Thursday's Dinner

I thought I would use up the food I had on hand.  So I made these "chicken nuggets."

Chunks of chicken breasts were dredged in flour, then coated with eggs.

 Next they were dragged through toasted Panko crumbs which were tossed with grated Romano cheese, salt, and a tablespoon of olive oil.

The nuggets were perched on a rack to dry.

Then they baked in a 450 degree oven for 12 minutes, turning once.

Then served with honey mustard.  Cute.

A Chicken In Every Pot

After a very stressful week we were happy to celebrate St. Patrick's Day at T and J's with six friends.

First we had Manhattans along with smoked salmon.

Then, of course, there was corned beef and cabbage and Irish soda bread--all washed down with a wee bit of Guiness stout and Harp lager or a mixture thereof.

All of this was followed by a Bailey's Irish Cream Cheese Cake and Irish Coffee

A good time was had by all. So you can imagine why, while anticipating another stressful week ahead,it was the comfort and simplicity of chicken that I wanted for dinner on Sunday. I decided on a dish from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food, Braised Chicken with Red Onions and Carrots. I tried to link to Martha's recipe, but it was not yet available.  This link, although not credited to her, is her recipe. This one is my adaptation.

Braised Chicken With Red Onions and Carrots
Adapted by a Recipe by Martha Stewart from Everyday Food
Serves 4

1 tablespoon olive oil
1whole chicken, 3 1/2- to 4 pounds, cut into eight pieces and patted dry
Salt and pepper
1 large red onion, cut into 8 wedges, root end left intact
1 pound carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
3/4 cup dry white wine
1 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large Dutch oven heat olive oil over medium-high heat.  Season chicken with salt and pepper and add to pot, skin side down.  Cook until skin is browned, about 8 minutes. Turn and cook another 5 minutes. Transfer chicken to plate and set aside.

Add onion and carrots to pot, season with salt and pepper and cook until onion and carrots are slightly golden, about 5 minutes.  Add wine, scraping up browned bits. Return chicken to pot, skin side up, and add 1 cup water. Bring to boil, cover and transfer to oven.  Cook until chicken is cooked through, about 35 minutes.

Radishes with sweet butter and sea salt before dinner

I like to cut my chicken into 8 pieces, but because this chicken was just over 3 pounds, I left the legs and thighs attached. I leave a little bit of breast meat attached to each wing, and cut each breast half in two. 

 The chicken has been sauteed and vegetables added.  It is now ready for the oven.  Of course, you may finish cooking this on top of the stove. But once in the oven, it gave me time to clean the cooktop, thus making after-dinner clean up a breeze.

As I said the chicken was small, so it really would not have served four for dinner, and there was too much water added. If I make this dish again, I would remove the cooked chicken pieces and reduce the liquid to a thicker sauce or use less liquid.  Any way, it was a tasty dish.


Have a good week.

 

Eggs Again--Frittata

When on Friday night I found myself with two beautiful red peppers and a half a carton of eggs, the eggs became the centerpiece of our dinner yet again. This time it was a frittata.

The versatile frittata is simply an open-faced Italian omelet. The Italian frittata,which is flat and round, is cooked over low heat until it is firm and set. It is never runny, and it is cooked on both sides. Its fillings are limited only by your imagination.

In a large non-stick skillet, coated with olive oil, I sauteed the sliced peppers and an onion until soft.  Then I seasoned them with salt and pepper.

 I beat 5 large eggs with salt, pepper and a large handful of grated Pecorino cheese.

I poured the egg mixture over the vegetables and turned the heat to low. Without stirring, I let the eggs cook over low heat until only the top was runny.  Now the fun part--remember, the frittata is cooked on both sides. Some people flip the frittata with a flourish to finish the cooking.  I was never that brave.
I would always turn it over on a dish, then slide the frittata back into the pan. Marcella suggests running the pan under the broiler for 20 seconds without browning the frittata.  But the easiest for me now is to allow the frittata to finish cooking in a 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes or until set.

This is nice with a green salad and a crisp white wine.

You might enjoy seeing these variations by Georgia and Miryam.

Dinner Tonight--Egg Crepes

Are you tired of cooking the same old thing? Are you looking for something different? Just a few simple ingredients can create a delicious meal, and these crepe-like eggs rolled around a cheesy filling make a perfect Lenten supper. This dish is very low in carbohydrates and gluten free. Next time you are wondering what to cook, why not give this dish a try?

Baked Egg Crepes
Inspired by a recipe by Giada De Laurentis
Makes 6  8-inch crepes
Serves 2


3 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups whole milk ricotta
2 Tablespoons grated Parmesan or Pecorino cheese
Unsalted butter for frying pan, baking dish and for dotting crepes, about 3 Tablespoons
1/2 cup marinara sauce

Beat the eggs, milk and salt and pepper in  a bowl.  Heat an 8" nonstick skillet over medium-low heat, and brush skillet with butter.

Pour about 3 Tablespoons of the egg mixture into the pan, quickly swirling to coat the bottom. Cook until the egg crepe is set, about 1 minute.  Turn crepe with small spatula or your fingers, and continue to cook for about 30 seconds.  Slide cooked crepe onto plate. Continue making and stacking crepes one at a time until the egg mixture is used, adding butter to pan as necessary.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Butter a baking dish large enough to hold all of the crepes without them being squashed together. Mix grated cheese and salt and pepper to taste into ricotta.  Arrange 1 egg crepe on work surface. Place 1/4 cup ricotta mixture in the center of the crepe. Roll up the crepe and place, seam side down, in baking dish.  Repeat with the remaining crepes and cheese. Dot surface with butter and cover with foil. Bake for about 15 minutes until heated through.

Before serving, remove foil, and spoon some marinara sauce over crepes.  Sprinkle with additional grated cheese if you like.  Serve with a green salad and crusty bread.

Sunday Dinner With Friends, Marcella Style

I hadn't even gotten the dinner invitation out of my mouth, when T replied in the affirmative. "Don' t you even want to know what I'm cooking?"  She always does. "No, what time should we be there?" "Well, I'm making homemade pasta."  That got her attention.

I was inspired to make pasta after reading an essay written by Italian-cooking doyenne, Marcella Hazan, in her last cookbook, Marcella Says.  Home made pasta was something I made often back in the days when our dinner parties were more formal, when serving course after course was, well, a matter of course.  Over the years life happened, we all got a little older, and informal entertaining seemed the way to go.  And somewhere along the way I stopped making pasta.

Well now was as good a time as any to pull out my decades-old Atlas pasta machine.  You know the kind that was to be had at any Italian grocery store.  The kind that had to be clamped to the table. The kind that you had to crank. That kind of pasta machine.

I clamped the machine to the table and I took out my large wooden board.  Next I dumped the unbleached flour onto the board and made a well.  Into the well went the eggs.

The eggs were beaten with a fork with 1 teaspoon of olive oil.  Don't tell Marcella about the oil.  Then, little by little the flour was taken from the sides of the well incorporating the eggs.

Eventually it formed a dough which you gather into ball and begin to knead after cleaning off the board. 

Then more kneading on the widest setting of the pasta machine.

After thinning and stretching, then drying.

Cutting

And drying again

Finally, serving with Marcella's tomato sauce with onion and butter.

The pasta was light, delicious and just heavenly. I know what I said about courses, but I did follow the pasta with pesto meatballs and then a refreshing fennel and orange salad. 

My thanks to Marcella for the inspiration.

Marcella Says...

As you can imagine, after forty years of cooking nearly every day, I have amassed a somewhat large cookbook collection. One hundred twenty-nine books to be exact.  And that is not counting the four books on wine and the numerous compilations of food writing, pamphlets and regional or promotional books, or the books I gave away when we moved.

I have five loose leaf notebooks of tried and true recipes including family recipes that I have used and continue to use; three notebooks chronicling thirty something years of dinner parties and holiday celebrations as well as a handful of magazines that I just can't seem to give up.

Of course, when I was first married I had the obligatory Joy of Cooking, Betty Crocker Cookbook,  The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, and a small but authentic Mexican cookbook given to me by my husband's beloved cousin. It wasn't until we returned to the States in the mid-seventies, when my husband was a medical resident working those infamous 36 hour shifts, that I sought out some evening cooking classes--for companionship as well as the good food and priceless tips.

It was at a series of classes by a local cooking teacher that I was introduced to the cooking of Marcella Hazan. I had never heard of this woman who was presented to the New York food world in 1970 by the late Craig Claiborne of the New York Times.  She went on to write six books on Italian cooking which changed  forever the way Americans thought of Italian food. She taught cooking classes for years in her New York apartment and in Venice.

I am a huge fan of Marcella and have all six of her books.  But there is one that I had forgotten about.  Her last book, Marcella Says, is fabulous.  She takes you by the hand and stands by your side through each recipe.  It is a Master Class, with Marcella whispering in your ear. The essay she wrote telling us why we should be making our own pasta was so inspiring, I pulled out my old pasta machine and got to work!

I don't buy too many cookbooks anymore.  So much is available on the internet through magazine sites and blogs. But I treasure Marcella's books and hope to read her memoir next.  It's good to know at 87 years old, she is still drinking whiskey, smoking cigarettes, and living with the love of her life.

A future post will show my pasta dinner.  Ciao.

A Dutch Baby for Shrove Tuesday

During this past winter I have been revisiting some of my older recipes, and one thing I have been yearning for is a German Pancake aka Dutch Baby. And what better day to make a pancake than Shrove Tuesday?

Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the end of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). It ushers in the season of Lent, the forty days of fast, abstinence, and penance leading to Easter Sunday. Traditionally on Shrove Tuesday pancakes were made to use up the fat, eggs, sugar and flour whose consumption was limited during Lent.

For chef Andrew Carmellini's Dutch Baby, the batter is mixed then set into the refrigerator overnight.

The next morning all you need to do is heat a hot skillet in a 400 degree oven, pour in the batter and wait for the eggy goodness to puff up on the sides.

 Pull it out of the oven and squirt with lemon and sprinkle with powdered sugar.   The flat bottom lends itself to being filled with cooked apples or fresh berries, or some jam for an alternative. You are good to go.

I Have a Confession

 


Hello.  My name is Michele, and  I am addicted to Pinterest! Anyone out there hooked, too?

A few short months ago I had no idea what Pinterest was. Of course I had seen the icon on various blogs and websites, but paid no attention to it. It wasn't until I received an invitation from my son to join this social sharing website that I found out what Pinterest was.

According to Wikipedia, Pinterest is a"visionboard-styled social photo sharing website where users can create and manage theme-based image collections." The Apple App store describes Pinterest as a virtual pinboard to "organize and share beautiful things in your life."

Since I have never been a scrapbooker or visionboard maker, I wondered why my son thought that I would be interested. But join I did and went to his boards to see what this was all about. Evidently he joined, but never pinned anything! Typical. So I tried to find my way, none of it making sense to me at first.

But I eventually got the hang of it, and now if I'm not careful I can get lost on Pinterest and lose large chunks of time! One the the advantages for me has been finding great bloggers and photographers previously unknown to me. And this week I cooked a great meal from someone I found on Pinterest.
Who knew?

Pinterest is an invitation-only site, so if you are interested, just drop me an e-mail at cookingathome(at)yahoo(dot)com, and I will be happy to send you an invitation. Happy pinning.

Skillet Rosemary Chicken 

Super Bowl Sunday or Eight Million Pounds of Guacamole

Somewhere along the way Super Bowl Sunday has practically turned into a National Holiday.  It's a great day to eat and drink with friends and family, watch the new television commercials and half-time entertainment, all the while rooting for your favorite football team--The New Jersey York Giants in this case. In fact, it is said to be the second-largest food consumption day in the U.S. after Thanksgiving.

So it is no surprise to learn, according to the Hass Avocado Board, that 69.6 million pounds of avocados are sold to produce the 8 million pounds of guacamole consumed on Superbowl Sunday.

My task is to make the guacamole to take to a friend's home for the Super Bowl. And I am very particular about my guacamole.  Some is too chunky, deconstructed guacamole if you please.  Some is too smooth with no texture whatsoever.  But mine is just right, well for me anyway.

I learned to make guacamole when I lived in Guadalajara in the early 1970's, and continue to make it this way. The above ingredients are my constants, Hass avocado, yellow onion, tomato and salt.  Depending on my audience, I will add cilantro and chile peppers, but no lime.  I will put the avocados in a bowl and coarsely mash to my preferred consistency then mix in the rest of the ingredients.  Of course, you can make this with a mortar and pestle with great results. Great served with small warm tortillas and, of course, tortilla chips.

Since today is World Nutella Day, I just had to bring these amaretti cookies sandwiched together with Nutella.

Dinner Tonight--Walnut Crusted Salmon Fillets

It was a dark and stormy night.  No, really.  It was dark.  It was raining.  And it was cold.  It was the kind of night you wanted to stay at home with a steaming bowl of soup and a crackling fire. But that was not meant to be.  I was meeting friends for an early movie before dinner, and because I knew that John and I would be returning home about the same time, I wanted to prepare something for dinner that would be ready for the oven when we got there.

Walnut crusted salmon fillets was the perfect dish.  A delicious healthy dinner full of heart-healthy  antioxidants and phytonutrients that would be able to be prepared ahead of time, parked in the refrigerator, and roasted in a matter of minutes.  A good choice for a dark and stormy night.

Salmon ready for the oven

Walnut Crusted Salmon Fillets
 Serves 4

4 6-ounce salmon fillets, whatever kind of salmon you prefer
1 cup lightly toasted chopped walnuts
4 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
3 teaspoons low fat mayonnaise combined with 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Combine the walnuts, bread crumbs, melted butter, parsley and salt and pepper to taste. 


Place salmon fillets on an oiled, or silpat-lined baking sheet.  Season with salt and pepper if desired.
Spread one teaspoon (or less) of the mustard-mayonnaise on each fillet and top with the walnut mixture, pressing into fish.


Bake until just done 12-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish and your preference of doneness.

Cook's Note:  A quick and delicious weeknight meal also works well for dinner parties.  The salmon can be prepared ahead of time and kept refrigerated until baking.  If you don't like walnuts, why not try pitachios or hazelnuts.








 


 

Focaccia

I had just returned from my mother's house where we had watched TV chef, Michael Chiarello, construct a picnic sandwich using a home made focaccia.

The day was cold and windy, and the thought of the  smell of hot and yeasty baking bread wafting through the house was all I needed to consider making my own focaccia. I planned to be working at home the rest of the afternoon anyway, and so what if I had no yeast? There was pizza dough in the freezer.

Focaccia, the flat oven-baked Italian bread, is thought to have originated with the Etruscans or the Greeks.  The word, focaccia,comes from the Latin panis focacius--bread baked in the fireplace.Focaccia is baked in either a round or oblong stretched into shape in an oiled pan. It can be thick or thin and soft or crisp.  The dough's distinctive top  is dotted with one's fingertips to create wells in which the fruity olive oil pools.  It is usually topped with herbs, such as rosemary and salt. This rustic dish emerges from the oven golden and delicious perfect for snacks, lunch, picnics, or a great accompaniment to dinner.

Making focaccia differs from pizza in that the dough rises three times before it is baked.  Carol Field, in her book, The Italian Baker,  explains the origins of both beautifully. When I removed the pizza dough ( about one pound) from the freezer I  put it in a bowl rubbed with oil to defrost and come to room temperature since its first rising took place before going into the freezer.

The next step is to knead the dough lightly until smooth on a flour-covered work surface. Roll  or stretch dough out to approximately 12 x 10 inch rectangle, brush off any excess flour and  transfer to an oiled rimmed baking sheet. Brush top with olive oil , cover and let rise about 20 minutes.

Now the fun part. Press your fingers into the risen dough to make even indentations all over.  Brush with additional olive oil--be generous here--sprinkle with chopped rosemary and sea salt. Let rise again for about 20 minutes.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes until focaccia is golden brown.

And try to wait until the focaccia cools down a bit before tearing into it!

After making the savory focaccia, I came across an article online--sorry, I don't remember where--and I just had to try the sweet focaccia mentioned in the article. 

This time dried fruits that I had on hand--1/4 cup each of dried cherries, cranberries, and apricots, and chopped rosemary were kneaded into the dough after it defrosted; put in an oiled bowl and brought to room temperature.

The rimmed baking sheet was coated with some oil and butter this time and dough rolled out and fit into the pan. The dough was brushed with melted butter, covered, and set to rest for about 30 minutes.

The dough was then dimpled as before and baked in a 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes until golden. I didn't have time for a third rise, but I don't think it mattered.

When the focaccia came from the oven I brushed it with melted butter and sprinkled it with demerara sugar.

Although we ate some of this when it came out of the oven,  I think slices of this sweet focaccia might be nice for breakfast or a brunch as well as with some after dinner cheese.

Dinner Tonight--Balsamic Chicken Breasts

Balsamic chicken breasts were a favorite of my clients when I was working as a personal chef.  They have a lot going for them.  They are quick to prepare,  they hold well for reheating if necessary, the ingredients are easy to come by, and they certainly are tasty.

And finding myself with all the ingredients on hand, they are dinner tonight.

Balsamic Chicken Breasts
The original recipe is from Pierre Franey's Cusine Rapide
Serves 4

4 6-8 ounce chicken breast halves
1/2 pound small mushrooms, cleaned and cut in half (larger mushrooms may be sliced)
2 tablespoons flour
salt and pepper
6 cloves garlic, peeled
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar (you don't need the 25 year old stuff here)
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
1 bay leaf
sprig of fresh thyme or a sprinkling of dried thyme
2 tablespoons sweet butter

Dredge chicken breasts in seasoned flour.  Heat olive oil in skillet, brown breasts about 3 minutes.  Turn.

Scatter garlic cloves and mushrooms around chicken.  Brown for another 3 minutes.

Add balsamic vinegar, chicken broth, bay leaf and thyme.  Cover skillet tightly and simmer for about 10 minutes, turning pieces to baste, until chicken is tender.

Remove chicken from skillet.  Reduce sauce,  Remove whole herb, if using, and garlic cloves.  Off heat, swirl in butter, and return chicken to sauce.

This is nice served with string beans or a green salad.