One of my favorite ingredients is hot Italian sausage. Hungry Bear loves sweet petite peas. Add some mushrooms, garlic, orecchiette, a sprinkle of Parmigiano Reggiano and you'll have a tasty pasta dish that can be prepared in 30 minutes.

Hungry Bear likes pasta dishes without tomato sauce because the individual flavors of the ingredients are not dominated by a tomato taste. Recently, we've made most of our pasta without tomato sauce. Our current favorite pasta is an orecchiette with hot Italian sausage.

Oysters and hot dogs? What the hell? That was my first reaction when Jane invited us over for dinner last Saturday. I asked her what her inspiration was for this odd food pairing. She responded with "it's what I'm craving." Alrighty then! I have to admit, oysters and hot dogs is the most original surf and turf combination I've ever heard of.

The actual dinner dishes were...

• Champagne and oysters with three different type of sauces — cocktail sauce, red wine mignonette and champagne mignonette.
• Grilled bacon-wrapped stuffed hot dogs
• Stir-fried Chinese long beans and eggplant
• Banana cream pie

Hungry Bear and I brought over the vegetables that we got from the Serramonte Farmers' Market and Garry's friends picked up a banana cream pie from Mission Pie. Not only did we have a really peculiar surf and turf, the rest of the meal was an eclectic pot luck.

Jane ordered eight dozen oysters form Royal Hawaiian Seafood...

• Malpeque PEI
• Kumamoto Point Reyes
• Fanny Bay B.C.
• Malaspina B.C.
• Effingham Inlet B.C.
• Kusshi Petite B.C.
• Beau Soleil
• One more type I didn't catch

We had the oysters raw with the three sauces, which Garry made from the Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home cookbook. I'm not a big champagne person, but it went really well with the brininess of the oysters. My favorite oyster was the Malpeque PEI with the cocktail sauce, however I'm not an oyster expert. After sucking down a few, they all tasted the same. Maybe Jane, our oyster connoisseur, can add more commentary on the oysters?

I thought the highlight of the meal was the bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Garry made the dogs using this grilled bacon-wrapped stuffed hot dogs recipe. The frankfurters were stuffed with mustard, ketchup, cheese, onions and sauerkraut, then wrapped with bacon! I usually don't like sauerkraut on my dogs, but I didn't mind it this time. Who's not going to like a bacon-wrapped hot dog on a toasted bun?!? I really liked the extra crunch the grilled bacon added to the stuffed dog. The wieners were accompanied by a side of stir-fried long beans and eggplant. We definitely needed some healthy veggies with the heart attack on a bun.

For dessert, we had banana cream pie from Mission Pie. The pie was good and was not overly sweet. The predominant flavor was banana and not sugar... a big thumbs up from me. We are going to have to try different pie types from Mission Pie.

Overall, dinner was fantastic. It was the strangest assortment of dishes I've had in a long time, maybe ever. Oysters, champagne, hot dogs, Chinese vegetables and a banana cream pie. Can anyone else top this meal in terms of goodness and quirkiness?

SNDsters: Garry, Karen, Eva, Yvonne, Keith, Jane, Mark, Hungry Bear, Chuck

This past weekend my buddy, Chad, drove up from LA with his wife, Kristie, and their two young kids, Chelsea and Brooke, ages 2 years and 4 months, respectively. Chad was coming up for our annual Penn State Football weekend in San Francisco. It's just a get together with my two West Coast Penn State friends, Chad and Chuck, to hang out and watch a PSU game. I think we've held this event since 1998. Unfortunately, Chuck from Seattle couldn't make it this time.

After a weekend filled with Korean BBQ, Hawaiian, Chinese and Burmese food, I was wondering what to make for Sunday night dinner. Thankfully, Jane texted me Sunday morning stating that dinner was at her place. Her brother, Garry, was planning on making a slow-roasted pork shoulder and his wife, Karen, was making a strawberry cream cake. We were definitely looking forward to dinner.

Chad and I went on a 50 mile bike ride to Tiburon and afterwards, we were famished. I told Chad that we should snack on something before heading over for dinner, otherwise, everyone would think we were complete pigs if we devoured all the food ourselves. My reputation as a glutton has already been established, but I wanted to protect Chad's image.

Dinner started with a pasta dish that Garry threw together with hot Italian sausages, mushrooms, peas, onions and tomato sauce. As a side dish, we sautéed some Kale with garlic, olive oil, sea salt and a touch of butter. To make the kale more tender, we blanched it first. The pasta was excellent with spicy sausage and sweet peas. The kale was tender and tasty.

Next up was Karen's strawberry cream cake. Karen is a trained pastry chef, so we are always looking forward to eating her beautiful desserts. This time, she was trying out a strawberry cream cake recipe from America's Test Kitchen. The recipe is from the current season of America's Test Kitchen TV show, and it's free if you register for the site. The cake is like strawberry shortcake and consists of white cake, strawberry filling, whipped cream with cream cheese and fresh strawberries. The cake was amazing! It was surprisingly light and not too sweet.

While the strawberry cream cake was great, it was only a palate cleanser for the slow-roasted pork shoulder. Actually, Garry and Karen were tied up and couldn't get the pork in the oven early enough. Since it takes a few hours to roast, the pork wasn't ready until after dessert. And none of us were leaving without trying the pork!

Garry based the pork roast off of this slow-roasted pork shoulder with melted apples recipe. He omitted the apples and onions and cut the cooking time. Without the apples and onions, there was less braising and more roasting. Garry thought the pork shoulder was too dry, but everyone at dinner thoroughly enjoyed it. The pork had a crispy, caramelized crust and the meat was full of flavor. The two big carnivores of the group, Jane and I, couldn't stop grabbing more pieces of pork shoulder. I definitely want to make this dish again with the melted apples.

Dinner was very fun and scrumptious. It was also great sharing Sunday night dinner with Chad and his family. As we were all leaving with full bellies, two year old, Chelsea, yelled, "tanks for da cake!" 

SNDsters: Chad, Kristie, Chelsea, Brooke, Garry, Karen, Mark, Jane, Hungry Bear, Chuck

For the last few months, I've had a major craving for bolognese sauce. It all started during a trip to Geneva this past June. Hungry Bear had a conference in Geneva and I tagged along to keep her company. One evening, we walked down the street from our hotel, which was near the Pal-Expo, looking for a place to eat. We stumbled upon a nondescript Italian place that was part of small hotel. Since we were very hungry, we decided to give it a try.

Hungry Bear ordered spaghetti bolognese and I ordered penne puttanesca. I wasn't expecting much from the meal since it was a random hotel restaurant. My puttanesca was good, but Hungry Bear's bolognese was excellent. I should have known better, because I'm not a puttanesca type of person. I have a low tart/sour tolerance, so sauces with olives and capers aren't my cup of tea. Lucky for me, Hungry Bear likes dishes with tartness and we switched plates half way though dinner.

The bolognese sauce was thick and meaty without much tomato tanginess. It was fantastic! Since this meal, I've been obsessed with bolognese sauce. A couple of weeks ago, Hungry Bear made spaghetti bolognese to satisfy my craving for this meat sauce. She made it based on a recipe by Michael Chiarello -- veal, pork and porcini bolognese. It was absolutely delicious! She doubled the recipe and we had three meals of it. But, I was sad the bolognese didn't last longer.

After looking at the pictures above, my craving for the sauce has been re-ignited. I think I'll try a more classic recipe next time, perhaps this ragu bolognese recipe from Mario Batali. If you are looking for a leaner sauce, check out Chiarello's chicken bolognese recipe.

I love this simple meat sauce, and even more so, I enjoy saying... boh-loh-NYEH-zeh!

I love cabbage! Stuffed cabbage, cole slaw, corned beef and cabbage, kimchi, cabbage soup... I love all things made with cabbage. If I'm at a restaurant and I see a dish made with cabbage on the menu, it's usually the one I order. I'm not sure how or when my admiration of cabbage developed, but it runs strong and deep.

Several years ago, I was enjoying some Thai larb and it suddenly occurred to me that I wanted to create a dish with similar flavors. But, I wanted to add a vegetable to balance it out and also make it healthier. Naturally, I immediately thought of using cabbage.

So I turned it into a stir fry dish served on rice. I wanted something simple, healthy and easy to prepare. The outcome was stir fried cabbage, ground beef and mushrooms. The flavors that I borrowed from Thai larb are the saltiness from the fish sauce and the tanginess from the lime.