, Paul liked it... so much that he requests it for his birthday menu each year. Kale Cobb Salad with Avocado Green Goddess is not a traditional cobb salad, but uses our favorite elements, greens, tomatoes, cucumber, bacon and eggs, and adds avocado and a punchy green dressing loaded with herbs.

Sautéed Red Cabbage with Bacon showcases our only edible crop this year, Paul's guerrilla red cabbages. While we do enjoy a good cabbage slaw in the summer months,  fall has us yearning for our classic Sautéed Red Cabbage with Bacon, a dish which balances the sweetness of caramelized onions and cabbage with tart vinegar and salty bacon. This spring, Paul surreptitiously planted a mini colony of red cabbages in our front flower garden, nestled between daylilies and daisies. With sunny spots in scarce supply, Paul was adamant that winter was coming...and we needed to ensure an ample supply of sauerkraut and cabbages for the lean months!

With all our spring work efforts we thought some guacamole and chips were in order to keep up our energy, especially after the 38 wheelbarrows of mulch down our steep yard.  This Charred Onion Guacamole is creamy, smoky and garlicky, you really don't even need chips to eat it. This Guacamole is the reward you deserve after a long spring day of work.  If you are like us, and don't always plan ahead to buy your avocados in time to ripen, Paul has a neat technique that works well to ensure you have access to this addictive dip.  1-2 days prior to use (the longer the better) Paul puts unripe avocados in a brown paper bag with a very ripe apple.  The apple releases ethylene gas, which gets trapped in the paper bag to fast forward the avocado ripening process. It's cool science.

Sometimes a dish is inspired by a single perfect ingredient. Or in our case, a dozen. This week we were delighted to have sourced a carton of fresh beautiful brown eggs from a local Amish farm cooperative. These are not our everyday supermarket eggs...coming from free range chickens, their deep yellow yolks and rich creamy whites called out for a meal that would let them star. While our ideas ranged from creme brulee to omelets, hollandaise sauce to meringues, we finally landed on the humble egg salad.  This Creamy Egg Salad with Bacon and Avocado is sumptuous and smooth, with smokey crisps of bacon adding textural contrast, and the avocado giving a cool velvety finish. This is decadence on a plate, with the eggs in center stage. It is as easy to make as it is satisfying.

Spring is so close you can taste it. The daffodil bulbs we forced in our basement this winter are starting to bloom. But spring is still not close enough to give up winter's comfort foods just yet. Back from our trip to Philadelphia, it was time for quiche. The recipe below is simply delicious, and you could easily swap out the extras if you liked. The filling is adapted from Anne Willan's The Country Cooking of France. For a side Rebecca made an white bean salad with quick pickled red onion, feta, CSA dilly beans, and a garlic mustard vinaigrette.