This morning, I received a message from my friend Tim. He accused me of being a slacker because I haven't updated my blog in a while. I can't even argue with that. He's right, I AM a slacker. I have about 6 recipes that I need to blog about, but i just can't get motivated to write. So when Tim offered to make Chicken Parm AND to blog about it how could I pass it up?
Soooo this post is brought to you by my friend Tim - thank you, tim for not being afraid to call me out ;p
First of all, I wanted to thank Angela for starting this blog. I do the cooking in my home (hey, it gets me out of cleaning) and I am starting to get tired of the same old dishes. Coming up with new ideas isn't really all that easy, especially when you have picky eaters in your home. Thanks to this blog, I have already added a few new items to my repertoire.
So before we did the grocery shopping today, I checked in to see what recipes Angela has tried lately. And that is when I found out I was on my own. Since Angela is on hiatus, it was up to me to find something new. I came across the Chicken Parmigiana, and decided that this was something plain enough for the kids, but still a little different than the norm. Plus, I have always wanted to venture out from Ragu and make my own spaghetti sauce. I love it when a plan comes together.
First, on to the nuts and bolts. This was an easy recipe that did not require many ingredients. Half of the items I already had (flour, sugar, salt pepper, olive oil, butter, onion, and parsley). The other items cost $18.25, not including the new $16 tenderizer (my other one broke, don’t ask). This would easily feed 5 people, so if you round up to $25, it is about $5 per person. Actually, we will have plenty of spaghetti and sauce left over after the chicken is gone so in the end, we will get about 8 to 10 meals out of this (assuming the kids don’t revolt from too many leftovers).
Now, I know what you are thinking (assuming that you are still reading). Yes, I did have parsley and onion already. The reason is that I always buy frozen chopped onions and peppers in the frozen food section and keep them in the freezer for just such an occasion. I’m all about easy and cutting onions is just too time consuming. At the end of the day, nobody will know that you used frozen onions (or peppers). As for the parsley, I had some leftover from the meatloaf recipe I tried recently. Somebody once told me that you can freeze leftover cilantro for future use (true story). So, I figured the same would hold true for parsley. It worked quite well and I think it was easier to chop up when it was frozen.
The only other areas where I may have veered off the path a bit is with the wine and cheese. I’m not much of a wine drinker and I didn’t want half a bottle of leftover wine. So after a quick call to my mother, I settled in on cooking wine. Ree stresses over and over to get “the good stuff” for the cheese. But since I like easy, I got grated parmesean. I did get the Buitoni brand, but I’m not sure if that counts as “good stuff.”
One thing I learned while trying these new recipes recently is that it is very important to read the whole recipe first. I also think it helps to measure and prepare all of your ingredients ahead of time. So, I took my time doing this and I think it really created a very stress free preparation. I even sat down a couple of times while cooking! It could just be that this was an easy recipe, but I cannot stress how important it is to do this.
Everything went well and it came out very good. Even the kids liked it! My wife Alethea told me she has never even had this dish before, which I didn’t even think that was possible. This definitely is going in the rotation. And now I have a sauce that I can make to impress my friends when I get tired of Ragu.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Portobello-Prosciutto Burgers - Eh.
I have been soooooo dreading writing this blog post and that's probably why it's taken me two weeks to do it! This is the first recipe that I felt was just so-so. Don't get me wrong, it was GOOD but it wasn't mind-blowing good... and i really wanted it to be mind-blowing good. I mean c'mon what's better than prosciutto? In my opinion, nothing.
On to the recipe... PW calls for TWO portobello mushrooms per sandwich. If you've never seen a portobello, they are usually the size of your head. Well maybe not the size of YOUR head, but I have a pretty small head. If they aren't the size of your freakishly small head, then they are at least the size of your hand. Now take your hands and put them on top of each other, now put them inside of a bun. Do you really want to eat a sandwich with that much mushroom on it? No, you really don't. I'm a big fan of mushrooms and this was even too much mushroom for me. I would recommend cutting it down to one shroom per sandwich. You'll be glad you did.
PW recommends marinating the mushrooms in red wine. But it's totally optional. I tried it because she's usually always right (except when she tells you to put Apple Cider in Chicken and Dumplings... then she's wrong. VERY, very wrong). Okay, let's try this at home. If you make the recipe according to her specifications it calls for 8 portobello mushrooms. And she says to marinate these 8 small-head-sized mushrooms in 1 cup of red wine. Seriously try it. Okay, did you? good. You probably noticed that 1 cup of red wine is not enough to marinate 8 freakishly large mushrooms in. First of all, 8 of these won't fit in a normal sized bowl. Even if they did fit in a normal sized bowl when you pour in 1 cup of wine the only ones that are getting marinated are the ones at the very bottom of the bowl. So, it really doesn't work. Personally I would lay them out in a pan and drizzle them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Then i would flip them over and do it on the other side too. Let them sit like that for 30 minutes to one hour and I have a feeling it will be a trillion times better than the one cup of red wine.
You need to grill the mushrooms either on an outside grill or on one of those grill pans that you put on the stove. It was cold so I didn't want to go outside and grill (read: I have no idea how to light the thing) and I don't have one of those fancy grill pans.
Mental note: buy a fancy grill pan.
So I stuck them on a panini maker. I thought my reasoning was good.... it LOOKS like a grill and it gets hot like a grill so it must work like a grill. Wrong. It took FOREVER to cook those suckers.
So when they were finally done, I followed the rest of the recipe as it was written. Please, please, please don't skimp on the mayo/basil dressing that's in this recipe. That really did make the whole sandwich. Halfway through eating it, I pulled off one of the mushrooms because like i said before it was too much.
Next time I make these (if there is a next time) I will definitely try marinating them with the olive oil/balsamic combo. I don't even like balsamic vinegar, but I have a feeling it will be MUCH better than the red wine.
Stay warm and happy cooking :)
On to the recipe... PW calls for TWO portobello mushrooms per sandwich. If you've never seen a portobello, they are usually the size of your head. Well maybe not the size of YOUR head, but I have a pretty small head. If they aren't the size of your freakishly small head, then they are at least the size of your hand. Now take your hands and put them on top of each other, now put them inside of a bun. Do you really want to eat a sandwich with that much mushroom on it? No, you really don't. I'm a big fan of mushrooms and this was even too much mushroom for me. I would recommend cutting it down to one shroom per sandwich. You'll be glad you did.
PW recommends marinating the mushrooms in red wine. But it's totally optional. I tried it because she's usually always right (except when she tells you to put Apple Cider in Chicken and Dumplings... then she's wrong. VERY, very wrong). Okay, let's try this at home. If you make the recipe according to her specifications it calls for 8 portobello mushrooms. And she says to marinate these 8 small-head-sized mushrooms in 1 cup of red wine. Seriously try it. Okay, did you? good. You probably noticed that 1 cup of red wine is not enough to marinate 8 freakishly large mushrooms in. First of all, 8 of these won't fit in a normal sized bowl. Even if they did fit in a normal sized bowl when you pour in 1 cup of wine the only ones that are getting marinated are the ones at the very bottom of the bowl. So, it really doesn't work. Personally I would lay them out in a pan and drizzle them with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Then i would flip them over and do it on the other side too. Let them sit like that for 30 minutes to one hour and I have a feeling it will be a trillion times better than the one cup of red wine.
You need to grill the mushrooms either on an outside grill or on one of those grill pans that you put on the stove. It was cold so I didn't want to go outside and grill (read: I have no idea how to light the thing) and I don't have one of those fancy grill pans.
Mental note: buy a fancy grill pan.
So I stuck them on a panini maker. I thought my reasoning was good.... it LOOKS like a grill and it gets hot like a grill so it must work like a grill. Wrong. It took FOREVER to cook those suckers.
So when they were finally done, I followed the rest of the recipe as it was written. Please, please, please don't skimp on the mayo/basil dressing that's in this recipe. That really did make the whole sandwich. Halfway through eating it, I pulled off one of the mushrooms because like i said before it was too much.
Next time I make these (if there is a next time) I will definitely try marinating them with the olive oil/balsamic combo. I don't even like balsamic vinegar, but I have a feeling it will be MUCH better than the red wine.
Stay warm and happy cooking :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)