On a cold day, nothing beats a warm chocolate pudding cake for dessert. This is our "go to" dessert during snowboarding trips. It's easy to make and doesn't require a mixer, which may not be available in a rental house kitchen. After a long, chilly day outside, this old-fashioned dessert really hits the spot!

I saw this recipe on a Martha Stewart show many, many moons ago. Please don't ask me why I was watching it. I'm not a fan of Martha, and I never intentionally watch her show, but the pudding cake caught my eye while channel surfing. Well, anyone can get my attention if these words are spoken... warm, chocolate, pudding, cake.

This past week, Hungry Bear and I hosted Sunday night dinner. I love pulled pork, but I don't like most BBQ sauces. They are usually too sweet and tangy for my palate. Instead, I decided to make pulled pork with all of my favorite Vietnamese flavors. The entire menu was...

• Curry Cauliflower Soup with Honey
• Vietnamese Pulled Pork Sandwiches
• Fumi Salad (Asian Cole Slaw)
• Pumpkin Loaf

The Vietnamese pulled pork was fantastic with great flavors from the caramel sauce, lemongrass and chili peppers. Although I was very pleased with the results, I want to make it one more time and tweak the recipe a little bit before I share it with you.

However, I will share our curry cauliflower soup recipe. We first had this soup last year at Chapeau!, which is our favorite neighborhood French restaurant. It was served as an amuse-bouche. We loved it so much that we had to try to replicate the recipe.

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.