Just over a week ago, Hurricane Irma swept past Haiti; bringing heavy rains, wind, and flash flooding to many of the communities we work in. These have been busy days of travel, hearing the stories of survivors, seeing the damage first-hand, and responding with food and emergency supplies to families who lost everything. My final trip last week was to the small community of Goyave, high in the mountains overlooking the coastal city of St. Marc. Goyave is a farming community that had been devastated by Hurricane Matthew last year. I was there to join in the celebration of a successful harvest and the end of an MCC project to help these farmers rebuild their gardens and livelihoods. Each of the 200 families who participated in the project brought a symbol of their good harvest. Soon our outdoor meeting area was filled with piles of beautiful fresh produce: cabbages, militon squash, corn, beans, avocados, onions, leeks, sour oranges, bananas, plantains, passion fruit, pumpkins, bell peppers, hot peppers, sugar cane, sweet potatoes, and yams. As we finished our meeting, a community elder stood up to speak, he reiterated his thanks for the project that had helped the community rebuild, and added that we all must remember the Haitian proverb, "Men ale, men vini, fe zanmi dire." This essentially translates as 'reciprocity is what makes for lasting friendships.' He advised that there were times when one needed to receive help, such as after a Hurricane, but that one must always work to give back. "It is bad for friendships if only one side gives," he said. So the community celebrated their rebuilding and their harvest by giving freely, to each other and to our group of visitors. It was humbling and beautiful to witness and receive this generosity. Arriving home late at night, dusty and tired, with a bag full of fresh cabbages and onions, I thought back to other celebrations and shared meals. I remembered many potlucks and meals with friends from our Pittsburgh days, and one of the region's classic comfort foods for shared celebrations -- Haluski. While there is much debate on whether Halsuki is authentically Polish (as is claimed by most Pittsburghers), there is little controversy about how simple it is to make, and delicious to eat. It is comfort food at its best: caramelized onions, cabbage, and kielbasa mixed with buttery egg noodles. A hearty and rustic crowd-pleaser, and a celebration of the season's bounty.

Today marks Madeline's first full week outside the womb, and most aspects of our life have irreversibly changed. Cooking and eating together has been the one constant in this topsy turvy new world since we arrived home from the hospital. A food focus persisted during labor as I panted out a list of food requests in between contractions. Paul, both remembered every request and has been cheerfully cooking up a storm this last week. Yesterdays' creation was a yeasty sugar rush of homemade cinnamon rolls, but the vast majority of my requests have been for roasted aromatic meats like this Slow Roasted Mayan Pork with Garlic Salsa. This dish is a Paul invention, which means making use of some extraordinary homemade condiments (Xac spice mix and charred garlic salsa), the end result is transcendent.

Yesterday was our last day of work, a bittersweet time in many ways. We left after saying reluctant goodbyes to many wonderful co-workers. It was an unusually silent car as we drove away, each of us lost in our own thoughts, until a loud rumble and clanking sound broke our melancholic lull. Our pensive quiet was replaced with a resigned amusement and a jolt back to practicality; we had managed to get a flat tire before we even left the parking lot. A tire change, careful drive home, and a trip to our local garage later, we were famished by the time we finally made it home. We heated up some Roasted Garlic and Butternut Squash Soup we'd made earlier in the week and dunked some of Paul's sourdough bread into the sweet goodness while we talked through our next life step. This soup is a master at capturing the nuanced sweetness of natural caramelization and the subtle nuttiness of roasted onion, garlic and butternut squash. While Roasted Garlic and Butternut Squash Soup tastes rich and complex, it is in reality just a very simple roasted vegetable puree turned into a velvety fall soup. We have adapted this recipe from James Peterson. For more information on his soup cookbook and others, check out our bookshelf.

To celebrate the garlic season, we've been eating batch after batch of this sweet, smokey, and nutty Charred Garlic Salsa. It's easy to slip into thinking of garlic as a year-round kitchen workhorse, rather than as a seasonal specialty worth savoring in its own right. If you've never paused to taste the difference between early summer's stale grocery garlic and the in-season local variety, this is the perfect vehicle to indulge. Charred Garlic Salsa is inspired by the flavors and techniques of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, and is delicious with chips, on bread, with grilled meats, tacos, or as an amazing condiment for sandwiches.

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.  

In these dog days of summer, a crisp and refreshing chilled soup is a wonderful thing. Gazpacho, for those unfamiliar, is a type of cold tomato soup that originates in Spain, with many variations in texture and flavor. We love the pure, cool, sweet flavors that develop as garden-fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and onions release their juices and meld together. Chilled Tomato & Vegetable Soup, Gazpacho, is quick and easy to make, especially with a food processor to aid in chopping. Enjoy the fresh bounty of summer and homespun food shared with the ones you love. 

Charred Ancho Mexican Red Rice has a mellow chile flavor and vivid hue which highlights the smokey, slightly sweet and garlicky flavors of our Garlic Ancho Chile Paste. This spicy rust colored Mexican red rice is complex and filling and can be served as a main, as a side dish to slow roasted meat, or as a starch base. Ancho chiles are ubiquitous in Mexican cuisine, we love their mild fruity flavor and always keep a large quantity on hand. Prolific Mexican cookbook author Rick Bayless, from whom this recipe is adapted, describes the flavor of anchos as “sweet dark cherries, prunes, and fresh tobacco." Charred Ancho Mexican Red Rice is an unusual rice dish, and one that has the benefit of being quick to make and can be easily made ahead, perfect for entertaining.

In Pittsburgh we are beginning to see the first glimpses of spring. As I write, rain and fog are rolling over the city -- an oddly welcome change after months of snow and ice. With Saint Patrick's Day festivities this weekend, we thought it appropriate to celebrate the coming end to winter with our streamlined take on the rich and unctuous Flemish Beer Braised Beef & Onions, Carbonnade de Boeuf. This dish uses beer for 100% of the braising liquid, so pick one you really like. I used my homebrewed brown ale, which has a rich toastiness and mild bitterness. Be careful using a bitter or hoppy beer, since the cooking will concentrate these flavors considerably. While this dish takes some planning ahead (around 4 hours start to finish), it is straightforward to make and works every time. Your house will be filled with the enticing aromas of caramelized onions, braising meat, and simmering beer. 

Berbere Spiced Chicken evokes memories of Ethiopia, the place where Paul and I first became friends. During our time in Addis, I got sick and Paul was appointed my hospital companion. I found a kindred spirit and we spent the rest of our time in Ethiopia together at every opportunity. A few months later, back home again, our relationship evolved into something more. The nuanced spice of berbere is a shared food memory; the start of a relationship, excitement of plans, passionate discussions, and the flash of recognition at finding a life partner.

Berbere is a distinctive spice mixture from Ethiopia -- fiery hot balanced with pungent garlic and warming spices. Many households prepare their own berbere mixture, and tarps laid out with drying chilies and spices were a common sight and smell in Ethiopia. Berbere Spiced Chicken is our greatly simplified and adapted version of the classic Ethiopian Doro Wat. Once you hunt down some berbere seasoning at your local spice store or online, this dish can be made in an hour and half with everyday ingredients.

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!

This French Vegetable Soup, Ratatouille, is as rustic and delicious as it is healthy and easy to make. Its flavor is built subtly from vegetables at the peak of their freshness. The dish involves no meat, no stock, no complex seasonings, and no challenging techniques. Don't be intimidated by its French origins, Ratatouille is foolproof, flexible, and amazingly, even better as a leftover. Our recipe is inspired by Anne Willan's extraordinary The Country Cooking of France. 

Ratatouille is a traditional country stew which takes advantage of the late summer bounty of fresh tomatoes, eggplants, onions, zucchini, garlic, and peppers. This type of seasonally-driven, vegetable-based cooking has increasingly become a luxury of the well-to-do. A lack of access to fresh, healthy, home-cooked food, contributes to the poorer health and shorter life expectancy of low-income Americans.

One organization working to make fresh seasonal produce accessible is Just Harvest. Their Fresh Access program allows food stamp (SNAP) recipients to use their benefits to shop at local farmers markets -- gaining access to the fresh, affordable, and seasonal bounty of local farms. SNAP benefits help 47 million Americans (and 1 in 8 people in the Pittsburgh region) put food on the table for their families. Organizations like Just Harvest, are helping to make healthy food more accessible. Just Harvest's research has shown that 80% of SNAP shoppers increased their consumption of fresh produce when given the opportunity to shop at farmers markets. Fresh Access Coordinator Emily Schmidlapp puts it succinctly: "We believe that access to fresh, healthy, affordable food is a right and not a privilege." At the Hungry Hounds, we couldn't agree more. Bon appétit! 

Roasted Eggplant and Chickpea Spread is the result of a food fight, one which resulted in this delicious hybrid dish somewhere between Baba Ganoush and Hummus. Our food disagreement started with a vague plan for a Mediterranean inspired meal, but quickly morphed into a debate about the true king of dips. On the one hand, the dusky sweet flavors of Baba Ganoush  appealed to Paul, whereas I had a strong inclination towards classic hummus,  a creamy chickpea puree, perked up with garlic and lemon.  In the end, we were pretty pleased with our compromise dish, Roasted Eggplant and Chickpea Spread, a transcendent dip with an eggplant and chickpea base, infused with roasted garlic and onions, and the smoky spiciness of charred jalapeno.

Rural Tanzanian cooking is not something that frequently appears on cooking blogs, food TV, or even in restaurants for that matter. It is simple, hearty fare designed to nourish. It uses only local affordable ingredients, follows informal recipes, and is eaten communally. I grew up on this stuff, and I love it for its rustic simplicity and hearty flavors. Stripped of spice and other culinary crutches like butter, the art of this cooking lies in pulling rich complex flavors from simple and often bland ingredients.  Seeing mounds of gorgeous greens in our CSA farmbox this week inspired me to make this dish from my childhood. Tanzanian Style Sautéed Kale is unembellished, relying on high-heat cooking and caramelization to bring out the rich complementary flavors of kale, tomato, and onion.  I use baking soda in this recipe to mimic the taste of the locally harvested alkaline salts I grew up with.  Baking soda can be a handy ingredient to use with greens as it helps to preserve their color and flavor while speeding up the cooking process. Traditionally, this type of greens dish would be served with a thick bready porridge called ugali...but it is equally delicious on pasta, grits, or as a stand alone side dish. 

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.

A pastel-hued Cuban diner in Philadelphia was the site of my last fragrant bowl of Ropa Vieja, and I have been plotting to recreate this succulent dish ever since.  For me, nothing compares to a slow braised, big flavored, meat dish swimming in a pungent, aromatic sauce. This is my protein paradise! 

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.