My sweet husband grew up in Wisconsin and, in our four and a half years of smooching and hanging out, he’s brought me on board the Green Bay Packers train - almost. I’ll root for them in any game unless they’re playing the Patriots, in which case this born and bred New England girl gets wicked Masshole awn yah.

The Pack is playing the Minnesota Vikings tonight (hey K!) so I figured today would be as good as any to share a recent casserole concoction I whipped up in honor of J’s team. Loosely inspired by this pasta bake, this green and gold casserole is made with - what else? - Wisconsin cheddar.

I mean, come on. Never give a sorority girl a theme if you don’t want her to run with it.

Hey, food processor? Bless you. The ingredients of this masterpiece are:

1/2 box (7 ish ounces) whole wheat farfalle (or your preferred pasta but bow ties are sexy let's be honest)
3 leeks (light green and white parts only, sliced in half moons)
1 bunch of broccoli, cut into florets (you could certainly use frozen florets FYI)
1 yellow squash, diced
3/4 lb cheese, a mix of white and yellow Wisconsin cheddar, shredded
12 ounces low fat milk
one tablespoon or so of flour
one tablespoon Dijon mustard
cayenne pepper (optional)
salt and pepper

There are two main cooking components - boiling the pasta and cooking the veggies. I did all of this in one pot, but you could separate into two if you want to save time and don’t care about that one additional pot to wash. I hate dishes so tacked 20 minutes onto overall prep time so I could do the boiling stage first. You do you.

Ok so you start with heavily salted water. I made this once without salting the water and the end result was Blandy McFlavorless. Get your Giada on and SALT. THE. GD. WATER. Aggressively. Then, bring the extremely salty water to a boil, cook your pasta until it has just a little bite left, and then add in the broccoli for maximum two minutes to the boiling water. Drain and set aside.

In the same pan (see above note if you want to use two), heat oil or butter and add the leeks. Season with salt and pepper as they start to cook. Once they start to soften, add in the flour and toss around to coat the leeks.

Slowly pour in the milk and stir. Add the Dijon mustard at this stage so it dissolves into the milk. Once the milk is incorporated, add in the cheese a bit at a time, ensuring it melts and is well incorporated into the sauce. Then, season again with salt and pepper and a shake or two of cayenne if you opt for it. I love either nutmeg or cayenne in cheese sauces, but again, you do you - it's totally option. The mustard, by the way, is not optional. Add it. It’s magical.

Add in the squash. Yes, you add it in raw. It’s sweet and tender enough to cook fully just from baking with everything else. Also add in the pasta and broccoli. Stir until everything is coated.

Turn everything into a casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes.

So pretty, isn't it? For the meat, I went Wisconsin-inspired, too. I took six bratwursts out of their casing and reshaped them into patties. Six brats turned into five patties.

I know, that's three patties. I promise you I can count. I cooked them in batches in a nonstick skillet - do not touch them! let that gorgeous brown crust appear! it appears when you do not touch them!

Oh and yes, the casserole comes out of the oven right around the time that the patties are done.

The cheese sauce is still bubbling. The broccoli smells rich and the squash smells sweet and a few farfalle edges have browned and crisped up in the oven and you do not go near the silverware drawer because you know you'll burn your mouth if you dig in at this moment.

After it cooled for five excruciatingly long minutes, I served everything up with a side of homemade horseradish pickles.

The patties were the biggest no brainer - Schaller and Weber in our neighborhood is an institution of German meats and everything they make is legendary. I could certainly have left them in their cased state but was really feeling like burgers that night. So, here's proof you can do it, if nothing else.

The casserole itself? Holy hell. The Packers won both times I've made this so that's really all that matters, right? If you like broccoli and cheddar together, this is for you. The sauce is cheesy and creamy but there are still big vegetable jewels amidst the carbs and dairy. The leeks add that oniony touch without being too strong and they kind of melt into the background, texture-wise. The bitterness of the broccoli and the sweet fresh bite of the squash and the rich cheddar is simply a match made in heaven.

Also a match made in heaven? My imaginary dinner party where I serve this masterpiece to Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady and J. Three sexy football-lovin' men around my dinner table. Ahhh. A girl can dream, can't she?

French Onion Soup Pork Chops

Confession time: I loathe French onion soup.

I cannot freaking stand it. It is just wholly unappetizing to me which is strange when you consider all of the things that go into the dish. I love onions. I love soup. I love melted cheese and croutons/bread in soup. I love all beef-based products. But somehow, when you combine all of these in one bowl, my stomach turns.

My husband, however, loves the stuff so when I saw the flavors translated to pork chops, I went for it.

I started with a massive batch of caramelized onions in the slow cooker. Yes, you can make them in the slow cooker and yes it's easy and amazing and delicious and yes it's possibly changed my onion-loving life and your house smells rad when you come home from work the night you try them. I sliced up three or four large Vidalia onions (I like the added sweetness), tossed them with a little olive oil, and butter (about two pats, chopped small), and salt, then set them on low for 10 hours.

Once done, I covered the bottom of a casserole dish with a ton of the sweet, melty onions. Then, you mix the following in a bowl:

- one packet of Lipton onion soup mix
- 1/2 cup beef stock (unsalted preferably)

It's an extremely complicated recipe, I tell you. Once mixed, nestle some pork chops (I did three so I had one leftover for lunch) on top of the onions, then pour the sauce over the chops.

Pop them in the oven at around 350/375 degrees until the pork is cooked through.

You instantly get that rich aroma from the beef stock plus the real fresh caramlized onions and the fake re-hydrated onion soup mix flavors. I served them with some onions that cooked with them and a fresh Brussels sprouts + craisin slaw.

These are SO FREAKING GOOD. The one main complaint? These veer into Too Salty territory, but, duh, I poured a packet of Lipton soup powder all over them. Those packets are salt, salt, sodium, salt, and deliciousness. So, pour yourself an extra glass of water at dinner to flush some of it out and you'll live, I promise.

I could also see these flavors working well with chicken if you swapped chicken stock for beef stock. Onion flavors are ones I will always gravitate toward, even if it comes from a dehydrated packet. Luckily for my salt-loving taste buds, Lipton sells two packs at a time, so I have another oniony creation coming your way soon!

Oh, and what do you do with the rest of the caramelized onions in your slow cooker? If you're an onion freak like me, put 'em in the fridge and use them up. Or, you can portion some out into those sandwich-sized Ziploc bags and freeze them. You'll have them around for future soups, pizzas, or pork chop recipes.

Turkey Zucchini Burgers + Asparagus Lentil Salad

You guys - I finally found a recipe in Jerusalem that was suitable for a weeknight! Desperate to extend summer produce as far into autumn as possible, I bring to you turkey zucchini burgers.

And yes, I'm trying to make rosé happen this fall, too. I make no apologies.

You start off with the following:

2 medium zucchini
3 scallions, sliced (white, light, and most of dark parts)
1 egg
1 lb ground turkey (I go with 93%/7%)
salt & pepper
1/2 teaspoon za'atar
1 tsp sweet paprika
shake of cayenne

I mixed all of the ingredients together and, per the cookbook's instructions, made fairly small patties (about 9 or 10 total).

I seared all the patties a few minutes on each side in a cast iron pan and then transferred them all to a large baking dish. Once all the patties were seared, I put them into a 350 degree oven to finish cooking all the way through.

While they baked, I worked on the salad, inspired mainly by this one from Oh She Glows. It contained:

1 cup lentils
1 bunch asparagus, chopped in 3rds after removing the woody ends
one cubed Yukon gold potato (about the size of the palm of my hand)

I cooked the asparagus and potato in oil while I cooked the lentils. I mixed them all together once the potatoes were very softened and dressed the whole thing with a mustardy dressing (juice of ½ lemon, a few shakes of mustard seeds, a hefty squeeze of spicy brown mustard, a little olive oil, a splash of apple cider vinegar; as always, a very exact science).

Since the original lentil salad called for a tahini-based dressing, I had the flavor in my mind and drizzled a little bit over the patties.

These are SO light. The sweet fresh flavor and texture of the zucchini came through very strongly. Plus, the bold green stripes are pretty.

The lightness of the burger worked with the hearty salad. I drastically cut down on the amount of potato from the original recipe and I'm glad I did. The potato was just an ingredient instead of the main focus and the asparagus and lentils were able to shine.

Because I made small patties, there were a lot left over. The next day, I brought three of them to work in a mostly-empty box of arugula. I squeezed half a lemon over the patties and greens and had the perfect leftover lunch.

I highly recommend adding these to your rotation. They're pretty, they're inexpensive, and they're a one-two protein-veggie punch. Delicious!

Romesco Pork Chops & Mediterranean Salad

In a scheduling decision that is a first for The Chardonnay Kitchen, I’m posting two recipes back to back that were actual dinners prepared back to back. While digesting our awesomely complex and delicious seafood dinner, J remarked about the romesco, “This would be great on pork.” Lo and behold, I had Skinnytaste’s Mediterranean pork chops on the agenda for the next day. In that recipe, she just advises you season the pork with whatever you want, but top them with a fresh and flavorful Greek-inspired salad. Because of J’s brilliant comment, I upped the ante and made the pork a main attraction as well.

Gina's recipe has you roast the vegetables in the salad in the oven. Blessed with End Of Summer Produce, I kept the oven entirely off and served all of the vegetables raw. I cut the zucchini and yellow squash into long thin strips and then halved the strips. I cut the grape tomato in quarters lengthwise. Then I tossed them with the crumbled feta, pitted kalamata olives, dried oregano, white pepper, and some white balsamic vinegar (there was enough residual olive oil from the kalamatas).

All in the salad was about 4 servings. I had one and J had two helpings of the salad - so fresh and crunchy and sweet! - and I took the fourth serving to work the next day for lunch.

Once the salad was finished, I cooked four thin boneless pork chops in vegetable oil on the stove, seasoned liberally with salt and pepper. I let them rest for a minute or two on paper towels to blot off excess oil and then topped each chop with a teaspoon of the romesco.

Eating the rainbow - orange romesco, yellow + green + red + purple salad.

The sweet crunch of the salad paired beautifully with the smoky, nutty romesco. Truly, I think I would have enjoyed this salad on top of plain pork chops, but the romesco - with it's even stronger second-day flavor intensity - was outrageous on the thin chops. This was a quick weeknight meal that didn't heat up the whole house with the oven on. You now have two different ideas on how to use romesco - I'm telling you, you'll love it and you will be glad if you try it!

Prosciutto-Wrapped Shrimp with Romesco

While menu planning recently, J asked for lots of seafood - specifically shrimp. To me, shrimp is like chicken - it’s a very neutral canvas for a whole lotta flavor. I referred to my Future Recipes Pinterest board and merged two different ideas. Williams-Sonoma’s blog, Taste, inspired me to make a romesco sauce and grill them. Foodie Crush inspired me to wrap the shrimp in prosciutto and grill romaine lettuce, as well.

I was mostly excited to try the romesco sauce. Jarred piquillo (or roasted red) peppers, toasted almonds, and smoked paprika? Sounds like flavors I adore, but would I like the texture? I blended the following ingredients together in my baby food processor:

1 jar (10-11 ounces) piquillo peppers, drained
1/2 cup toasted almonds
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic (I applied Garlic Math and ended up using 6 - 7)
2 tsp. smoked paprika
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

I could (and did!) eat this by the spoonful, it’s that good. It’s a gorgeous bright orange color and it is smoky and sweet with a little bit of crunchy texture from the nuts.

The sauce completed, I moved on to the shrimp. I bought a pack of prosciutto and sliced each of the pieces in half. Then, I wrapped each shrimp with the prosciutto. I also apparently kept Esther Williams in mind while arranging them on the plate.

I skewered three shrimp at a time onto pre-soaked wooden skewers and tossed them on the grill pan.

I turned them after 3 – 4 minutes and continued to flip them until the shrimp were fully opaque.

Once the shrimp were done, I drizzled romaine halves with olive oil and put them face down on the pan. I did these one at a time because our pan isn’t that big.

I topped the shrimp and the romaine with the romesco and included a radish + pea side salad – so much crunchiness on this plate!

Grilling romaine is the best, isn’t it? I love those stripey char marks and the slightly wilted warm pieces in the same bite as the crispy fresh non-grilled parts. I’m glad I kept the sides so fresh and neutral flavor-wise because this shrimp was to die for.

The prosciutto became crispy around the super tender shrimp and brought the perfect amount of saltiness. If you like bacon-wrapped scallops at weddings, prosciutto-wrapped shrimp needs to get onto your menu.

My biggest takeaway from this delicious meal is that romesco is my new favorite condiment, hands down. I could do one with green peppers and cumin, with marinated onions and smoked salt, or really just stick with this original piquillo and paprika perfection. It was the smokiness of the paprika that got me hook, line, and sinker. It is absolutely aggressive in it’s deliciousness. I knew it would be incredible paired with other proteins and, if you come back and read tomorrow’s post, I will show that attempt!