Eating Dinner With My Family

In the pan it looked prettiest:) My daughter wanted pasta, I didn't and I didn't have any "pasta" dishes planned. I did, however, have this chicken Parmesan with pepperoni planned, and I had planned to have pasta as the starch. Even though I am not a huge fan of chicken, or pepperoni, it is totally something the boys would love.  I also try, with varying degrees of success, to vary our proteins across the week, so chicken must come up about 1/7th of the time.  It didn't photograph well, but it was pretty dang tasty.  I bought the thin cutlets so I wouldn't need to pound the chicken to 3/4" but I should have and it really should have been more like 1/2" to cook through in the amount of time stated.  I also found something I didn't do, process the panko to fine powder.  It amazes me how often I miss something when I read each recipe at least 10 times!  And I personally, bought the "sandwich" pepperoni from the deli counter, so it woul...

The boy and I really liked them.  My husband said they were good but not that great, but I think the fiasco he had cooking them on the grill colored his judgement.  You see, pesto is a good percentage of oil and when you put oil soaked burgers on a gas grill, the oil cooks out, and causes a big mess and a big fire!  So, he was a little annoyed with the burgers before he even tasted them.  He said I should warn any of you who might attempt the burgers (and I do recommend that you do:) most emphatically not to cook them on a grill but on the stove in a pan.  No, it wasn't a top 10 burger, but still good.  The boy ate 1 1/2 before we had finished our first, and that is saying something! Caprese Burgers   2 Cup basil leaves 1/4 Cup salted roasted almonds 1 garlic clove 1/2 Cup extra-virgin olive oil plus more for brushing 1/4 Cup grated Pecorino-Romano cheese Salt Freshly ground pepper 1 Lb ground beef chuck 1 Lb ground beef sirloin 8...

I was thinking of doing cheese enchiladas for meatless Monday. I had some tortillas, all I needed was a recipe for the red sauce. I spent at least an hour sifting through recipe searches on the computer before I gave up and went to bed. There seemed to be 2-3 different base recipes, and many involved lard or chicken stock. (Which I wanted to avoid to keep it meatless). There was one that I thought looked good and could work but "red chili powder" was in it. What the heck is that?  Cayenne?  I didn't think so and the Internet failed me. But I digress....  The next morning, Monday, I make a quick search of vegetarian enchiladas on Food and Wine and I thought this one sounded good and it totally cheats by making the enchilada sauce out of marinara!  The preparation of it wasn't difficult. The hardest part was mincing the onion and jalapeño. If it didn't require a 30 bake time, it would be pretty fast too. I did do some alterations. 1) I had puréed a can of chipotles ...

The war on food clutter was forgotten about until the fridge fired the first shot in our renewed conflict.  I am refusing to cook anything that isn't mostly using up stuff I have!  Not all have been great, but this one was!  I think you could use creamed spinach too, but the spinach from the eggs was amazing and as we only had 3 eating the recipe, we had some left.  I was worried when I took the pizza out that I had ruined it as the cream had returned to liquid, but it was great! White Spinach Pizza 1 lb pizza dough 1/2 cup of spinach and sauce from mollet eggs florentine 1/4 cup ricotta 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream 1/2 shallot thinly sliced Salt, pepper & garlic 3 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced thinly 4 oz Mozzarella, shredded  Put the pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 500 degrees. When the stone has been in the 500 degree oven about 15 minutes, start rolling out you dough to roughly a 18" circle (or to the size of your stone) Put the ric...

Well this one was kind of split.  The kids loved it and rated it highly.  My husband, who doesn't like white meat, said it was ok, and I agreed.  The meat was moist, and it looked pretty, but it didn't wow me.  We were worried that the fillings would ooze out and end up on the bottom of the grill rather than our plate, but the miracle of fresh mozzarella prevailed and it was melty but not runny so stayed put.  I did give myself some insurance in the form of soaked toothpicks that I used to hold the breasts together, and the breasts were pounded thin to help make sure they cooked through.  So, in the end, not deleted but not a repeater either.  (in retrospect, I should have taken a picture of it sliced, much prettier but you know what they say about hindsight:)    Grilled Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken Stuffed With Fresh Mozzarella & Basil 4 medium boneless skinless chicken breast halves Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 12...

Ok, tonight's pizza was an improv and not resounding success I had hoped.  It tasted good, but while the picture at the top of the post is showing the pizza in its best possible light, the entire pizza was a bit of a monstrosity. (the pizza in all it's grotesque glory can be seen at the end of the post)  Why?  Well, let me start at the beginning.  My son has a friend over tonight as we have an early date with a ropes & zip line course.  I always try to not suffer the little children to eat what is not friendly to most kids palates, and this particular friend likes things plain to boot, so I was making the boys a plain cheese pizza.  For the second, adult, pie, I decided to try and clean up some of the stuff I had floating around the fridge.  I decided to use up the rest of the ricotta from a lasagna I made recently.  Also because it was the grown up version, I decided to try making it flat bread thin.  That began my jo...

I had a get together, and  most were repeat recipes, but the one new one was a big hit.  I took little pieces of fresh mozzarella and grape tomatoes and put them on a skewer to make a caprese of sorts.  I personally don't like all the leafy bits of basil in the traditional caprese, so I made a garlic and basil infused oil to drizzle over the top.  Now WARNING!!!!  Garlic infused oils have an affinity for Botulism!!!  For a bit more on it, click here .  I will still sum up.  Make sure that all water is evaporated from the oil,  refrigerate and use within a week.  (I would half that just because I'm a little crazy about germs:)  I made the oil while I was prepping the rest of the menu and put it in the fridge to chill it a bit before using.  I also made a balsamic reduction.  The original recipe I used it for is my Steak Salad , and it is an all time family favorite! However I use this reduction in any recipe that...

I haven't had Thai Chicken Pizza in quite a while. I loved it then. I wasn't really a big fan of this recipe. It reminded me of that recipe I enjoyed so many years ago, but it just wasn't as good. It had a lot of the right flavors but not in the right proportions. The sauce was way too sweet, thick and rich. I even used much less than the recipe called for but it was too much. I cheated a bit and bought deli chicken tenders and the breading was good at absorbing and taming the sauce's overwhelming flavors.  I also discovered that for the first time in how long, I didn't have scallions, so I used thinly sliced onion.  It wasn't horrible, but I don't see us making this particular recipe in the future.  I have a different recipe for a Thai peanut sauce that I think would taste better.  My husband like it better than I did, so maybe I am being a little harsh. California Pizza Kitchen Thai Chicken Pizza Spicy peanut sauce   1/2 cup peanut butter 1/2...

Tonight's pizza is most definitely a favorite!  The  recipe was adapted from Alton Brown's grilled pizza three ways.   Our previous attempts at grilling pizza were a tad frustrating, so I played around with the recipe a bit and baked it in the oven.  I love Alton's recipes and he said this was his favorite pizza topping in the show I was watching, but I still was thinking about the sweet dates.  I keep saying I don't like sweet and savory, but it seems that that is really not true.  Everyone in the family adored this pizza. We would be eating and talking and all of a sudden someone would say man this really good or make the yummy sound!   Date and Prosciutto Pizza 1 lb pizza dough 7 ounces fresh mozzarella,cut  into 1/4-inch thick slices 1-2  teaspoons olive oil 1/2-ounce grated Parmesan 1 ounce prosciutto ham approximately 3 slices, coarsely chopped 4 whole dates,pitted and finely chopped 1t  fresh thyme leaves...