Dinner at C & T's

Last night we went to CC & TC's house for dinner. The food was incredibly yummy and we had a great time. The other T at the party brought his famous tomato bruschetta:


... that was so amazingly good I ate at least 5 pieces. The thing I liked the most was that the tomatoes were pureed instead of in chunks. I hate biting into a piece of bruschetta and having all the tomatoes fall off the bread. In keeping with the Hawaiian luau theme, H brought a mango, avocado salsa:


... that was sweet and flavorful. We couldn't stop eating it and decided it would be great served on grilled fish or chicken.

T had leftover mozzarella from the bruschetta so he threw together a quick mozzarella, tomato and basil salad drizzled with 18-year-old balsamic vinegar and a splash of olive oil:


While we noshed on the appetizers we helped TC finish skewering the meat and vegetables:


She had chicken, shrimp and flank steak that we skewered with pineapple, red onion, mushrooms, green and red peppers and yellow and green squash. Then she drizzled everything with an island marinade that was sweet and spicy and oh-so-good.

TC rounded out the rest of the meal with a salad:


... made with lettuce, strawberries, blue cheese and toasted almonds. The sweetness of the strawberries mixed with the crunch of the almonds and the tang of the blue cheese was excellent.

She also made a tasty pasta salad with avocado, tomato, fennel, roasted corn and pine nuts:


... as well as some jasmine rice to sop up all the good juices from the skewers:


Some of the skewers hot off the grill:


My plate with two shrimp and one chicken skewer, rice, pasta salad and regular salad:


And for dessert:


... grilled peaches and pineapple over toasted angel food cake with a drizzle of red wine sauce. Decadent and tasty, the perfect ending to the meal. Thanks TC and CC for a wonderful night of good food, good friends and good music!

Pizza Friday

SP loves mushrooms. When I say he loves them I mean he really, really loves them. We haven't had mushroom pizza for Pizza Friday in I don't know how long, so that's what was on the menu for this week. On the drive home I was thinking about how I wanted to cook the mushrooms before they went on the pizza and once I got home we spent at least 15 minutes discussing the pros and cons of onions and garlic before I finally went into the kitchen to start cooking. After searching the fridge for 5 minutes I could not find the mushrooms. Turns out SP and I had a miscommunication when he washed the mushrooms earlier this week for the Creamy, Bacony Mushrooms so said mushrooms were all used in that dish with none put aside for the pizza.

So last night's pizza was another Pizza Margherita.


I added more basil this time, which was good, but there was still too much cheese. Next time we do this pizza I'm going to cut the cheese into slabs instead of grating it so there's pockets of cheese instead of a huge blanket on top.

Thai Chicken Curry

I don't know why I don't cook from Dave Lieberman's Young and Hungry cookbook more often. The recipes I've tried have all been really tasty. Tonight I made Thai Chicken Curry:


I like this dish because the flavors marry well together and it's easy to make. Unfortunately my supermarket didn't have snow peas so I had to leave those out, but it's still a good dish without them.

Thai Chicken Curry
Dave Lieberman

2 cups white rice (basmati or jasmine is best)
1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts (around 2) cut into pieces
Red pepper flakes, to taste
Vegetable Oil
1 small onion, diced
I red bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 tablespoon sugar
Thumb-size piece of fresh ginger, grated
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 cup unsweetened coconut milk
Handful of snow peas
Handful of basil, optional
Juice and zest of 1 lime Zest of 1 lime
Salt and Black Pepper

Cook the rice and set aside.

Toss the chicken strips in a bowl with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes and 2 tablespoons of oil. Heat a skillet over high heat and cook the chicken until they start to brown. Once there is no pink, scoop the chicken onto a plate.

Lower the pan heat to medium-high and add a bit more oil. Slide in the onions and cook, stirring until they turn translucent (4-5 minutes). Add the red bell pepper and garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add the curry powder, sugar and ginger and cook 1 more min. Add the broth and coconut milk and turn the heat up to high. Bring to a boil, then lower heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring often until the sauce reduces, 7-8 minutes. Slide the chicken back in and add the snow peas. Cook for a minute or two, add the basil and lime juice and zest and season with the salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over rice.

Steak Fajitas and Grilled Corn

SP was in charge of dinner tonight and after he found skirt steak on sale at the wholesale club he decided to make steak fajitas.


We had the usual fixin's - sour cream, guacamole, diced tomato, shredded cheddar cheese and sauteed onions and peppers. SP is really into Rick Bayless these days after watching a few episodes of Mexico: One Plate at a Time, so he used a marinade he found on Rick's site. It was sensational and really added great flavor to the steak.

We thought we should have a side dish to go with our fajitas:


... so SP grilled some corn and once it was done I rolled it around in cilantro butter. The piece I ate was a little mushy, but I can't complain too much since corn isn't in season yet. It still tasted mighty good.

Chicken Rolls in Tomato Sauce

Over the weekend I saw Giada make this recipe for Chicken Scallopine with Sage and Fontina. The dish looked tasty, but I didn't feel like spending the money to buy fresh sage and a specialty cheese, so I modified the recipe, substituting spinach and mozzarella for the sage and fontina. The result:


... was moderately successful. I had a tough time with the chicken - once I pounded it thin it was falling apart, which made it hard to roll into nice, neat packages. And since I was using breast meat it was dried out by the time the dish was finished. But the sauce, oh the sauce. It was spectacular. SP said if we use this sauce recipe for pasta from now on he'd be a happy camper. The only change I made from the original sauce recipe was to add some minced garlic to the tomatoes when I processed them. The flavor of the white wine mixed with the tomatoes, garlic and red pepper was phenomenal.

Creamy, Bacony Mushrooms

After seeing this recipe on The Food Pornographer's site for mushrooms cooked with bacon, onions and cream I knew we had to try it. SP is a huge fungus fan and what's not to like about bacon, onions and cream?


This not for the faint of heart. The cream seemed to get even richer the longer it cooked, but the flavors of the bacon, wine, onions and garlic were excellent. I served it over rice in order to sop up all the yummy sauce.

Hodge-Podge Sauce

My mom gave us some zucchini and a green pepper (among other things) from their vegetable box so I decided to use them, along with about half a pound of ground beef from the freezer, onion, garlic and basil, to make a meat and vegetable sauce for dinner tonight:


We also wanted garlic bread:


... that SP picked up pre-made at the store as an experiment. For less than $2 we got a loaf of bread that we just had to heat in the oven, but the bread to garlic butter ratio was way off, not to mention that we couldn't taste any garlic at all. I definitely prefer to make my own, especially because a plain baguette is less than $1.

From earlier this afternoon, the sauce bubbling away on the stove:


... and a pot full of cabbage cooking in butter with bay leaves, salt and pepper:


SP loves cabbage cooked this way and my mom had a huge head of cabbage from the co-op that was way more than she and my stepdad could be expected to eat by themselves.

Breakfast and Lunch

In between doing housework (OK, let's be honest, SP was doing all the work while I "supervised" from the couch) I made us some breakfast and lunch. For breakfast I made French toast with bananas:


I sliced the bananas and cooked them in a pan with some butter, sugar and cinnamon until they were tender and starting to brown. My eyes were bigger than my stomach and I could only eat two pieces of this incredibly rich breakfast.

When lunchtime rolled around SP was in the middle of painting the trim in our foyer so we needed to do something quick at home. We didn't have much on hand so I made tuna melts and homemade potato chips:



... using my buddy D's old Fry Baby that she sent us months and months ago. SP ended up taking over the potato chip making while I finished the sandwiches and he said he loves the fryer, although it is on the small side and necessitated multiple batches to fry all the chips.


For the tuna melts I made the tuna using a little herbes de provence and SP was a huge fan. A very satisfying lunch indeed!

Pizza Friday

Last night we went simple with a basic pizza margherita (tomato, basil and mozzarella):


I put on a tad too much cheese and the tomatoes needed a bit more seasoning, but this was a nice, light pizza for a cool summer evening.

Chile Chicken and Cheese Rice

I brought the camera downstairs, turned on the chandelier and opened the dining room curtains for light and I still managed to forget to take a photo until I was halfway finished with my dinner.


This morning SP wanted to know what I wanted for dinner so he could go grocery shopping. I looked through my recipes and found an old favorite - Chile Chicken and Cheese Rice. It was good, but not spicy enough (despite the 5 jalapenos) and a tad too salty. I still ate a good amount, though.

Mrs. Home Cook Goes to Washington

I'm sorry for my brief disappearance; I had to go on a last minute business trip to our nation's capitol. It was a long couple of days but the highlights were the two dinners I had earlier this week. The first was a perfectly cooked hamburger topped with cheddar, bacon, jalapenos and tomato with a nice slathering of mayo. The fries were crispy on the outside just the way I like them. Yum! The second was an amazing Monte Cristo sandwich. I've never ordered this diner favorite of turkey, ham and Swiss cheese on white bread coated and cooked like French toast and served with maple syrup because I'm not that into sweets. But this version (served at an Irish pub no less) was served with Hollandaise sauce instead of the maple syrup, transforming it into something savory. It was out of this world, but what wouldn't be when the sandwich is cooked in butter and served with a butter-based sauce. And the cottage fries that came with it...heavenly. Perfectly crisp and fresh, they were even better dipped in some of the Hollandaise.

Now it's back to home life and since we hadn't gone grocery shopping due to the trip we had to scrounge up something for dinner. Spaghetti carbonara is always easy to make and tasty to eat:

Pizza Friday

I have to say, this was one of the best pizzas we've ever made. SP was in charge of the "sauce" which isn't as much sauce as it is tomatoes with all the liquid removed and then seasoned with salt, red pepper flakes, oregano and a splash of olive oil. Toppings included pepperoni, black olives, torn basil and just a smattering of mozzarella cheese:


I'm not sure why this pizza was so exceptional, but we both took one bite and were bowled over by all the flavors.

Ginger, Garlic, Scallion Shrimp

Our original plan for tonight was to marinate shrimp in the remainder of the buffalo sauce we used a few weeks ago and then grill them, but for various reasons that plan fell through. We went with Plan B, an old standby - Ginger, Garlic, Scallion Shrimp:


... which was just as good as always. No wonder it's a family favorite.

Chicken Paprikash

Every once in awhile we remember how much we love this recipe for Chicken Paprikash:


It's simple to make and has everything I like about a dish: onions, garlic and a creamy sauce.

Steak and Salad

With the heat index in the mid-90s today we decided to keep dinner light and simple. SP wanted to marinate a London broil for the grill and he managed to find a really amazing marinade on the Food Network Web site.


We had a bounty of vegetables from my parent's co-op box so I thought a salad would be a great side for the steak. I cut up some scallions, broccoli, red cabbage, grape tomatoes and avocado and tossed it with a variety of lettuces. I dressed my salad with more of that chipotle ranch dressing. I wanted to make my own dressing but SP wanted to use blue cheese and I didn't want to make dressing just for myself.

The Grace Brothers Canteen

Every Saturday from 8pm to midnight a few of our local PBS stations broadcast British Comedies (Britcoms). If we're home we like to watch our favorites, including Keeping Up Appearances, As Time Goes By, Vicar of Dibley, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, Thin Blue Line, Waiting For God, Last of the Summer Wine, 'Allo, 'Allo, and Are You Being Served? This past Saturday we caught an episode of Are You Being Served? where Mrs. Slocombe and Miss Brahms are eating plates of sausages, mashed potatoes and a green vegetable in the canteen. We had a few pieces of Italian sausage in the freezer, a crisper full of organic broccoli from my parent's vegetable box and plenty of potatoes, so I thought I'd cook us a meal reminiscent of the food at Grace Brothers.


We don't have easy access to HP sauce here in the states so I tried making a gravy from the sausage drippings (that tan blob next to the broccoli). It was very salty from the sausage fat, but a nice complement to the sausages and potatoes. For the broccoli I just cooked it in a pan with some garlic and red pepper flakes until it was tender.

Spaghetti with Shrimp

Tonight was the rarest of occasions - SP and I cooked dinner together and we both lived to tell the tale. With a heat wave sweeping through our area neither of us felt like venturing outside today to go grocery shopping so we needed to cook dinner with food we had on hand. We decided to make spaghetti with tomato sauce and shrimp, for a little something different.


The sauce was made with tomatoes my mother and I canned last summer. We're getting close to canning season and SP likes to use up last year's batch before we can this year's. With my parents on vacation we picked up their co-op vegetables on Saturday and used the baby onions and some basil from the box in the sauce. We also got a ton of lettuces so I made a salad with some lettuce, a few scallions (also from the box) and some red cabbage. The dressing is a Chipotle Ranch that we got on sale awhile back.

Sunday Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was less than inspired but turned out to be quite tasty. I toasted an English muffin and topped each half with a slice of tomato and a fried egg with some melted cheddar cheese on top:


In other news, I am VERY pleased to present our new addition:


Ever since we moved into our house we have hated our refrigerator. The first time we opened the door to find the shelves covered in a pool of water, we thought maybe it was because the fridge had just been turned on. By the fifth or sixth time we realized there was a problem with the fridge itself. One time we actually saw the torrent of water pouring out of a hole near the top back shelf. We put off getting a new fridge for months because we weren't sure exactly what we wanted, but we soon grew weary of cleaning up pools of water three or four times a day.

Recently Home Depot was having an appliance sale so we drove over to check it out and found exactly what we wanted - a bottom-freezer model that wasn't too wide to fit into the space we had, French doors for the fridge and a pull-out freezer drawer with a sturdy upper basket. We measured and remeasured the space and were about 90% certain the fridge wouldn't fit (can you see that lip from the window seat? We were concerned about the pull-out door clearing that), but my stepfather assured me that an 1/8th of an inch is still an 1/8th of an inch and as you can see, it fit! It was delivered yesterday and we are in love.

Pizza Friday

SP announced last week (as he finished off the last of the Ricotta Pasta with Spinach) that he was done with heavy, creamy pasta dishes for the foreseeable future. While that's a fine idea given that summer is in full swing, it went against my plan for dinner on Friday: Broccoli and Garlic Calzones. It occurred to me as I was falling asleep that I could probably make half a pizza for him with whatever toppings he wanted and still make a calzone for myself. The result was that he ate a pizza topped with leftover BBQ chicken, BBQ sauce and mozzarella cheese:


... while I had my calzone full of gooey ricotta and mozzarella cheeses and sauteed broccoli and garlic. I served my calzone with a thick, spicy tomato sauce.

Potato Cake

I've seen both Michael Chiarello and Giada De Laurentiis make potato cakes using leftover mashed potatoes so when I had some leftover from the Super Mashers with Shrimp and Chorizo I decided to try making them for breakfast with a fried egg on top.




This is actually my second attempt. The first ended with a pile of reheated mashed potatoes with a few crusty bits. It tasted great, but wasn't very photogenic. This time I left the potato cake alone in the pan for at least 5 minutes per side so it could develop a proper crust. I also used a mixture of butter and oil (last time I used only oil) to promote browning. The juxtaposition of the crispy outside and creamy inside of the cake is phenomenal and the flavor is great because the potatoes were made with garlic and scallions. The fried egg on top just gilded the lily with its perfectly runny yolk.

Fish Tacos

I was watching Everyday Food recently and saw one of the chefs make Fish Tacos. The recipe seemed simple enough and SP was game so I gave it a shot.


It was a very easy, very quick meal to put together. I was bringing the food to the table and SP said, "We're eating already!?" The flavors were OK, but we weren't wowed. The recipe I used the last time I made fish tacos was much better.

Fourth of July

Happy 4th! SP and I invited my mother-in-law and her sister over for a BBQ and to help us break in our new patio set.

We decided to make BBQ Chicken using Ina's recipe, except SP couldn't find bone-in chicken so we had to settle for breasts:


They got a little burnt on the grill, but they were still moist and flavorful. The sauce was the real winner. It was outstanding. We will definitely be making this again.

I made my All-American potato salad, which was a huge hit:


Aunt D brought coleslaw:


And some grilled vegetables:


My mother-in-law was in charge of the antipasto, which she gets from a local pizzeria. It is phenomenal:


My plate, from the top - a piece of the chicken with a pool of BBQ sauce, potato salad, grilled vegetables and a big pile of the antipasto:


For dessert I made a sheet cake using a Pillsbury Funfetti cake mix and frosting we got especially for the 4th. Notice the stars and stripes sprinkles and the red, white and blue theme. Very patriotic:

Super Mashers with Shrimp and Chorizo

Last night we had yet another meal from 365: No Repeats. Because of the gang over at One Year Project I've rediscovered this cookbook. This is a recipe I was very excited to make (1) because it used up the odd amount of shrimp and chorizo we had leftover in the freezer and (2) because it combines two of my favorites things - shrimp and mashed potatoes.


The recipe was very easy to make, if a little time consuming. I will never understand how Rachael Ray is able to make these meals in 30 minutes. I expected the dish to be a bit more spicy, so next time I'd use more hot sauce. I couldn't taste the lime juice, which disappointed me, but I know it was because the limes didn't give off enough juice. All in all it was a very good meal, though.

The recipe is pretty basic: I made the mashed potatoes by boiling up a few Yukon golds and then mashing them with sour cream, a splash of milk, butter, salt and pepper. While the potatoes were cooking, garlic and scallions were sauteed in some butter and then added into the potatoes, which turned out to be a very good addition that worked much better than raw scallions. We only had one link of chorizo so I crumbled that into pieces and cooked it in a non-stick skillet until both sides were browned. A red pepper and two poblano peppers were thinly sliced, along with half a red onion, and added to the skillet. Once the onions and peppers were softened I pushed them to the side and added the shrimp. In the recipe it says to cook the chorizo and shrimp first and then add the onions and peppers, but there is no way shrimp should be in a pan for that long so I reversed the order. Once everything is cooked you add the juice of two limes and a few dashes of Tobasco sauce. Since we had so little of the chorizo it wasn't a dominant flavor. I think this would be much better if there had been more of it to go around.

I was all set to blog last night, but our Internet wasn't working. What is it with me and Internet connections lately? SP thought it might have had something to do with the power outage on Monday, but whatever it was it wasn't resolved until this afternoon. I spent the morning making food for our little 4th of July get together with my mother-in-law and her sister. I'll be back later tonight with photos. Happy 4th of July!!

Ricotta Pasta with Spinach

On Monday I was rooting around in the fridge looking for the ingredients I needed for Ricotta Pasta with Spinach (another Rachael Ray recipe from her 365: No Repeats cookbook) when the lights flickered and went off. Usually when this happens the power comes back on almost immediately but this time it didn't. It was a perfectly sunny day, hadn't rained since the previous week and we didn't hear any loud booms or anything, so we couldn't figure out what happened. We checked with our neighbors and they'd lost power too. Thankfully we have gas for cooking so I was still able to make dinner:


... which was rich, creamy and delicious. It is a very simple recipe - mix 2 cups ricotta, some Parm cheese, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Cook a pound of short-cut pasta according to the package directions and then add it to the bowl with the cheeses. Mix well. While the pasta is cooking, saute onions and garlic in a skillet until soft, then add two bags of baby spinach (the original recipe called for frozen spinach but I had these bags already so I used them) and 1/4 cup white wine. Cook until the spinach is wilted and then season it with salt, pepper and a dash of nutmeg. Add the spinach mixture to the pasta and cheeses. Toss to combine and then add some shredded basil (a generous amount, about 20 leaves).

We sat outside to eat and then took a long walk around the neighborhood. When we got home our neighbor on the other side told us the power had just come back on, which we were quite relieved to hear. All totalled, we lost power for over 2 hours.

Meme

Kate over at A Byootaful Life tagged me for a meme. :)

INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so:

Harmonia’s Cuppa Tea
Vaguetarian Tea Room
Sugar and Lard
Kate in the Kitchen
A Byootaful Life
A Taste of Home

Next, select four people to tag (it was originally 5 but I can only think of 4 people who might actually do this):

C Laz at Garnish with Prozac
Dani at The Average Cook
Leica at Le Fang Le Kwatsa
Jessy at Messy Jessy Musings

What were you doing 10 years ago?

Let's see....10 years ago I was 16. This was an interesting time in my life. I would have been going into my junior year of high school which means I hadn't started dating my first real boyfriend yet, but we were best friends and spent a lot of time talking on the phone. At this time of year I would have been vacationing with my parents up in Maine, doing a lot of reading and angsty teen stuff. I was an excellent angsty teen. :)

What were you doing 1 year ago?

A year ago SP and I were starting to think seriously about buying a house, saving money feverishly and thinking about where we wanted to settle down. I had been at my job almost a year at that point and was hoping for a promotion. Last year we went to Maine with my parents, but I think we went the week after July 4 so at this point I was probably working (boy, I don't miss the 24-hour news life!) and getting ready for our vacation.

Five snacks you enjoy:

1. Hummus and pita chips
2. Sliced apples and cheddar cheese
3. Cashews and peanuts
4. Peanut butter on toast
5. A bowl of cereal

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to:

I am SO not good at music questions. If I know the words chances are I have no clue who sings it or what it's called, so I'm just going to skip this one. :)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:

1. Pay off our house, cars, student loans and any other debt
2. Put money into our retirement fund
3. Plan a month-long trip to England
4. Donate to charity
5. Help my parents, if they needed it, and give enough money to my grandmother to make her comfortable.

Five bad habits:

1. Biting my lip. I've been better about it in the last 10 years or so, but when I was younger all the pictures of me had me biting my lip.
2. Leaving piles of stuff around the house. Drives SP absolutely insane.
3. Trying to get the cat to be a lap cat when he obviously doesn't want to be.

I know there are more...but I'm drawing a blank.

Five things you like doing:

1. Cooking
2. Walking/Running
3. Reading
4. Blogging
5. Sleeping :P

Five things you would never wear again:

1. Bangs teased into a high arch with hairspray
2. Leggings
3. Scrunchies
4. Jeans with the cuffs rolled and tucked
5.

Five favorite toys:

This is a totally bizarre question. I don't have toys anymore.

Burgers and Spicy Creamed Corn

If it weren't for the Spicy Creamed Corn I wouldn't have even bothered blogging about this meal. I woke up with a headache and was battling it all day, so while I made the corn dish and took a few bites of my burger, I wasn't really in the mood to eat let alone take decent photos.


SP had gotten 5 ears of corn at the market last week that needed to be used, so when I saw this recipe in Rachael Ray's 365: No Repeats cookbook I decided to give it a try. I really, really liked it. The grilled corn added a nice smokiness and the kick from the jalapenos was a welcome change from traditional creamed corn.

Spicy Creamed Corn

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 jalapeno peppers seeded and finely chopped (I left the seeds in one for more spice)
2 10 ounce boxes frozen corn kernels (I used 5 ears of fresh corn that I cooked on a grill for about 5 minutes until the kernels started to caramelize. I took the kernels off the cobs with a sharp knife)
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup fresh flat leaf parsley leaves
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

Heat a skillet over medium high heat with the olive oil and butter. Add the onions, jalapenos, bell peppers, chopped garlic, corn, salt, and pepper. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes or until the onions are tender. Sprinkle with the flour, and continue to cook for 1 minute. Whisk in the chicken stock and heavy cream - bring the corn up to simmer and cook until it is thick and creamy, about 5 minutes. Finish the corn with parsley and cilantro. Taste and adjust seasoning.


We also had burgers, but like I said I only had a few bites of mine. I took some aspirin and sat outside reading after dinner and my headache seems to have gone away.