Bacon-Wrapped Potato Wedges

You only need two ingredients to make these bacon-wrapped potato wedges,
and they're perfect paleo football food!

It's football season! Are you into it? I have no idea what's going on, but my fiancé Ben is a big Broncos fan and is also in a fantasy football league. It's my job to complain about how much the TV is on and to make delicious snacks, like these bacon-wrapped potato wedges.

We moved this past weekend--we'd been staying with Ben's sister and her family, and now we're renting a little guest house from some friends of ours while we look for a house to buy. The guest house is just two rooms plus a bathroom, but it's really cute. The kitchen and living area are in one room, but it's a pretty good size and I'm really happy with the kitchen area. Unfortunately, the TV is right nearby, so I have to listen to football while I cook.

Since things have been pretty hectic with our move from Boston to Chattanooga last month and our mini move into the guest house more recently, I've been on the lookout for easy recipes. I was assigned Rebekah's blog, Making Miracles, for this month's Secret Recipe Club, and found so many great possibilities in her recipe index. Her blog is full of fast, easy, family-friendly recipes, and I highly recommend you check it out!

I was planning to make her baked paleo chicken tenders, since I loved chicken fingers as a kid and haven't yet tried making a paleo version. In fact, I'm still planning to make them--I have all the ingredients and everything--but once I saw these bacon-wrapped potato wedges, they jumped to the top of my list. I had to have them right away.

Brown Butter Cacao Nib Skillet Cake

This quick brown butter cacao nib skillet cake is gluten free, 

grain free, and so satisfying.

It cooled down just enough in Boston this weekend for me to feel good about cranking up the oven and baking a cake. And boy, was I glad I did! This grain-free skillet cake is so easy to whip up, looks and smells like a giant cookie, but boasts a unique and sophisticated flavor thanks to the browned butter and cacao nibs. I highly recommend making it today--it's perfect for dessert or simply as a snack cake!

This recipe is adapted from Selma's Table, my assigned blog for this month's Secret Recipe Club reveal day. I had a hard time choosing a recipe because Selma has so many tantalizing options. I almost bought anchovies for the first time because this walnut, herb, and anchovy sauce sounded so delicious (I wanted to pair it with some zoodles!). This Italian version of shepherd's pie looks fabulous, too. Also, what sounds better than black summer truffle pesto roast chicken?

Breakfast Casserole with Bacon, Sausage, Sweet Potato, and Kale

When I make a recipe, I always expect it to turn out great. Of course, sometimes it doesn't, but if I weren't expecting delicious results, why would I bother making the recipe at all?

On the other hand, sometimes there's a qualifier. I might say to myself, "These cookies will be great--for sugar-free cookies." Or in this case, "This will be wonderful--for a dairy-free breakfast casserole."

You may have already guessed that this recipe blew that qualifier right out of the water (especially since only recipes that are amazing without qualifiers end up on the blog at all!). This breakfast casserole is so delectable that I do not think anyone will notice or care that it's dairy free.

I found this recipe over at Susan's blog, Food.Baby.Life, which was my assignment for this month's Secret Recipe Club reveal. Susan is a busy mom of three boys under age five, and still finds time to study, cook, and share delicious recipes on her blog! I, for one, am very impressed. Susan's recipe index includes a huge selection of allergy-friendly baked goods along with lots of family-friendly main dishes like this one.

Chorizo Chicken with Olives and Roasted Peppers + Yellow Rice

Most people love simple recipes. I'm actually the opposite--I want the things I cook to be a little bit of a process. Nothing insane, but a few different components. I love the act of cooking, and I usually don't want it to be over too quickly.

This chorizo chicken is the best of both worlds. If you want it to be super simple and quick, you can buy a jar of roasted red peppers or even leave them out. You can also serve this with a tossed salad instead of the rice. If you're looking to have a little fun, though, you can roast your peppers on an open flame.

This genius recipe comes from Karen of Lavender and Lovage. I was assigned Karen's blog for this month's Secret Recipe Club reveal day, and had so much fun perusing her recipes. She lives in England but also spends a lot of time in France, where she has a cooking school. Karen has a huge selection of recipes on her blog, including several tempting choices like Scottish rhubarb and ginger crunchy streusel cake and bacon-wrapped turkey breast, which I want to make when the holidays roll around.

Zucchini Lasagna

I've been on the fence for a while about whether I should buy a spiralizer. I want to make rutabaga noodles so badly, but I can't seem to bring myself to purchase another kitchen gadget. I've made zoodles by hand with my julienne peeler, but it's a huge pain. After adding the spiralizer to my cart on Amazon several times and then taking it back out again, I've decided that I'm going to ask for one for my birthday next month (are you reading this, Mom?). I won't feel as bad about getting yet another cooking tool if it is a gift from my wonderful mother.

In the meantime, I was excited to find this zucchini lasagna over on Sarah and Tim's blog, Curious Cuisiniere, because it uses veggie noodles that you don't need any special gadgets to make. Strips of zucchini stand in for lasagna noodles, but all the great Italian flavors and delicious textures of the original dish still come through.

Curious Cuisiniere was my assignment for this month's Secret Recipe Club reveal, and I had a great time perusing the site to choose a dish. I noticed that this recipe isn't their only noodle-free lasagna--they also have a butternut squash lasagna that I'm planning to try in the fall. Sarah and Tim also have recipes from countries all around the world, and the best part is that they have an interactive map that helps you explore food from different regions. Click on India, for example, and you'll be taken to a page with all of the Indian recipes on Curious Cuisiniere. So cool! If you're looking to expand your palate and cooking repertoire with some food from faraway lands, their blog is the place to do it.

Burmese Chile Prawns with Cucumber and Avocado Salad

Are you fast in the kitchen? I'm super slow. No matter how much I wish I could be an ingredient ninja, I just can't seem to get things located and prepped very quickly. I took a knife skills class a few months ago, which helped a little, but I think the issue stems more from disorganization than a lack of dexterity.

I'm working on making more 30-minute paleo dinners to share here on A Calculated Whisk. To make sure I'm representing things accurately, I time myself as I cook, which really highlights my lack of culinary efficiency. For this recipe, I started timing, assembled most of the ingredients for the marinade, and then realized I couldn't find a sharp knife to cut the lime in half. I paused the timer while I located a chef's knife and washed it, because I thought you, my wonderful readers, were likely to already have a clean knife on hand. Several other misplaced items and dirty dishes slowed me down and I didn't stop the timer every time, but I still managed to make this meal in JUST over 30 minutes (if you're making rice, you may need an extra 3-5 minutes to get that measured and set up).

So, even if you're less than speedy in the kitchen, like me, you can have this dinner on your plate in just about half an hour.

Today's recipe comes from Sue at Couscous and Consciousness. I was assigned her blog for this month's Secret Recipe Club reveal, and had so much fun browsing through her delicious recipes. (I was also excited to read that Sue is a yoga teacher. I love yoga and have been trying to do at least a few sun salutations every morning. I wish I could take a class with Sue, but she lives in New Zealand, so it would be quite a commute.)

Sue's food is colorful, creative, and usually on the lighter side, so there were a lot of tempting options to choose from. She also has many internationally inspired dishes, which makes browsing her site really fun. For this month's reveal, top contenders included bengali aloo with lemon turmeric aioli, roasted apricot gelato, and plum and cardamon cake. Even though I'm not much of a salad person at all, I also found myself wanting to try this salmon with green tea soba noodle, broad bean, and radish salad and this watermelon and feta salad with preserved lemon dressing.

Cinnamon Hazelnut Date Cake

The humble date is much more delicious and versatile than one might guess based on its appearance. Dates are appealingly sticky and sweet, and their complex flavor makes you think a few aromatic spices like cinnamon and allspice may already be inside the fruit.

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I had the pleasure of perusing Ros' blog, The more than occasional baker. As someone who also tends to fire up the oven more than occasionally, I was excited to see all the fabulous baked goods on her site.  From classics like chocolate peanut butter squares to innovative treats like parsnip cake, her blog has it all.

As soon as I spotted this cinnamon date cake, though, my mind was made up.  A beautiful Bundt cake sweetened with dates and flavored with cinnamon sounded like just the thing for a snowy January weekend, and it was!

For this recipe, you pit a bunch of dates and soak them in very hot water. (The pitted dates look just like hearts, so I had to stop and take a few photos. Looks like I'm in a valentine's mindset already!) The soaked dates and then blended into a paste in the food processor so they can permeate the batter with moisture and flavor.

Almond Butter Thumbprints with Salted Caramel

My mom, my boyfriend, and I are really grateful to Karen of Karen's Kitchen Stories for introducing us to these amazing cookies.  I know it's a bit hard to believe because this was a pretty big batch, but we ate them all between the three of us.  I was not interested in sharing with anyone else because they were too good.

Even though they're paleo cookies made with almond butter, they taste very similar to traditional peanut butter cookies, and the crumbly, buttery cookie and creamy salted caramel are an unbeatable team.

Balsamic Chicken with Mushrooms

I love to read.  It's actually somewhat of a problem.

Whenever I read fiction or a memoir, one of two things happens.  I either put the book down because I can't get into it, or I'm so into it that I can't think about anything else, and end up reading the whole thing within a day or two.  The latter happens much more frequently than the former, and everything else I'm supposed to be doing falls by the wayside.  I fall into reading rabbit holes so easily that I usually don't allow myself to read anything other than my school textbooks during the semester itself.  (Of course, I'm very interested in speech and language pathology, but books with titles like Understanding Voice Problems and Preclinical Speech Science never really end up being page-turners.  Instead of keeping me up all night like a suspenseful novel, they're uniquely capable of sending me into a sudden nap if I read them anytime after the sun sets.)

Cilantro Lime Chicken

Do you like cilantro?  It's my favorite herb by far, and I love it because it's capable of totally perking up almost any food, both in flavor and appearance.  If you're a cilantro hater, though, you're definitely not alone.  According to The New York Times, many people's aversion to cilantro may be due to the fragrance of certain substances in the herb that are also found in soap and bugs.  (Make sure to read through until the end of the article, when the author describes how he converted himself into a cilantro lover.  Here's one hint: this recipe of mine might be a good place to start.)

For this month's Secret Recipe Club, I was assigned the blog Angels Homestead.  It's written by April, a mom, homesteader, and frugal cooking expert who was the owner of the SRC for several years.  April recently began cooking without grains for health reasons, and you can read a bit about her story here.  Everything I make is grain free, so I was excited to find many recipes on April's site that fit my dietary requirements.  I was also excited to find several recipes featuring cilantro, my go-to herb.  I can only assume that April must be a fellow cilantro fan!

Fried Banana Brownie Cake with Honey Whipped Cream

It was my birthday on Saturday, and I had an amazing day.  I started the morning by opening the present Ben got for me, which was a Kitchen Aid stand mixer!  I've wanted one for years, and finally feel like I count as a real food blogger now that I own one.  I haven't used it yet because I have need to clear a special spot for it in the kitchen, but I've been peering into the box every few hours and just kind of smiling at it.  After opening my mixer, I met up with a friend to go for a run, and then went home and moved a bunch of furniture and hung pictures with Ben.  (Our landlords have been renovating our apartment, so we have a lot of rearranging to do.  One secret about me is that I love organizing things around the house, even though I put it off like crazy and almost never do it.  I am not at all sure why I dread it so much, because once I get started I really enjoy it.  So, oddly enough, moving furniture and hanging pictures was one of my favorite parts of the day.)

My mom, Ben, and I went to dbar for dinner, which is within walking distance of our apartment and is one of my favorite restaurants ever.  Pro tip: it starts gradually turning into a nightclub around 10 pm on Friday and Saturday.  I've never been able to convince anyone to stay with me for that phase, but we got to witness the beginning of the transformation last night: one of the waiters walked by, casually pushed a button on his bracelet, and made a screen drop from the ceiling.  No big deal.

Roasted Beet & Carrot Salad with Goat Cheese Vinaigrette

What's your favorite color?  Mine is pink (shocking, right?).  

When I was scrolling through the recipes on K & K Test Kitchen to choose something to make for this month's Secret Recipe Club, the gorgeous hue of this healthy salad caught my eye.  By the time I read the words "goat cheese" near the end of the post title, I was totally sold.  When I see a food that's naturally bright pink and has my favorite kind of cheese in it, I sign myself right up.

Easy Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting {Secret Recipe Club}

Sometimes you just need a cupcake.  Or a few cupcakes.  I feel that I need cupcakes often, but it's rare that I actually need a dozen, full-size cupcakes.  Unless I have a party to take them to, making a whole batch of cupcakes can often end in disaster, with me deciding that a cupcake with coffee is a great breakfast, a cupcake with a side of fruit is a perfect lunch, and dinner is best concluded by eating another two cupcakes, and so on for the next few days.

That's why I love small-batch baking.

This delicious recipe for a small batch of easy vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting comes from Asiya at Chocolate and Chillies.  I was assigned her blog for my first month participating in the Secret Recipe Club, and had so much fun perusing her recipe index and deciding what to cook (if you haven't heard of the SRC, it's basically a club where each month you're assigned a blog to cook from, and someone else is assigned your blog, and it's a fun surprise on the reveal day to see who had your blog and what they decided to make).