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I've loved Mario Batali's gnocchi with sausage and fennel ever since I had it at Lupa years ago. His dish uses ricotta gnocchi (which are fantastic), but I'm sure it would be great with other gnocchi as well. You can find the recipe here: Ricotta Gnocchi with Sausage and Fennel

Wow! That looks absolutely amazing!

Thanks for the ideas! I'll report back when we've made something.

So, in the midst of a batch of pig and lamb bits we're getting from our local farmer tomorrow, we're getting some pork kidneys. We have all sorts of ideas for most of the various pig bits, but I'm a bit at a loss when it comes to the kidneys. I don't think I've ever had one. Any suggestions?

Just a burger and fries, but it was a really good burger... The cheese is home-smoked cheddar. I was worried that it might be overpowering, but the flavors melded really well.

I'm really enjoying reading your posts. The amount of detail you recount from the classes is fantastic!

Lovely!

Kind of a both-sides-of-the-Mediterranean dish. A Moroccan lamb meatball tagine with campanelle. The original tagine recipe had large meatballs, but we do little bite-sized ones instead.

Very nice!

If you have time to spend in lieu of $$, I think foodie on a budget can definitely be achievable. As others have pointed out, buying whole chickens instead of prepped parts is a great way to go. It saves you money, gives you more flexibility, and can provide you with homemade stock instead of purchased. Treating less expensive cuts of meat with the time-intensive care they require is another great time/$$ tradeoff. A smoker can be an instrumental tool here - if you don't have one, I bet you could pick one up used for next to nothing. One big pork butt provides an intensely-flavored bounty that can be used as the main ingredient in a bunch of dishes (just noticed the mention of pulled pork in the original post, so this is probably not big news). Turning pork belly into your own bacon yields super-high quality at cut-rate grocery store prices. Making and smoking your own sausages is another great endeavor, and if you have a local source of good inexpensive fish, cold and hot-smoked fish is easy and fantastic. Again as others have mentioned, getting acquainted with various ethnic cuisines can be a great help. Indian cooking comes immediately to mind - amazing flavors from dishes where expensive luxury proteins can be minimized or omitted completely. I would particularly recommend looking into dal (lentil/split pea) dishes. If you have the time and motivation, the options are endless. Purchase your product based on your budget, and use time-tested techniques for elaborating it into amazing food.

Great stuff, Percy - thanks for sharing!

Fantastic looking Goohickant, Prawn! I love the layers of stuffing, and the amusing name - we did a "TurBrotWurst" (my term for it, anyway) this year for Thanksgiving.

We did a Southeast-Asian take on the Feast of the Seven Fishes for Christmas Eve this year. Four of the seven dishes: Clockwise from upper left: cured salmon four ways, oysters with ginger-chili mignonette, squid in caramel sauce, and napa cabbage soup with shrimp dumplings. For Christmas dinner, we went carnivore and did a smoked rib roast: While it pales in comparison to those in this year's prime rib thread, it was nonetheless quite tasty. Happy Holidays everybody!

We loved it - fantastic, intense flavor. The leftovers, smushed up, made a very tasty spread for sandwiches... Your dinner looked great - especially that red chutney!

Grilled Culotte Steak: With split chickpea stew (Channa Ni Dar) from My Bombay Kitchen and some sauteed chard.

Awesome looking steak from start to finish, Prawn! I need to try that cooking method.

Those look fantastic! Is there a recipe for them online somewhere?

An improvisation that turned out great: A flour tortilla spread with a bit of peanut butter, filled with sliced apple, sprinkled with cinnamon and brown sugar, and baked. Makes for a very easy breakfast pastry.

Thanks, Heidi! I love the texture of fresh pasta - it is definitely worth the extra effort every once in a while.

My wife's folks live in Washington State and go foraging for morels each spring. This past spring, they found a lot and sent us a nice care package of dried mushrooms. We used a bunch of them the other day, tossed with some freshly made tagliatelle.

That looks really, really good!

Some recent dinners. Asian-spiced kedgeree - a Nigella recipe that we really like. Great comfort food. Chicken Enchiladas with a poblano/almond sauce. The sauce was leftover soup that we condensed down. White bean, bacon and kale soup. Pan-seared bavette steak. We really like this little cut. A local beef producer sells it at our farmers market.

That pizza looks great (as does your Asian spread!) What else was on the pizza? Olives?

Fantastic!

Oops - yeah, I meant fahrenheit... We went with the higher temperature since we figured they cook them in the same pits with their brisket. The sausages were plenty juicy, but there were still bits of fat that had not rendered, and the texture seemed somewhat "under-done". We only smoked part of the batch we made, and plan to try a longer and lower cook on the rest. Thanks for your help!