St. Patrick's - Pork Apple Sirloin and Gouda Bread

Our traditional St. Patricks' day dinner consists of Irish stew with soda bread, but for 2013 we wanted to do something a little different. We still wanted to make a fun bread to go with dinner, so this time around we used a beer bread mix we got as a gift, but decided to jazz it up using Killian's Irish Red and some delicious gouda.

Before getting the bread ready, we started putting together the star of the meal: a pork sirloin which will be covered in an apple-based sauce. Here we've minced garlic and are getting ready to rub the sirloin with sage and thyme.

The pork is slice open at several locations and stuffed with the diced fresh garlic.

After being rubbed down, the sirloin is wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and allowed to sit for a few hours so the flavors work in.

As a nod to the traditional corned beef and cabbage, we decided to make another Irish dish called colcannon, which is mashed potatoes with fried cabbage. Here Megan is slicing up a head of cabbage for frying.

Next we get back into the bread, which is going to have gouda cubes baked in. Here Megan is slicing up some delicious gouda cheese.

Small cubes of the gouda are dropped into our bread mix before we add the liquid ingredients.

Next a bottle of Killian's Irish Red is poured in and mixed. Guiness would be another good choice for an Irish theme.

While the bread mix is sitting, we start putting together the roast, which is placed in an oven-safe dish along with onions and carrots.

Here are the roast and bread mix, getting ready to hit the oven and start baking.

The bread comes out first, looking amazing and smelling great!

The roast is almost done, but it still needs a sauce, which we made using diced apples and onions, corn starch, and sparkling apple cider.

Dinner is just about ready, so it's time to bring the colcannon together. First we made standard mashed potatoes, then fried the cabbage and green onions, and now we're mixing the two together.

The cabbage and onions and stirred in gently.

Next the roast comes out of the oven and is sliced up.

Here's my plate of delicious St. Patrick's awesomeness - veggies, pork roast with the apple sauce, a dollop of colcannon, and a slice of gouda-beer bread.

Of course, we're going to wash it all down with a few extra Killians!

Fried Shrimp Gouda Burgers

It doesn't have to be grilling season to make great burgers (remember the "12.95 Elk Burger?") because a hot skillet and some quality ingredients are all you need for a cheeseburger that will knock your socks off.

As part of our latest week of interconnected meals we used both angus beef and gouda cheese as primary ingredients, which let us put together a burger we've been wanting to try for some time: a fried shrimp gouda burger!  We saw something similar advertised at a restaurant and knew we had to try making our own. Here's our main ingredients:

Here we've got Goudam (a mixture of Gouda and Edam), but you could use any quality cheese you prefer. A handful of shrimp from the butcher block at our local grocery store have had their tails removed and are waiting to be breaded and fried.

We don't normally buy ground beef at the store, preferring to use other meats or to grind our own beef. We saw this angus beef on a great sale though and thought we'd give it a try for a few recipes throughout the week. For our shrimp, we've also got some panko bread crumbs.

Even with already high quality beef, we still want to add some seasonings to make our burgers absolutely burst with flavor. Here we've got worcestershire, garlic powder and salt, a seasoning mix called "rancher steak rub," and some Jim Beam bacon BBQ sauce. This is one of the few times you'll see us using store bought sauce, since we usually make our own (check out our root beer sauce or coffee BBQ sauce), but I got this as a birthday gift and it's fantastic.

The ingredients are mixed into the angus beef...

...and worked throughout until we great a color and texture.

The meat is carefully formed by hand into oversized, amazing looking patties.

We're cooking ours on the skillet along with some sliced onion, as I like my onions soft and caramelized on a great burger.

We also cooked some bacon in the pan prior to throwing in the meat and onions.

The shrimp cook incredibly quickly, so while the burgers are nearing done we put heat oil in a pan and start putting together the breading: panko crumbs, garlic, and red pepper flakes.

The shrimp are dipped into an egg wash first so the breading will stick.

Next they are dredged in the breading and ready to hit the oil.

They only need about a minute or less to fully cook through in the oil, ready to add an unexpected seafood element to our burgers (or you could dip them in sauce and just have them as a snack!)

A few piping hot shrimp are placed on a warmed bun, along with bacon mustard and ketchup.

Next goes on a few slices of tomato, the caramelized onions, melted Goudam cheese, and two strips of bacon.

This is my finished burger, waiting to be devoured:

And here's Megan's, along with a helping of homemade french fries:

Chicken Bacon Alfredo Puffs

While we've done our fair share of meals inspired by global cuisine or intensive dinners that take hours of preparation, sometimes we just want something quick, delicious, and fatteningly American.

A few weeks back while browsing the frozen section of the grocery store we saw puff pastries filled with chicken, bacon, and alfredo sauce. That sounded right up our alley, but we figured it wouldn't be too hard to make something better (and cheaper) at home, which would also let us put our own twists in there as well. The end result was almost a cross between the pull apart pizza or our roast beef rollups: quick, finger type food that's absolutely delicious.

Chicken and bacon are all well and good, but why not add another of our favorites - mushrooms? Here we're cooking sliced mushrooms and bacon, along with some leftover chicken from a previous meal, in a hot skillet with a few teaspoons of oil.

To make our version of this dinner more exciting (and add some extra vegetables) we also added fresh spinach and diced garlic.

Whipping up homemade alfredo sauce is a snap, and it's much, much better than the canned variety. The trick here is to go simple and use quality ingredients - three to five ingredients is really all you need. Heavy cream, parmesan (don't use the clumpy kind in the plastic bottles unless no other option is available), butter and pepper is all that's necessary for restaurant quality (or better) alfredo sauce.

After all the ingredients have cooked through we spoon the alfredo directly into the skillet to create the puff filling.

Next we rolled out some dough and plopped pieces into a muffin pan. We just used our regular pizza crust recipe because it has a great texture that isn't too soft or too crunchy and is perfect for a doughy meal like this. You could also use any number of refrigerated dough varieties available at the grocery store. After pushing down the dough into the muffin pan, we spoon in just enough of the filling to almost reach the top.

We topped each puff with mozzarella, as that's what we had on hand, but you could jazz this up with pepper jack, muenster, havarti, brie, or any other kind of cheese.

Pop them in the oven for 15 minutes or so and you've got soft, gooey awesomeness ready to eat. Thease are also incredibly versatile, as you could easily swap out which sauce and filling ingredients you use. For one of these I threw in some of our homemade buffalo sauce as well for a spicy element, and it was fantastic.

Pull them apart and eat with your bare hands, or dig in with a fork and work around the gooey center. Yum!

Chorizo One Pot

Last week our meals were interconnected by utilizing chorizo links we found on sale at the butcher section of our local grocery store. After previously making goat cheese rolls with chorizo, we decided to put a spicy twist on one of our favorite quick meals: the "one pot" dinner (check out some of our previous one pot meals right here).

This time around we started off by dicing beautiful red and yellow bell peppers, white onion, and mushrooms.

Here's our remaining chorizo links after using the other half in previous meals earlier that week. As before, we're actually going to remove the sausage casing as we'll be cutting these up instead of keeping them whole.

The chorizo is cut into small circles to retain some semblance of form, rather than mashing them into a ground beef type product.

Here we're cooking the peppers and onions in butter with a non-stick pan on the stove.

Next we throw in the chorizo slices to let them crisp up a bit on both sides.

We don't want the mushrooms to become too wiggly, so they go in after the other ingredients have had time to cook.

For a heartier meal with a firm texture, we also decided to throw in quartered potatoes. We used the small red variety, but any potato would do.

After a few minutes the spices from the chorizo start to coat all the vegetable ingredients.

We didn't want to lose the flavor of the chorizo, so for this one-pot meal we actually only added in plain old water to simmer in. If you want a different flavor however, you could use beef or chicken stock, any number of "cream of" canned soups, or even different kinds of pasta sauce.

After simmering down we're ready to dish up a delicious meal of chorizo and veggies, with everything all going in one bowl. If you wanted a side, either rice or a salad would work well.