Grilled sausage and fig salads with roasted baby purple potatoes

So, I made sausage the other day.

My Grandpa was a butcher, so if there's a sausage-making gene somewhere, I figure my chances of inheriting it are at least 1 in 4. These odds were good enough for me to spend a glorious summer Saturday rinsing hog guts and grinding fatback (if you don't know what that is, you don't want to) in my little kitchen. I settled on making half traditional Cajun andouille and half hot Italian.

Whole-wheat cherry scones

I don't have a whole lot of experience with baking. I live in one of those households where if I bake it, I'll probably be the only one eating it, and the easiest way to not eat a whole pan of brownies is to not make it in the first place.

However, I do like whipping up a batch of baked goods on Sunday for easy workday breakfasts. The easiest trick to pull out is my favorite muffin recipe, but even though I've experimented with dozens of different ingredients, sometimes you just get sick of muffins.

Tilapia with black olive and mint tapenade over farfalle

On our way to Vegas the other month, I popped into the news stand at DFW to pick up my usual airplane entertainment: Food and Wine, Bon Appetit, Saveur, Gourmet (no more, sob!), Cooking Light, basically every cooking magazine available. For some reason, pickings were really slim - just a Food and Wine and something called The Best of Fine Cooking: Grilling. I thought, I like grilling, so even though I don't know you, New Food Magazine Friend, I shall invite you to Vegas with me. It wasn't until the cashier was ringing me up that we noticed it was $9.99. "Wow, expensive magazine," she said. No shit, madam.

Caldo verde

You may wonder why I'm posting a soup recipe in July during a heat-wave. Well, if your workplace is anything like mine, it's friggin' freezing within the building year round, so soups and stews are perfectly consumable for lunch.

Apricot-glazed pork loin with cilantro and garlic with rice pilaf and green salads

I first tried this recipe about a month ago when we had a couple of friends round for dinner. There were five of us, and my little pork loins came in packs of two. One package wouldn't be enough, but two seemed like overkill at almost a whole loin per person. But I figured, whatever, we'll just have plenty of leftovers. Yeah... we didn't.