Bacon Wrapped Asparagus

Today we'll do something a little different from the norm at Six-Seven-Eight. This is a dinner that's quick, easy, doesn't require any special setup or ingredients, but is still really amazingly good. Today we make bacon wrapped asparagus!

This is great as a main course for a dinner or as a fast lunch if you happen to have the ingredients on hand. Putting this together is simplicity itself - bundle together two or three spears of asparagus (be sure to cut off the woody stems first) and wrap a piece of bacon around it.

You don't need any oil or butter (the bacon produces plenty of grease on its own), and for seasoning, just put on a dash of salt and pepper.

Toss these bundles of awesome in the oven and about a half hour later you get this pan of bacon wrapped love:

It looks great, it smells great, and it of course tastes great. There's a balance of crispy and soft from both the asparagus and the bacon.

Serve up two or three bundles with a side salad loaded with fruits and veggies for a fast meal that won't disappoint and is a fun change of pace from the usual dinner options.

Novel Noodles: Lemon Zest and Kale Spaghetti

Pasta was one of my early passions when I first started out cooking, and it served me very well during my vegetarian days as a young 'un.

As Megan and I have continued our kitchen adventures together as adults we've tried a huge range of pasta dishes, covering all the basics and on to more bizarre and interesting combinations like bean-based sauces. Some of our more interesting concoctions have included a sauceless pasta made with beans and sausage, penne pasta dressed up with watercress and gorgonzola, or spicy pesto chicken pasta. 

Today we'll share our latest pasta success: spaghetti with lemon zest and kale. We've been trying out kale quite a bit lately (you may recall our kale chips served with black bean burgers), and we have even more recipes utilizing this leafy green wonder in the future. But for today, we start our pasta by roughly chopping one large bunch of kale.

Drop the kale in a boiling pot of water and let it cook for a few minutes as you would with pasta.

Drain out the water and place the kale in a bowl - but be sure to reserve some of the kale infused water for use later on, as it adds some extra moisture to a pasta that doesn't use a traditional sauce.

Next get your pasta going - we're using standard sphagetti for this one, but you could easily switch to linguine, fettuccine, or even another shaped pasta like penne or farfalle.

Grate off the zest (the yellow "skin") of about three lemons using a small grater. It sounds odd, but the zest actually has quite a bit of the tart lemon flavor without having to actually use the whole lemon.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a pan and toss in a handful or two of chopped fresh garlic.

When the garlic becomes fragrant, toss in your kale and lemon zest to cook in the pan.

Drain the cooked pasta and throw it into the skillet along with the rest of the ingredients.

For some added texture and flavor, we're adding in some grated parmesan cheese as well.

Stir it all together until the cheese melts, and then add in a little of the reserved water if necessary to prevent dryness. If the lemon flavor isn't strong enough, juice one of the lemons and add it in a tablespoon or so at a time - be careful not to overdo it though, or you'll go from "mmmm...lemon" to "AUGH! LEMON!"

Serve immediately while the pasta is still hot, and if you want you can stop with some delicious cooked bacon bits (we sure did)!

Extra grated cheese wouldn't hurt either...

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

As an alternative to standards like lasagna or tortilla wrapped meals, we recently decided to give cabbage rolls a try. These still have all the fillings that make a hearty meal - meat, rice, sauce - but are wrapped up in in a vegetable pouch instead for a change in texture and flavor. Here we're starting off with a whole head of cabbage.

To make rolls, start by pulling off each individual layer of the cabbage - one layer per roll, so you'll probably want 12 - 15 pieces.

The cabbage is boiled for a few minutes in water so they become tender and pliable, just like cooking pasta.

Once boiled these have a much better texture to work with for turning them into rolls. They do tear, but not nearly as easily as you'd think, so you don't have to be too gentle with them.

For the filing we're using ground pork, along with some leftover potsticker filling from a previous meal.

First we mix together the pork, potsticker filling, and diced white onion. If you don't happen to have leftovers from a previous meal on hand, be sure to also throw in some extra vegetables like diced bell peppers.

Along with the meat and vegetables, throw in any of the standard fillings you'd use for meat in a lasagna or pasta bake - basil, oregano, salt, pepper, etc.

Then we toss in some ketchup and tomato paste and continue mixing.

While everything else was coming together we prepared some white rice in our rice cooker. Spoon the cooked rice into the meat mixture.

Here's the finished filling, rice and all:

Place a large spoonful of the filling into the bottom of a piece of cooked cabbage.

Working from the filled side, roll the cabbage piece repeatedly until the filling is completely wrapped up.

Set down a layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of an oven safe dish and line up each roll.

Stuff your baking dish as full as you can if you made enough filling and wraps - they don't need to be separated out from each other.

Finish off with a tomato sauce topping - to make it more flavorful we used a Fire Roasted Tomato Meal Starter instead of just plain tomato sauce.

Pop 'em in the oven for about 45 minutes until the filling is piping hot. Pull a few out and arrange them on the a plate.

Top with some Parmesan and dig in! Because of how much is going on with the wrappers and filling we didn't do a side, but of course a salad or some steamed vegetables would be great choices. You could also try different filling and topping combinations - like ground chicken and jalapenos, a cream sauce, or topping with cheese before baking.

Cinco De Mayo: Pulled Pork Tacos With Grilled Vegetables

This year we've been trying different dishes for holiday meals besides our usual lineup (check out our revamped St. Patrick's Day or Easter dinners), and that continued with Cinco De Mayo, which usually consists of chicken enchiladas.

Now that we've got some sun, we've of course been grilling as much as possible, and this year we decided to make a two-part meal that includes both indoor and outdoor cooking - pulled pork tacos with grilled vegetables and out-of-this-world guacamole!

To start off with we've got half a pork loin, which is being rubbed down with a variety of spicy seasonings, including the WildTree fajita seasoning blend.

This is put together much in the same ways as our game day pulled pork nachos. First the loin is rubbed down thoroughly with the seasonings, and then it's placed in the crock pot - with no liquid or sauce - and cooked for several hours until its moist to the point of positively falling apart.

Towards the end of the slow pork loin cook, we get ready to fire up the grill. First Megan is rolling ears of corn in tin foil with pepper and melted butter.

Filling out our tacos will be a mix of chopped vegetables - mushrooms, red onions, and red bell pepper.

Everything is grilled up until blackened and beautifully flame kissed (be sure to remove the tin foil from the corn for the last few minutes of cooking).

After cooling for a moment, Megan cuts the corn off the cob so all the vegetables can be mixed together or used as ingredients in the coming guacamole.

Here's three ears of corn sliced up and ready to go:

Next up is the guacamole, which we make by dicing and mashing two whole avocados (don't waste your money on store bought guac - it's more expensive and significantly less tasty).

Next we squirt in the juice of a lime and chop up some fresh cilantro to go into the mashed avocado mixture.

For an added touch, we used some of the corn as well. You can also season this however you'd like - salt, pepper, cayenne, etc.

Once the meat is done in the crock pot we shred the pork by pulling apart the larger pieces with two forks.

All the vegetables are then tossed together. You can season if you want, but the grill adds enough flavor on its own that it's not necessary.

To assemble these tacos we set down layer of refried beans, some guac, a scoop of grilled vegetables, a handful of pulled pork, a spoonful of Philadelphia Sante Fe cooking cream, and finally some shredded cheddar cheese.

Prepare for seconds and thirds - because these were the best tacos we've ever had! You'll of course want a Mexican beer or some shots of tequila to wash it all down.

Novel Noodles: Watercress, Tomato, and Gorgonzola Pasta

Grilling season is finally heating up and we've got lots of great outdoor meals coming your way - including our amazing Cinco De Mayo pulled pork tacos - but first up we'd like to share a few more indoor dinners we've been enjoying lately.

While most pastas feature a tomato, cream, or oil based sauce, there are a variety of sauceless pastas out there flavored solely by their added ingredients. We haven't done a sauceless pasta since the Maccheroni Rustica with beans and sausage last year, and it was time for another attempt, this time using an ingredient we've somehow never gotten around to trying before: watercress.

To start this meal we boil up some multi-colored penne pasta in a large pot of water as you would with any other pasta dish.

We've picked the watercress leaves and placed them in a bowl, and then "cooked" them by pouring in a small amount of retained water from the pasta. That's all they take - just a few moments blanching in hot water.

It can't just be greens though, so we added in some sliced cherry tomatoes for a bright color contrast and a nice sweet flavor.

We also decided to dice some red bell pepper for something with a firmer texture and tossed it all together.

Mix it all in a bowl and then add in one of the "funkier" cheeses for the final touch - we used gorgonzola, but feta or bleu cheese would work equally well. If the sharper or more complex cheeses aren't your thing, a milder substitute like ricotta or fresh mozzarella could work instead.

This pasta works fine on its own as a full meal, or you could do a meat side, but we decided to double up on the veggies and have a salad with Italian dressing.