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by BS

100 Ways to Cook a Pumpkin

Pumpkin season is here! Now let’s be honest — for most of us, that means leftover pumpkin season is here, too — because how many times can you make boring old pumpkin pie? Never fear, Endless Simmer is here. Whether you’ve got half-a-can of pumpkin puree sitting around, a cupboard full of pumpkin pie filling, the stringy insides of a Jack-o-Lantern or just a few stray pumpkin seeds, we scoured the web for 100 creative recipes that will help you use up all that beautiful orange goodness.

Click on the photos for full recipes…

Previously on ES:

100 Ways to Cook a Banana
100 Ways to Cook a Tomato
100 Ways to Cook a Sweet Potato

by BS

Top 10 New Foods at the 2010 State Fairs

With all due respect to George Washington Carver, America’s greatest food inventions have all originated in one place — the state fair. From cotton candy to corn dogs to deep-fried Coke, the enterprising folks at America’s state and county fairs top themselves year after year. Some observers thought state fair cooks had hit their peak last year, when the Texas State Fair debuted Deep Fried Butter. But in 2010, they outdid themselves once again, proving that if it’s edible, it’s even better battered and fried. From coast to coast (but mostly in the middle) here are our top ten favorite finds:

10. Hash Brown Hot Dog – San Diego County Fair

Hot dogs with french fries is a pretty fantastic lunch, but boy it takes a lot of effort to transport all those individual fries from the plate to your mouth. If only we could get the hot dog and the potato to be one cohesive unit, preferably arranged on a stick. Thank you, San Diego. Thank you. (Photo: It’s Holly)

9. Deep-Fried Cheddar-Bacon Mashed Potatoes…On a Stick – Minnesota State Fair

Sorry, San Diego — did you really think you could best the Midwest at spuds-on-a-stick? Here, Minnesota achieves the state fair trifecta — potatoes, pork and cheese — all deep fried, all on a stick. For more of Minnesota’s many, many state fair foods, check out Baking Junkie’s heart-stopping food crawl through the MN State Fair. (Photo: Baking Junkie)

8. Garbage Burger – Indiana State Fair

It’s the great state fair dilemma. Should pork be the basis of your dish — or a topping? In Indiana, this is not a problem. Behold the garbage burger — a deep-fried pork patty topped with a healthy serving of pulled pork. Why settle for one pig when you can have two? See more at The Hot Cookie. (Photo: Sarah Richcreek)

7. Deep-Fried Frito Pie – Texas State Fair

No other state takes this season as seriously as Texas, the good people who started the deep-fried everything movement with their corn dog in 1942 and haven’t looked back since. Earlier this week, ES told you about frito pies — those delicious piles of chili-topped corn chips. One guess what Texas has gone and done to ’em. (Photo: Texas Fried Frito Pie)

6. Deep Fried Klondike Bar – San Diego State Fair

California continues its surprisingly strong showing by having the cojones to throw a chocolate-covered ice cream bar in the deep fryer. This one’s more concept than execution, because not so surprisingly, it’s a total disaster to eat. My Burning Kitchen has more. (Photo: My Burning Kitchen)

Next: Top 5 New Foods at the 2010 State Fairs

in Cheese / Desserts / Featured / Food Travel / Lists / Pig 42 comments

by BS

Introducing the Pie Shake…Yes, That’s Pie. Shake.

Walking through the NoPa neighborhood of San Francisco recently, the veggie gf and I stumbled upon a restaurant with a name so simple and enticing we couldn’t resist: chile pies (& ice cream). Yep, that’s the name of the restaurant. And they have just three basic menu items:

– Classic New Mexico-style frito pie (for the uninformed, that’s chili poured over a bed of fritos).

– Fresh slices of sweet&savory pie with outrageous varieties such as green chile apple pie with walnuts and a cheddar crust.

– Ice cream and frozen yogurt in creative flavors like bittersweet chocolate and horchata.

Obviously, this was already approaching a pretty perfect restaurant as far as I’m concerned. But then I scanned to the bottom of the menu and saw one more item that just about knocked me over…

in Desserts / Drinks / Featured / Food Travel 16 comments

by tvff

¡Chilaquiles!

I know I’ve mentioned it once or twice before, but I seemingly fall in love with a new dish every time I go on vacation or take a business trip somewhere new. It’s only natural, then, that I want to come home and relive a little bit of the memories.

Sometimes, this leads me to an ambitious desire to create perfectly-crafted plates of spaghetti carbonara or a top-notch French press café au lait, knowing that it’s worth the effort if I can just recreate a bit of that greatness. And then, sometimes, I’m just willing to raid my pantry for a cheap imitation.

The gears started turning for me a few weeks back when gansie shared her experience pairing a fried egg and some potato chips (hat tip Monica Bhide). That took me back to my honeymoon in Mexico and my first exposure to chilaquiles. In case you’re not familiar with the dish, it’s the ultimate hangover breakfast food: leftover fried tortillas simmered in salsa and topped with whatever else you may have laying around. And if one of those things happens to be an egg, all the better.

It’s a wonderful dish because it’s filling, it’s fried and it’s scalable, meaning you can include as much or as little above and beyond the basic ingredients of tortillas and salsa. If you happen to have some pulled chicken or carnitas around, it’s a perfect way to take a snack or breakfast dish and turn it into a dinner entrée.

The preparation below is certainly geared to a non-Mexican kitchen, so please don’t trash me in the comments for being inauthentic. I’m sure your abuela’s version is vastly superior. I’m looking for something easy that I can assemble while nursing a pounding headache.

in Breakfast / Eggs / Featured / Recipe 5 comments

by Bliz

The Ultimate Recipe: Homemade Bacon

These days it’s almost cliché to rant about one’s love for bacon. What’s that t-shirt I’ve seen guys wearing? “I’m a vegetarian except for bacon” or “I put bacon on my bacon.” Yeah, yeah, we get it. Bacon is delicious. I love it, you love it, and the poor vegans are left out in the cold yet again, ignorance being bliss most likely. Of course I love bacon. It’s not a fad. It’s not like bacon is Hootie and the Blowfish and I’m in 5th grade trying to get my first kiss. Liking bacon is kind of like asking someone if they like music or sex or breathing air.

So how to take bacon mania to the next level? I decided to try my hand at making some porky heaven of my own. As usual, I grossly underestimated the amount of work that the process would require. It is a bit of a production so let me put the disclaimer out there that one needs about a month of empty fridge space, a smoking device of some sort, and of course, several pounds of fresh pork belly. Good luck finding a 5 lb slab at Whole Foods. I’ve tried more than once, so online is your best bet.

in Bacon / Endless Bacon / Featured / Pig / Recipe 17 comments

by BS

100 Ways to Use a Tomato

OMFG, the tomatoes are finally here. Sure, they’ve been here all year round, but there’s nothing more disappointing than sinking your teeth into a mealy, watery, tasteless tomato, which is inevitably what happens nine or ten months out of the year. Then suddenly, in late summer, we head to the farmers’ market and find those beautiful, juicy specimens we’ve been looking for the whole time. Of course, we overbuy and end up with way more tomatoes than we can use. But you don’t have to resign yourself to cooking eight gallons of fresh tomato sauce, because we’ve got the goods on 100 other ways to use up all your perfect (or even not-so-perfect) summer tomatoes. You can poach tomatoes, stew tomatoes, roast tomatoes, and pickle tomatoes. We’ve got tomato sushi, tomato cobbler, tomato-tinis and tomato creme brulee. Oh yeah, and there’s pizza and stuff too…

Click on the photos for full recipes.

PS – What did we miss? Have a star tomato recipe? Drop your link in the comments. If your photo makes us drool, we’ll add it to the list.

Previously on ES:
100 Ways to Use Bacon
100 Ways to Cook an Egg
100 Ways to Use a Banana
100 Ways to Cook a Pumpkin
100 Ways to Cook a Sweet Potato

Plus…Thanks for the tips in the comments! Here are a few way to consume those ripe tomatoes:

in 100 Ways / Featured / Lists / Veggie 59 comments

by gansie

A Consummated Love Affair: Eggs and Potato Chips

Without a doubt potato chips are my favorite snack food. Cheese (extremely sharp cheddar) is next and a combination of a plate of Herr’s Ripples with cheddar, spicy mustard and a pickle is my ultimate combo. With all this love, however, I’ve never incorporated chips into my cooking. (Though I always wanted to try Herr’s Potato Chip Cookie.)

This was until I saw DC food writer Monica Bhide tweet about chips in an Indian-spiced egg dish. Holy Crap! How have I never thought of combining my two favorite things to eat. Finally! My love for salty crunch and creamy egg can be together at last! And because I now work from home full time I decided to try this out last week for lunch.

Egg Over Green Chili Potato Chips

Because I cooked this on the fly I didn’t have all of Monica’s set ingredients, which you can check out at her site. Here’s how I handled the situation.

in Eggs / Featured / Recipe / Veggie 6 comments