Eating Dinner With My Family

This is a whole new way to imagine ground beef.  We have all seen hamburger steak in restaurants, but they are burgers sans a bun.  Not this!  As I sit here with my arteries clogging, (only saved from certain coronary by the red wine:), I still wish I could eat more.  The sauce was unbelievable. The token salad I served it with in no way made this dinner healthy; however, this is a worthy occasional indulgence.  It is from Julia Child's iconic cookbook, (click post title for a link to the book) and being French there is no lack of butter and cream.  For a starch, I made a half box of shells I had in the pantry and, since a stick of butter in the entree didn't seem like enough, (ahem) I made a compound butter.  I was flipping through my tome of sauces by James Peterson,  and Colbert Butter jumped off the page at me. (Yes, I am a fan of his!)  It made sense to make it too because it is maitre d' butter with the addition of a be...

Well this one will not be made again.  It wasn't horrible, but not really great.  I didn't really change it much.  I did add a bit more zucchini, and I didn't weigh the prosciutto, so it might have been a little less becasue it was really thinly sliced.  Other than that, I followed it to a t. I would have liked more prosciutto, more cheese and more veggies to the amount of pasta. My husband also suggested that the zucchini would have been better grated and thrown in at the end.  That way you would get some in every bite.  I think that would have saved the dish, but none of us wanted to make it a second time.  I put all of the meat and cheese on our four plates and still had half of the pasta leftover without any on it. (except for the cheese added during the cooking)  The cheese also seemed to clump up.  Maybe it was because I grated it on my microplane grater, but I love the light fluffy texture when you use it as a topping....

Well after last night's veritable orgy of fat, I was feeling like something light.  Being Wednesday, our soccer/ steak salad night, I thought even that sounds too heavy.  Thinking of the ingredients in our salad, I was trying to find substitutes that would feel less heavy.  Once I thought of feta for the blue cheese, I knew I wanted to do a Greek salad with chicken on it. I googled a Greek: salad, marinade and chicken.  I found a few different recipes. I found out that exactly what what I was thinking in terms of ingredients for the salad and the dressing was what the recipes called for.  I did get the marinade and the precise measurements for the dressing from food.com. I was quite pleased with the results.  Grilled Chicken Greek Salad Salad 4    thin chicken cutlets 8 c  of mixed greens 2    medium tomatoes chopped 1    cucumber,peeled, seeded and chopped 1/2    red pepper,seed...

OH MY!!  There aren't enough expletives to emphasize how much we were digging this sauce!  It is a Julia Child recipe I have been wanting to try, and I had leftover ham from last night's strata, so I figured I would try it out.  The sauce is to unbelievably amazing!  My husband raved about it so much and wanted to have it again, he said it would work with any meat.  While I agree, I think that the sauteed ham donated a lot of flavor to the sauce, and I don't think it would be exactly the same with another meat.  I served it with rice, spinach braised in ham stock, and sauteed mushrooms.  I used beef stock and the port, as they were what I had on hand.  It was an all round favorite. Sautéed Ham Slices—cream And Madiera Sauce 2 1/2    to 3 lbs of cooked ham sliced ¼ inch thick 2 T  butter 1 T  oil 3 T  flour 2 T  minced shallots or green onions 1 c  very good ham stock,white  or brown stock, ...

Well I had way to much good cheese left over after last night's pizza, so I decided to look for some recipes that use either Gouda or Fontina.  I find this one that uses Gouda.  Bonus, is that a stale baguette I happen to have will work in place of the bread in the recipe.  That is the only deviation i made from the recipe.  Not only was this really tasty, but it is an amazing way to use up bread and leftovers.  You can alter the ingredients however you want as long as you keep the bread to egg to milk ratio. Just an fyi here, I have seen these made with eggbeaters.  I think that would work, but cleaning up on them is a pain if you don't use extra butter to grease the pan, so don't do it for the calories;) Ham And Cheese Strata 8    large eggs 1 1/2 c  milk 1/2 t  salt 1/2 t  freshly ground pepper 4 c  Italian bread cubes (1 inch) 6    ounces Virginia ham,cut into 1/2-inch dice (...

Well, I had bought pizza dough for last night's leftovers, but realized I could use up the French bread instead, so tonight we are having some pizzas I have been wanting to try.  I have  to say they were pretty yummy. I thought I would not love the salad with  apples on the pizza,  but it was really delicious.  I did a few things differently.  I didn't make the dough for the Fontina one; I worked thyme into the dough I bought from the bakery.  I also crushed up the tomatoes in the Gouda pizza.  I would have been OK with whole, but my husband isn't a fan, so when they came out of the oven, I mushed them up a bit with a wooden spoon.  I also didn't make individual pizzas, just two big ones. (less time consuming) Oh and I used olive oil in place of the grapeseed.  I wasn't buying an expensive bottle of oil I don't have any uses for. Fontina, Prosciutto And Caramelized Onion Pizzas        ...

Well there are too many leftovers in the house, so I am making French bread pizzas.  I made a garlic, Parmesan cream sauce out of the oil, fat and garlic that was left in the pan after dinner was done last night.  I heated it in a small pan and added a tbsp or so of flour.  After I cooked the roux a bit, I added some whole milk until the sauce was the right consistency.  I wanted it a bit on the thick side.  I added about 3/4 cup of Parmesan and then when it melted, added salt and hot sauce (instead of pepper). Then I shredded sup some of the leftover chicken.  Built the pizzas with the sauce, chicken and mozzarella, and baked them in the oven at 350 degrees for about ten minutes, and then I put the broil on for just a minute or two to brown a bit on the top.  I also made one with some of the leftover butternut squash I had roasted.  I pureed that with some milk to thin it and topped it with the mozzarella and some of the left over beans.  I ...