Weekend Recipes and a picture

Sorry for the delay in posting, things have been a little crazy with the holidays. Well, the rigatoni vodka was awesome. It was so awesome, in fact, that we ate it all before any pictures were taken! But basically what I did to make it was combine Giada and Nigella's recipes from Everyday Italian and Nigella Express, respectively, so how could it be bad?

Rigatoni with Vodka Tomato Sauce
1/2 pound rigatoni
1 cup chopped "moonblush" tomatoes
1/2 c. prepared spaghetti sauce (I used Prego that was in my fridge for DH to use)
2 generous splashes of vodka
1/2 tsp. salt (I don't like sweet sauces so I left out Nigella's suggestion of sugar)
1 sprig fresh parsley, torn
salt and pepper
4 oz marscapone
1 dash cream
parmesan



1. I chopped up the tomatoes and put them to marinate with the vodka, spaghetti sauce, salt and parsley. I checked my seasonings and actually tipped in a tiny splash more vodka.

2. I put salted water on to boil. When it was nicely rolling, I added 1/2 a box of rigatoni (which I recommend using because all the little turns leave plenty of places for the sauce to adhere).

3. When the pasta was done al dente, I drained it and returned it to the pot. Then as Nigella suggested, I melted 1/2 a container of marscapone cheese in the pasta. It coated it beautifully.

4. I added the sauce and stirred it around, admiring how the marscapone made it stick. Then I added the cream that Giada suggested. Stirred again. I put it in bowls and sprinkled with parm and parsley.

5. DH and I ate it in a flash, and felt nicely full without feeling heavy. My Dad (visiting for the evening) ate a serving happily, too. Then DH took the last bit to lunch. I will make it again SOON.



On Sunday we were exchanging Christmas gifts with family, so I made some mustard pork chops with broccolini for lunch after church. These were good, but I felt the sauce was too runny. It literally swamped the plate, and I barely used more than a tablespoon per pork chop.


Still, it was pretty in person. Basically, you cook the salted/peppered pork chops in olive oil for about eight minutes and then use the drippings to make the sauce, which features garlic, mustard and white wine. Hard to go wrong with that, and the pork chops got a beautiful color because I didn't move them around much and I was willing to clean my stove afterwards, so I just let the oil pop and fizzle.
For the broccolini, I steamed them, but I was not very happy with the result. They were overly cooked, I think, but they were also just bland, despite the fact that I put lemon juice and garlic in the steaming water. I will go back to pan-searing them next time.

Bowl Watching

Yesterday, I came home to a wonderful treat. My in-laws sent me Nigella Express as a late birthday gift. Of course, I immediately sat down and read the whole darn thing. Then I came up with four recipes that I needed to try immediately. I started by saving a pint of cherry tomatoes I was worried about and using them to make what Nigella calls "moonblush tomatoes." Then I made her goat cheese/tomatoes/mint salad. I added a little fresh basil, but my basic verdict is um, yum.
Then, since I was watching my college alma mater win their bowl game, I made some zucchini fries and dip for DH and I to eat while we watched. Now zucchini fries and I are working out our relationship. I have been trying to perfect these for a while now. Today, I cut the zucchini into eighths and dipped it in egg/milk, then dredged it in a mixture of cornmeal and flour with minced garlic, pepper, and salt in it. I baked them at 425 for roughly 18 minutes. They crisped up nicely, but some areas don't get wet, and I haven't yet figured out how to make that work. Anyway, I made a dill/mayo/lemon juice dipping sauce that was pretty delicious. And if you ignore the dust falling off the fries, they're yummy, but I'd like them to LOOK better. I will beat thee yet, zucchini fries! Ye shan't confound me forever.
Dinner tonight will be a vodka tomato sauce experiment... I'll let you know how it goes.

Red Salt

I had to attend a Christmas performance on Wednesday, so I indulged myself by trying a restaurant I've been eyeing for months, Red Salt in downtown Roswell. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed. The place is usually packed, even at 4 in the afternoon, so I was expecting great things. I was by myself, and felt conspicuous thanks to my server's obvious eye-rolling when he saw that I was eating solo. However, I overcame that, and tried a nice IPA. I could tell he was flustered when I asked him for his recommendations on the food-- however, he recovered nicely, in that he only recommended the most expensive things on the menu! It was hard not to notice that he basically read me the entree's menu. I ordered a pizza anyway. It sounded yummy, read about it here. I ordered the gastropub pizza, but overall i found it bland and overly expensive. I probably won't be returning, sadly.

Greek Fest (I wish I had my camera!)

Ok, I'm REALLY behind on my posting, because I made this last Sunday. Yes, as in five days ago. No pictures, because the camera is still MIA (I asked for a new one from DH for Christmas) but I made some truly delicious Greek-style pork chops and I wanted to share. This is one of those recipes I made up completely because I was craving Greek lemon potatoes and I needed an excuse to make them. Both the potatoes and pork chops were a complete success and I ate the leftovers with relish (and a little jealousy from co-workers).
Greek Pork Chops
1 package butterflied pork chops
salt and pepper
Salt and pepper the pork chops and lay them in a baking dish. Pre-heat the oven to 425 F (You'll need to have it that hot for the potatoes and do them first anyway)
Marinade:
1/2 c. olive oil
1 tsp. minced garlic (yep, I used the pre-minced, I'm so lazy)
1/8 c. lemon juice
1 bunch chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp. dried oregano
Mix the ingredients in a small bowl. Let it sit for five minutes while you chop the other veggies
4 roma tomatoes, quartered
1/2 red onion, sliced

Pour the marinade over the pork chops. Scatter the tomatoes and onions over the pork chops and around the dish. Place uncovered in the oven. It took mine twelve minutes to cook according to my meat thermometer. I pulled them out and let them rest for about five minutes while the potatoes finished crisping. They weren't dry, and they were really pretty, too.
Basically, I created and cooked the pork chops while the lemon potatoes were cooking in the oven, so these are really fast and would work with rice too if you didn't want to take the 40 minutes to make the potatoes. I also served a little tzatziki and pita with spinach. I use Sara Moulton's Lemon Potato recipe and they are PERFECT.
Definitely try them no matter what kind of Greek floats your boat. Opa!

Birthday Party

My birthday party, I am pleased to say, went off without a hitch. For the first time in memory, I did not overplan the menu, and I actually had 40 minutes to dress/prepare before my first guest walked in the door (EXACTLY on time) at 8! DH took photos of the food for me, but my camera got shuffled somewhere during the party and we haven't found it yet. When I find it in my underwear drawer next week, I'm going to be very relieved! At any rate, I divided the dining room into a savory/sweet side, which seemed to work well. On the savory side, I had some tzatziki from Whole Foods with breadsticks and homemade pita chips. I also baked up some of those Pillsbury Savorings in spinach/cheese (they aren't as flavorful as spanakopita, but they are easy, which I prefer to dealing with puff pastry. I also made pigs in a blanket with the help of crescent rolls and all-beef lil'smokies (DH filched those at a regular rate, but I made 1 1/2 packages so we still had plenty). However, the unqualified hit on the savory side was the red onion/blue cheese party dip. This is a recipe I tried at a house tour and ended up buying the book just to have. However, I've made it twice and made some modifications. For example, I cut the blue cheese with feta so it wouldn't be so overwhelmingly tart. I serve this with Granny smith apples and it always gets rave reviews. It's really pretty, too, so I will do my best to get the picture at some point!
Blue cheese/Red onion dip
1 large red onion, chopped
4 oz. crumbled blue cheese
4 oz. crumbled feta
1 clove minced garlic (or 2, if you're me)
1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped (Don't skip it, because it softens the flavor and makes the colors really pretty)
lemon juice from one lemon
fresh pepper

Mix all the ingredients except the pepper in a bowl. Turn it out into the serving dish and crack the pepper all over the top. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1/2 an hour, because the longer these flavors marry, the better. Serve with slices of tart apple and rye crackers.

On the sweet side, we had lots of Christmas cookies. They were all classics, though, (peanut butter blossoms, chocolate chip, and oatmeal chocolate chip) except that I made Martha Stewart's Earl Grey cookies, which I found on another blog. I wish I could tell you which one, but for some reason I didn't attribute it in my notes, which is weird, because I'm usually pretty careful about that. At any rate, these cookies were a little scary to me. I usually avoid cookies that are not drop and bake like the plague, but the flavor combo intrigued me so much that I took a chance. The dough was not that easy to handle, because everything was supposed to be ground up very small, and I do not own measuring spoons, so some of the ingredients were approximations. However, the results were very nice. After an hour in the freezer, I pulled them out, sliced the dough, and baked them (well, technically I overbaked them b/c DH distracted me with Jeopardy). They were nice and crumbly. Mostly they tasted like shortbread for the first couple seconds, and then you got a nice crunchy Earl Grey/orange-y taste. I liked them more than I expected to, and they were very pretty. However, I think I'm more likely to make chocolate chip if I'm going to put in the time to bake.
The party itself was really nice. Everyone brought gifts, which was completely unneccessary but really sweet. We played board games and talked, and I just really enjoyed myself. In fact, most people left around 1:30 in the morning! Whoops. :) Thanks for a great 25th, my friends!

Stuffed turkey

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do tonight. I am crazily shopping for a party on Friday to celebrate my 25th birthday, so when I was at the grocery store, I was looking for some inspiration. There in the new products, I picked up some new white wine and herb broth. I decided to take some turkey cutlets in my freezer and use up some of my leftover veggies.

So, after a little thought and work, Dinner Tonight:

Spinach-Mozzarella Stuffed Turkey Breast with White Wine Herb Pan Gravy

olive oil

1/2 cup spinach

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 sweet onion, chopped

2 turkey cutlets, thawed

salt and pepper

1/2 c. mozzarella, shredded

flour

1 egg, beaten

1/2 c. wine and herb broth

1/2 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp flour

1. First, pour olive oil around the pan. Add the onion. Cook until glassy. Add garlic and spinach. When the spinach wilts, pour the mixture into a bowl.

2. Lay out the turkey cutlets on a plate. Salt and pepper them. Put half the filling in the cutlet. Sprinkle with mozzarella. Roll up the cutlets and cover in egg. Dredge in flour.

3. Heat a little fresh olive oil in the original skillet. Place the turkey cutlets rolls, seam side down, in and brown thhem up. Once you brown up each side, pour in the broth and melt 1/4 tbsp butter around the cutlets. Cover with a small lid and simmer for eight minutes.

4. Pull out the turkey and plate it.

5. Make the gravy by whisking in a Tbsp. of flour and melting the remainder of the butter. Reduce until it looks like gravy. Pour over the turkey.

It was yummy! I served it with some leftover corn and freshly steamed broccoli.

Dinner

My birthday is coming up, but so are finals for grad school, so I decided to make DH a romantic dinner to compensate for the fact that I've been madly typing all day. I was watching Giada at Home while I edited this afternoon, and her shrimp penne looked so yummy that I rushed out to Whole Foods and got the shrimp. Here's a picture of the resulting pasta in the bowls which were a recent wedding gift, and which I adore. The pasta was YUMMY, but the red pepper got to me after a while, so I left it to hubby to have seconds and enjoyed a peanut butter cookie instead. I followed Giada's recipe precisely (in a half portion) except that I added a diced shallot in the oil before anything else. I've obviously never had it the way it was written, but I recommend this one. Go to Food Network.com to look at it as I don't want to break any copyrights by copying/pasting it.

It's a little blurry, sorry!

Greek Pizza

I became fascinated with a specific type of blog this week- the food blog. The fabulous pictures, the scrumptious recipes... I'm hooked. So I'm making my own (of course). DH (dearest hubby)and I have been married for almost six months, and we are very happy together. Most of my posts will be about food, but some may be about upcoming changes in our lives. We shall see.

Let's get started on the food, shall we? I am a dedicated amateur cook-- I suspect that DH married me in part for my lasagna rolls. :) Today, DH was supposed to take care of lunch, but he forgot, so I made a "Greek pizza"

The Greek pizza is not a particularly difficult recipe, but it was yummy!
Ingredients:
1 Greek-style pita
Tzatziki (Whole Foods sells a marvelous one with all their hummus)
red onion, sliced and halved
spinach, chopped
feta, crumbled

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Spread the tzatziki over the smooth back of the pita bread. Top with red onion and spinach. Crumble feta over the top. Place on a baking sheet and cook for ten-fifteen minutes. EAT!