The Bison Ragu

This entry, like the previous ones and the next three or so, were all off-the-cuff recipes I came up with while standing in the grocery store or riding the subway or into my empty fridge. This one came to me at work while eating lunch.

Ingredients:

- olive oil
- four cloves garlic (minced)
- half a yellow onion (chopped)
- salt
- pepper
- one pound ground bison meat
- 12 ounces diced tomatoes with basil (opened)
- 4 dried chilies with seeds removed and roughly chopped
- spaghetti (enough for however many people decide to show up)

First make sure you set up the water to cook the pasta. I'll assume you can time this right alongside the sauce because you're not a dunderhead.

Heat the olive oil at medium-high. Add garlic and onions and cook about five minutes or until the onions are translucent and the garlic is slightly brown. Then add the ground bison, season with salt and pepper, and brown. If there's a lot of liquid left over when the meat is browned, drain some of it.

Next you're going to add the tomatoes and chilis. Mix thoroughly and simmer for ten minutes.

Add the sauce to the pot with your drained pasta and mix. Whatever you do, do not let the cat get in the pot!

Your soundtrack for this entry: Björk - Play Dead. 

The Corn Pesto (with Bacon)

Corn pesto? With bacon? Jeremy, you have to be kidding me! No, I assure you Susanna (I assume the interlocutioner is named Susanna), I'm not kidding you. The Thrifty Sifter found us a scrumptatious recipe and I made it. This is also my first pesto, so it's odd for me to have gone outside the traditional bounds. Usually when I do something for the first time, I like to try the classic version first.

But, y'know...bacon.

Epicurious, as they do frequently, provided the fresh corn pesto recipe. My only comment is that I'd cut the amount of corn by 30% or double the amount of pasta. There was a bit too much corn kernelage in there. We also used perciatelli. This is my favourite type of pasta.

Post bacon, pre-corn sautée.

Breaking out the Thrifty Sifter's new food processor. Dropping most of the rest of the ingredients in here was easy.

Zoooooooooooooooooooom!

The final product was familiar, but given a fantastic kick by the addition of bacon and the cooking of the corn in a bit of bacon fat. Bacon, parmesan, and fresh basil definitely go well together, bringing out interesting flavours in each other.

Your soundtrack for this entry: Björk - Crystalline.