Chicken Cordon Bleu - Italian Style

I knew this morning that dinner was going to be chicken.  I didn't know until this afternoon how I was going to prepare it.

Somewhere along the line, stuffed chicken breast came into play - and then it was just a matter of figuring out what to stuff it with.  I did think of a cordon bleu at one point and then remembered that we had asiago cheese at home.  Prosciutto instead of ham, asiago instead of swiss or gruyère, and dinner was formulating!

The chicken was easy to prepare.  I pounded the chicken breasts and layed them flat.  I took 2 slices of prosciutto for each breast and wrapped them around a cube of asiago cheese. I then wrapped the chicken breast around it.

I floured, egg-dipped, and rolled the chicken packages in panko bread crumbs and baked them at 350° for about 45 minutes.

I mixed a half-cup each of wild rice and brown rice and cooked it in 2 cups of chicken broth and a tsp of butter for 45 minutes, and cooked up some frozen french-cut green beans.

I made a quick chicken cream sauce with a bit of chicken broth and heavy cream thickened with a bit of cornstarch.

Yum.

The asiago was perfect, because it doesn't run like swiss can, and wrapping the cheese in the prosciutto (or ham) helps to contain it, as well.    More than twice I've had all the cheese leak out  of the breast while it's baking.  Wrapping it really helps.

And there's gonna be homemade pudding for dessert!

Life is good!

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I found this recipe at Epicurious.com.  It sounded easy enough and I was sure I had all the ingredients.  How we managed to be out of peanut butter is beyond me - but I just happened to have a 6oz jar of an Almond Creme butter that came in a gift basket and was just waiting on the shelf to be needed.  I substituted that as well as dark chocolate for the milk chocolate.  And the lady fingers.  And the big bowl instead of individual bowls...  And I didn't top with whipped cream - it didn't need it...

Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate Puddings Bon Appétit | January 2009

by Dede Wilson

Serve the puddings in clear dishes to show off the distinct layers.
Yield: Makes 6

Ingredients

Peanut butter pudding:

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 5 teaspoons cornstarch
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 3/4 cups whole milk
  • 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1/2 cup creamy (smooth) natural peanut butter (made with only peanuts and salt)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate pudding:

  • 6 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch
  • 2 tablespoons natural unsweetened cocoa powder
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 4 ounces imported milk chocolate, chopped
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:

  • 1 cup chilled heavy whipping cream
  • 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

Preparation

For Peanut butter pudding:

Whisk first 3 ingredients in large saucepan to blend. Gradually whisk in milk, then cream. Whisk over medium heat until mixture comes to boil. Then boil until thick, whisking constantly, about 30 seconds. Whisk in peanut butter;  boil until thick again, whisking often, about 1 minute longer. Remove from heat; whisk in vanilla.  Divide pudding among six 1-cup glasses or dishes (generous 1/3 cup each). Chill uncovered while preparing chocolate pudding.

For chocolate pudding:

Whisk first 4 ingredients in heavy large saucepan. Gradually whisk in milk, then cream. Whisk over medium heat until mixture comes to boil.  Boil until thick, whisking constantly, about 30 seconds. Add chopped chocolate. Boil until chocolate melts and pudding is thick again, whisking often, 1 to 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat; whisk in vanilla. Cool pudding 5 minutes. Spoon atop peanut butter pudding, dividing equally (about 1/3cup each). Chill puddings uncovered until cold, at least 2 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and keep chilled.

For topping:

Whisk cream and powdered sugar in medium bowl to soft peaks. Spoon topping onto puddings and serve.


Mom's Potato Salad

There's a lot of things I miss about my mom.  She was the world's best movie trivia source before Google was invented and was a champion at crosswords, Scrabble, and any other word game.  She spoke to us in words with more than one syllable and pointed to the dictionary when we didn't understand.  And she was a great cook.  An adventurous cook.  I know it is from her that I gleaned my knack for pulling together dinner out of what's in the refrigerator.  She did it for years feeding six kids.

There were certain dishes she made that I continue to make as she did, and her potato salad is definitely one of them.  To this day, it remains the benchmark for all potato salads for me - and rarely (if ever) does another come close.  It is pure simplicity and full of flavor.

Measurements are difficult, because everything depends upon how much you're making.  I'll try and guesstimate here, but use your best judgement.

Mom's Potato Salad

  • 2 lbs potatoes (tonight I used baby yukon gold)
  • 2 stalks celery, diced
  • 3 hard cooked eggs, chopped
  • 1 dill pickle, diced
  • 1 carrot, shredded
  • 3 green onions, chopped (yellow or red onion also works)
  • 3/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 2 tbsp catsup
  • 1 tsp yellow mustard
  • bit of garlic powder
  • salt and pepper

Cut potatoes into serving-sized pieces.  Cook until juuuuust done.  Drain and chill in cold water.  When cold, drain, again.  Mix all ingredients, toss well, and refrigerate.  That's it.

Mom always peeled her potatoes.  I rarely do.  It doesn't make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes the potatoes would be a bit overcooked and it was more mashed potato salad than chunky.  That was okay, too.  No matter what, it was good.

We also had roast beef sandwiches tonight.  They were actually the impetus for the potato salad.  Thinly sliced beef on ciabatta rolls with mayo, alfalfa sprouts, thin slices of red onion, and Happy Hal's Jalapeno Relish.

Yum.


A Night of Leftovers

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We're slowly getting through the mountain of food we created over the last couple of days.  Victor had Chinese for lunch, I froze a couple of the cup tamales (with sauce, of course!) and last night we finished the baked pasta.  (I think it was better last night than it was the first night we had it).  And we had garlic bread made from the bread he made a couple of weeks ago.  Waste not, want not.

Dessert has its foundation in leftover's, too - Aunt Emma's Apricot Cookies.

We always make a big batch of filling and freeze the rest for use throughout the year.  It makes a gread dipping sauce mixed with chili paste and soy sauce for Asian-type foods, with desserts, on toast or sandwiches - anywhere you'd want a high-end apricot zing.  Tonight, it became Apricot Bars.

Victor didn't follow a recipe, but made a basic dough with butter, flour sugar, brown sugar, and rolled oats.  Pressed 3/4 into the baking dish, covered with a thin layer of apricot filling, and pressed the remaining on top.  Into the oven.

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They were really good.

And we have leftovers.


Gung Hay Fat Choy

 

Happy New Year!

If we were home in San Francisco, we would have had dim sum at Yank Sing, dinner at Andy's or the place around the corner from us whose name I forget.  All of them were great.  But we're not.  We're 3000 miles east, give or take a couple - so I thought I'd try my hand at a few things tonight.

I do stirfry's a lot, but I rarely coat the meat first or go to a lot of trouble with them - stir fry's are supposed to be no-brainer couple of minutes dinner.

Tonight, I decided I needed to get a bit fancier.  I did a few web searches for recipes and, while I found a few ideas, nothing was saying "this is it."  Sio I decided to take a few suggestions from various recipes and go for it.

One sad note is that I used the very last of our Black Japonica rice, tonight.  I love it and will now have to find someone who sells it at a reasonable price.  But I digress...

General Tim's Chicken

  • 2 boneless chicken breasts
  • 2 egg whites
  • 2 tbsp cornstarch

Sauce:

  • 1/4 cup rice wine (or sherry)
  • 2 tbsp Chinese barbecue sauce
  • 3 tbsp sesame oil
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp chili paste
  • 1 tbsp ginger, minced

The Vegetables

  • 4 carrots, cut into thin strips
  • 3 green onions, chopped
  • 1 red pepper, sliced
  • 1 green pepper, sliced

Mix together egg whites and cornstarch. Cut chicken into cubes and coat chicken in cornstarch mixture.
Combine sauce ingredients and set aside.
Heat wok. Fry chicken strips in oil until they turn white. Remove.
Add vegetables and stir-fry for a minute or two, and then add sauce.
When heated through, add chicken.
Stir-fry 1 to 2 minutes. Serve with rice.

I really liked coating the chicken in the egg white and cornstarch.  It came out almost tempura-like.  Light, with a bit of a crunch.  Oh - I added a bit of Jay's Guamanian Boonie Pepper to the egg/cornstarch mixture to jack up the flavor a bit.  It was a most excellent addition.

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Vegetable lo mein

Ingredients:

  • 6 ounces noodles, uncooked
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 5 cups chopped bok choy
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • 2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp chili paste
  • 2 shredded carrots
  • 4 chopped green onions
  • 8 quartered mushrooms
  • 1/2 ea red and green peppers
  • 6 oz bean sprouts

Cook pasta according to package. Drain and set aside.
Heat wok with 1 tbsp sesame oil. Add garlic and Stir-fry for a minute.
Add bok choy and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes.
Add chicken broth, soy sauce and chili paste. Stir fry another minute.
Add rest of vegetables and stirfry until cooked to your liking.
Add cooked pasta and toss gently.
Thicken slightly with a bit of cornstarch, if desired.

It was a fun dinner.  It was definitely more food that two (or four) of us needed, so we're going to be having leftovers for a few days.  Actually - it looks like leftovers for most of the week!  There's still tamales from yesterday - and baked pasta!

I ain't complainin'!


Cup Tamales

Back when I was a kid growing up in San Francisco, there was a great place named Johnson's Tamale Grotto where we would get "cup" tamales.  Cup tamales were made in - you guessed it - coffee cups.  They spread the filling into greased coffee cups, added the filling - the turkey cup tamale was the most popular - and then added more filling to the top.  They were then steamed until done and served with a brown sauce that went on everything.

San Francisco had scores of "Tamale Parlors" and "Tamale Grotto's" once upon a time - most coming into being during the 1920's.  We practically lived at The Hot House at Playland, and Johnson's was a short bike ride when we were catching crawdads at Pine Lake.  (Yeah - we city kids had our pockets of country right in our own backyards - and the Pacific Ocean was 2 blocks away!)  Roosevelt's is still in full swing - albeit a new remodel and menu has changed the place dramatically (and their website is still a mess...)  But I digress...

I bought a bag of masa a few weeks back thinking that I might just make some tamales, again... I actually used to make them all the time - they're pretty easy to do - and even kept corn husks on hand.  I think my most memorable tamale party was my brother-in-law's birthday maybe 25 years ago.  He's a 4th of July baby and we had a huge party.  I made hundreds of tamales and consumed hundreds of  margaritas.  I think we had a great time.

Fast-forward to 2009...

I wanted tamales, didn't have corn husks.  I remembered those wonderful Johnson's Tamales (damn, I wish I had their tamale sauce recipe!)  and decided to go for it.

Tamale Dough

  • 3 cups Masa Harina
  • 3 cups lukewarm broth or water (I used homemade beef broth - I was roasting beef bones...)
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 cup lard

Whip lard in mixer until light.  Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and then add lukewarm broth a nd mix with fingers to form a slightly moist dough.  Add to lard and mix well.

Filling

I had a couple of chip steaks that I simmered in the aforementioned beef broth.  I chopped them and then - in a skillet - mixed them with:

  • 1 diced onion
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tsp pasilla pepper
  • 1 tsp ancho chile powder
  • 1 can diced green chilis
  • 1/2 cup chipotle sauce
  • salt and pepper, to taste

Saute chopped beef with the onions and garlic.  Add green chilis and spices.  Add chipotle sauce and simmer.

Assembly

I used 10 oz souffle cups.

Grease containers well.  Place about 2 tbsp dough in bottom of cup and press down.  With a small spatula or knife, spread dough around the inside of the cup to the rim, leaving a well for the filling.

Place a couple of tablespoons of filling in each cup, pressing down.  Add a bit more dough to top to cover and smooth.

Cover with foil and place in deep pan.  Add boiling water halfway up cups and bake at 350° for 1 hour.

Tamale Sauce

I'll never be able to replicate this one...

  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
  • 2 tomatoes, chopped
  • 1/2 jar mole paste
  • 1 tbsp assorted chili powders (I have several.  I just added some of all of them...)
  • 2 cups aforementioned beef broth
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp Mexican oregano
  • salt and pepper

I sauteed the onion and garlic, added the fresh tomatoes, then the canned.  I added the rest of the ingredients and then hit it with an immersion blender.  I then strained it and put it back into the pot to simmer.

I made the (brown) rice with bottled enchilada sauce thinned with yet more of that beef broth.

The beans were canned pintos to which I added jalapenos and sofrito sauce.

Dinner was really, really good.

This one took some time, because I really did do it all from scratch.  I think if I could find a good all-purpose Mexican Red Sauce (maybe I'll take a run out to Wegman's one of these days) it would save a lot of time.  Plus, I hadn't done these in a really long time, so I took my time putting them all together.

Tomorrow is Chinese New Year - the year of the Ox.  I can guarantee no Oxtail Soup.


Baked Pasta

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It was Victor's turn to make "stuff" for dinner, tonight.  His version took an Italian flair - how unusual... :)

He did a baked pasta with Italian sausage, red peppers, peas, and, of course, cheese.

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It was perfect Italian Comfort Food.    Garlicky toasted baguette on the side... I have to admit, I went back for seconds.  And then I had cake.

So shoot me.


Stuff

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When I do an off-the-cuff dinner with stuff I already have at home, we usually just call it "stuff."  "Stuff" is a dinner that probnably won't be replicated any time soon.  It's usually made up of ingredients that may never be in the house in the same quantities, again.

Tonight was such a dinner.

I had a couple of links of hot Italian sausage and a boneless chicken breast.  I cooked off a handful of onion and a couple stalks of celery, a green pepper, and some mushrooms.  Added the chicken and sausage, and when they were pretty much cooked through, added about a half-cup of red wine.  Then a can of diced tomatoes, a can of black beans and a cup of chicken broth.  I brought it all to a boil and then added about 3/4 cup of brown rice and a half-teaspoon of Guamanian Boonie Pepper.  On went the lid for 45 minutes.

Thick, rich, and yummy.  Good for the tummy.


Fried Mashed Potatoes

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I had some leftover smashed potatoes in the fridge and a couple of pounds of ground beef.  Meatloaf with mushroom gravy, potato pancakes, and peas.

Real basic and really good.  I do enjoy meatloaf.  I should have let this one sit for a few minutes before slicing into it, but we were ready for dinner.  It crumbled a bit but that's what gravy is for.

The potato pancakes were crispy-crunchy on the outside, and feathery-light on the inside.  Just like mama used to make.

While the meatloaf was baking, Victor decided we needed dessert, so he made a pineapple upside-down cake.

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It was realy good, too.  And we have leftovers of everything.


Roasted Potato Soup

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16° outside means soup, inside.  And soup, it was today!  I came up with a quick potato soup at work today (Thanks, Joe!) that we'll serve in a week or so and on the way home decided I already had the ingredients at home to make one tonight.  I suppose I could have garnished it and made the picture look prettier, but I didn't.  And the soup was damned good!

Roasted Potato Soup

  • 3 medium potatoes, washed and cubed (unpeeled)
  • 1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • handful of mushrooms
  • 6 cups milk (I used non-fat)
  • 1 cup diced ham
  • 1 cup peas
  • 1 cup shredded cheese (I used quattro formaggio)
  • salt and pepper, to taste

Mix potatoes, onion, mushrooms, and garlic with olive oil and place on sheet pan.  Roast at 400° for about 30 minutes.

Place roasted vegetables in pot with about a quart of milk and bring to boil.  When potatoes are completely tender, mix with an immersion blender until of desired consistency.  Add ahm and peas and heat through.

Stir in cheese and heat.  Thin with more milk, as desired.

Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper, if desired.

We still had half a loaf of the Beer Bread I made on Monday, so dinner was served.

This was definitely one of those dishes that just comes together in no time at all.  I put the veggies in the oven, set the timer and checked email.  The timer went off, the veggies came out of the oven and the soup was on the table in ten minutes.  No-brainer cooking at its finest.

And there's still bread pudding for dessert!


Lemon Coconut Cashew Chicken

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I was looking at a Citrus Chicken recipe the other day that called for dredging the chicken in coconut flour after marinating it in lemon juice.  I had lots of lemons but no coconut flour.  But I did have unsweetened coconut.  And all sorts of other fun stuff!

I took the concept and then winged it, as usual...

I marinated the chicken in lemon juice and then  dredged the chicken in flour, then egg, then a mixture of coconut and ground cashews.

I did a quick saute and then it went into the oven to finish.

I heated the lemon marinade with Moore's teriyaki sauce and then thickened it with a bit of cornstarch.

Brown rice and brussel's sprouts, and dinner was served.

And then I made another panettone bread pudding for dessert.  Just half the recipe.  I have to watch my trim, boyish figure, after all...


Corned Beef - No Cabbage. Bread, Instead.

 

I bought a corned beef quite a while ago and it's been sitting in frozen storage ever since.  Last night before going to bed, I decided I wanted that corned beef!  Out it came to thaw, and off to bed I went.

About noon it went into a pot filled with water.  At 4pm it came out.  At 4:30pm, a couple of whole potatoes went into the pot.  At 5:15pm, in went some carrots and celery.  At 5:45pm, dinner was served.

I also popped a loaf of bread into the oven about 4:15pm, inbetween taking the corned beef out of the pot and putting the potatoes in...  Organization is key in all thinks.

The bread was my most favorite Quick Beer Bread.  I used a bottle of Guinness thin time around.

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Since Victor doesn't really care for cabbage all that much, I didn't make any.  Actually, since it was snowing outside, I decided not to go shopping today.  I was planning to cook some for myself.

Oh well.  It was really good without it!


Football Food

We had high hopes for today's Eagles game.  Oh well.  At least the food came out good.

I started with a couple of potatoes.  And my trusty mandoline.  I did a waffle-cut on them...

Into the hot (grapeseed) oil they went and within minutes I had crispy chips!

There is absolutely nothing better than homemade potato chips - unless it's homemade tortilla chips.  I really do like the freshness.  There just is no comparison to bagged chips.

None, at all.

The chips were the supporting cast to the star of the show - chili dogs!

I had been craving these for a while and decided today was the perfect excuse to have them.. I had made the chili a couple of days ago.  We were set!

Old-fashioned skin-on hot dogs, ww buns, Happy Hal's Jalapeno Relish, chili, shredded cheese, and diced raw onions - with guacamole on the side.

The food was great.  Too bad the game sucked.