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Bacon. I’m pretty sure I could write a post that is just that word and people would be interested in it. Cured pork belly is just one of those magical foods that people love. It can be used so many different ways and it’s salty savory flavor gives it a real punch in any recipe. I like bacon enough that I’ve even made a batch on my own!

Taking this all into consideration, when I heard that my local Whole Foods Market was holding a “Bacon Smackdown” I couldnt resist entering. The premise is simple, make up a recipe that features bacon. With that strict criteria in mind, I came up with this simple and delicious recipe as my entry.

For awhile I racked my brain over how grand or challenging my recipe should be. Ultimately I decided that it wasn’t complexity or the number of ingredients that make something delicious but rather the utilization of the freshest and most in season ingredients you can get your hands on. Here in Massachusetts the freshest thing you can get your hands on right now would have to be tomatoes. So with bacon and tomatoes as my core ingredients I just built upon the idea till I came up with BAT’s with blue cheese, or Bacon Avocado Tomato Canapes with Blue Cheese. These little guys are perfect to whip up in a big batch and have as an appetizer or snack during your last few summer barbecues.

Eat this.

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I love going out for breakfast on the weekends. The meal can be drawn out for as long as you want over endless refills of coffee from a heavy ceramic mug. You don’t have to worry about where you need to be, you can just enjoy the meal and the company you’re sharing it with. Weekend breakfast’s are the closest to complete dining tranquility I get. Mind you this all relies on going to a breakfast joint that will provide you with a meal that you can thoroughly enjoy.

Here in Somerville Massachusetts we are stuffed to the gills with restaurants happy to invite you in on the weekend for their brunch menu. This makes for an almost overwhelming experience when trying to decide where to go on any given weekend. I’ve made a point to try as many as I can, and to be honest for the most part I’ve been very pleased with what Somerville has to offer. The only time I didn’t enjoy my meal was at a place that is now gone, for any locals reading it involved disco music, I wasn’t pleased, we’ll leave it at that.

This past weekend Sarah and I decided to check out the newish Peruvian place in town called Mixtura. I’m a big fan of the folks involved with this restaurant as they are also the owners of Machu Picchu Charcoal Chicken which happens to be one of my all time favorite hole in the wall places in all of Somerville. So taking the past successes into consideration I was quite excited to finally get a chance to check this place out.

The tiny Mixtura storefront.

Upon walking in, Mixtura has the warm welcoming breakfast joint feel that a lot of bigger restaurants just don’t have. This place is definitely on the smaller side with about 8 tables and a counter/bar area. Even though the place is small we were able to get seated right away and were greeted by a friendly waitress who gave us our menus. Mixtura’s menu was exactly what I was hoping/thinking it would be. Being a Peruvian/Latin inspired restaurant means there are all kinds of dishes featuring avocado, quinoa stews, and queso fresco among other regionally specific treats. This is in addition to an impressive selection of  french toasts, pancakes, and papusuas. (more…)

Over what has almost been 2 years now I have more or less uprooted my life and committed myself to getting healthy and in shape. This meant giving up a lot of the time I used to spend doing things I liked in favor of using that time to go for runs or cook meals. For those of you that have been around for awhile you may remember that this very site used to be all about geeky things like comic books and video games. Lately I have really gotten a handle on this new lifestyle of mine; I can cook up healthy meals nice and fast, my work outs are efficient, and I finally have time to get back to some of the things that represent the “old me”. Those things happen to be board games, video games, and comic books. Like it or not I’m a geek and ultimately this site will always be run by a geek. So yeah there will be recipes and health tips up here, but there will also be orcs, super heroes, and all other kinds of things. It feels great to get back to my roots, but this time in a totally different physical and mental mindset. Enough of that stuff though, lets talk about my new favorite board game Small World.

You don’t know what these are yet, but you want them all!

In my mind, there are few things better to do on a Saturday night than get a bunch of friends together and play a few rounds of an awesome board game over some snacks and a few drinks. The real catch to this perfect scenario is that you need to be mindful of a few things. First you need to make sure you have enough friends that are even interested in coming over to play board games, second it has to be a game either everyone has played before therefor knowing the rules or it has to be a game that can be taught/learned quickly. (more…)

Anyone that regularly keeps up with the site may have noticed I more or less vanished for the past month with no real explanation or heads up. A little over a month ago my grandfather (Papa) passed away. I haven’t really been in the mood to cook or write ever since.

But running this site is one of the more rewarding aspects of my life, so I’m going to get back on the horse.

If anything I’ve just been thinking a lot lately.

Losing someone so close and important to you makes you have to put everything into perspective and re-evaluate what is really important to you.

My grandmother told me a story about my grandpa last month that really stuck with me. She told me when Papa was younger he drove a race car in some amateur league. When he first got his car he had to decide on a color and a number for it. Someone involved in the league told him “Just make sure not to pick green as your color or 13 as your number because they’re the most unlucky things you can have as a race car driver”. Papa decided his car would be green and the number 13 right then and there.

It’s the people that challenge convention that leave a mark on this world.

I aspire to be someone that leaves a mark.

I’m sure you’ve notice the site is stripped down a ton. I’ve grown sick of all the bells and whistles, I’m going to let the content speak for itself. I’m also not going to pigeon hole myself into a certain niche kind of site. Expect more of the same, but a lot of other stuff too.

The folks at CookingSchools pointed me to this infographic about the benefits of Sriracha hot sauce. How could I pass up an opportunity to  post a giant image about my favorite hot sauce on my site? For those of you that have been reading Battlemouth for awhile you may remember I made my very own batch of this wonderful sauce in a two part series here and here.

Next time I’m feeling down I’ll be sure to whip up a batch of Sriracha chicken soup!

Click here to check it out in it’s full giant info-graphic glory.