Snow Sucks

The month of Februrary in Western Pa was definitely interesting. We got hit with two snow storms within a couple days of each other. We were literally snowed in, and it was not fun at all. Because of all of this snow I haven’t felt like doing anything, cooking, blogging, leaving my house, you name it I haven’t wanted to do it. I did manage to concoct something out of one of the storms.

In passing I had heard of something called Snow Cream. Apparently, in the past people have turned snow into a fun tasty treat. Since I had a plethora of snow right outside my door I figured why the hell not you know? I used Mr. Google to figure out how to do this and believe it or not it was pretty friggin’ simple! The only we wanted to do though before we made this stuff was get out of the house for a little bit. We decided that instead of using regular milk and vanilla extract (I’m not crazy about the vanilla that I buy) we would take a ride around, see what was open and pick up some chocolate milk.

So after we got home I sent my husband outside to grab a big bowl of snow. The directions said to put a bowl outside to collect freshly fallen snow, but really who wants to sit around and wait for snow to collect in a bowl? I surely didn’t and neither did anyone else so we just scooped some up in a tupperware mixing bowl. Once it was brought into the house I added a cup of sugar and mixed that into the snow and then dumped some chocolate milk over top of it until it reached a decent consistency.

The result was chocolaty snow! It was like eating an Italian ice only better because it was chocolate. We all agreed that not only was making snow cream fun but it was tasty as well. It was a great way to kind of escape the awful snow.

Mama’s Servin’ Up A Big ‘Ole Slice of FAIL! (AKA Caramel Cake)

I have always been pretty up front with my readers that when it comes to cooking, I am anything but perfect. I burn things, I forget ingredients, I mess up directions, hell, I even set things on fire. I do this so that I show that I am human and I do mess things up, to make the less experienced cooks feel better about themselves. This cake was one of those times where something was a complete, hands down epic fail.

I should have known from the get go that it was going to be the way it was. I was vaguely paying attention to one of Paula Deen’s cooking shows on Food Network and I saw her make this delicious looking caramel cake and I decided that I needed to make this cake. The next day, I pulled up the recipe, and started to gather my ingredients. It called for Self- Rising Flour but I only buy All Purpose because its easier and cheaper to make it in other flours like cake flour and self rising, I went to make my self rising flour (1 cup AP Flour, 1 1/4 tsp baking poweder, 1/8 tsp of salt per cup of SR flour you need just in case you were interested). I get my flour from my flour bin in the basement and I go to get my baking powder only to find that I don’t have enough to make 3 cups of SR flour. I didn’t feel like leaving the house at the time so I put the cake off until I could get to Costco later in the week to buy a huge container of baking powder so this would never happen again. Right there, I should have just shredded the recipe and said screw it. Did I? Nope. I am a glutton for punishment (and a glutton in general) and I planned on making it later.

Saturday rolls around and I had gone grocery shopping and we had made a trip to the Strip to buy spices and when I got home I started my cake. It finished and due to the time and my lack of ambition, I left it on the counter until Sunday when I would make the filling and the icing. I made the filling with no problems. It was just butter, brown sugar, and milk. I poked holes in my layers and poured the filling over top. As I was getting ready to make the frosting, I started reading reviews of this recipe online. They weren’t good. People were complaining about how the frosting wasn’t so good, it was gritty and the cake itself caved it. I realized that this was a caramel cake and there was no actual caramel involved in this cake at all. That’s when I got a brilliant idea.

Why couldn’t I make REAL caramel? It’s just sugar, butter and cream right? For anyone else this would be a great idea and a great learning opportunity, for me, not so much. Caramel is a considered a confection or candy. You have to get the sugar to certain temperature (the melting point of sugar) and you have to be very gentle with it or else it will not be good. Fudge is like this, and every time I make fudge, it’s always a painful experience because I mess it up. . .badly.

Anyways, I gather my ingredients and start melting my sugar down on the stove. I add the butter, swirl it around so I don’t mess up the crystal structure of the sugar, and I dump in the cream. Somewhere along the way, my kitchen fills up with smoke. Do I care? Nope, I’m more in awe of my pot full of seemingly delicious caramel. It was beautiful, just simply beautiful. It looked so much better than the high fructose corn shit caramel I get at the grocery store. Seriously, I was almost in tears looking at this stuff, and no it wasn’t because of the smoke that had built up in my kitchen (I still haven’t figured that one out). I transfer my caramel to a small bowl and I taste it. I about died. This caramel that looked so beautiful and delicious, tasted like a pile of burnt wood. I was pissed and was back at stage one. I had to start over and this time I was going to follow the damn recipe!

I clean out my pot and start over with what the recipe tells me to do. I put my sugar/butter/cream mixture into my kitchen aide and add my powdered sugar and vanilla and take it for a spin. It managed to get to a spreadable consistency and I taste it. UGH! It tasted JUST like my super strong Costco vanilla and the huge bag of powdered sugar, and that’s not a good thing. This sugar tastes stale and its a practically brand new bag! Grumbling, I start to frost my cake. This is something that is definitely NOT my forte. My husband and I took a cake decorating class when I was about 8 weeks pregnant with my son and we ended up quitting because not only was I awful at it and had no patience whatsoever, but because folding a parchment paper pastry bag almost brought me to tears. Honestly though, this cake looked like my two year old frosted it. No, I take that back, if it looked like my two year frosted it there would be icing all over my house and chunks of cake missing, so I guess it looked like a five year old frosted it. Yes, I am attaching a picture of this awful monstrosity just so you all see the cake, point, and laugh at it. I’m not ashamed : ) Yes, we actually cut into it and guess what? Not only was it dry as the Mohave, but it also caved in. You will see this in the picture below. Aside from the dryness, it was actually a tasty white cake and I plan on using that part of the recipe again and I am going to try to make it a little more moist.

Basically, what I learned here is that if I have that strong of a craving for a cake I need to either 1) stick to my Dark Chocolate Cake recipe that is tried and true or 2) cough up the bucks and go buy a damn cake. Below you will find the recipe if you would like to try to make this thing and try to make it work. If you make it work let me know, ok?

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Caramel Cake copied and pasted from http://www.foodnetwork.com

Cake:

* 1 cup butter, room temperature
* 2 cups granulated sugar
* 4 eggs
* 3 cups self-rising flour, sifted
* 1 cup milk
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Filling:

* 1/2 cup butter
* 1 cup packed light brown sugar
* 1/4 cup milk
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Frosting:

* 1/2 cup butter
* 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
* 1/3 cup heavy cream, or more if needed
* 1 (16-ounce) box confectioners’ sugar
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1 cup chopped nuts, optional

Cake:
Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 3 (9-inch) cake pans.

Using an electric mixer cream butter until fluffy. Add granulated sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla and continue to beat until just mixed.

Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 4 inches above counter dropping it flat onto counter. Do this several times to release air bubbles and assure you of a more level cake. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Filling:

While cake is baking, in a saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar, and milk. Cook and stir over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Remove cake layers from oven and allow cake to remain in pans as you prepare to stack and fill. Remove first layer and invert onto cake plate. Pierce cake layer with a toothpick over entire surface. Spread 1/3 of filling mixture on cake layer. Top with second layer, repeat process. Top with last layer and repeat process again.

*Cook’s Note: As you stack layers together, stick them with toothpicks to prevent cake from shifting.

Frosting:

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and stir in brown sugar and cream. Bring to a boil, and transfer to a mixing bowl. Add confectioners’ sugar and vanilla. Beat with a handheld electric mixer until it reaches a spreading consistency. At this time it may be necessary to add a tablespoon of heavy cream, or more, if frosting gets too thick. Be sure to add cream in small amounts because you can always “add to”, but you can’t take away. Frost cake and sprinkle top with chopped nuts, if desired

Mmmm Chilli!

Probably one of the best regional foods that I have ever come in contact with is Cincinnati Chilli. I first became acquainted with Cincinnati Chilli in 2006 when my husband and I went to visit my cousin Jennie who lives very close to Cincinnati. There are many places in that area to get this chilli Gold Star and Skyline are two of the more popular places. We ended up getting our Chili from a place called Dixie Chilli.

What’s so special about this chilli? Chilli is chilli, right? WRONG! Cincinnati chilli is very different from the chilli that I was raised on, which was a red chilli with onions and green peppers and was generally spicy. Cincinnati is a brown chilli that is spicy but not hot spicy if that makes sense. The spices used in this stuff is more aromatic (think cinnamon and allspice). But that’s not all, there’s an entire system to this stuff. You can have it plain or with beans but thats boring. There’s a three way which is the chilli on top of a bed of spaghetti all under a mountain of cheddar cheese, a four way is the three way with either beans or onions, the five way is a three way with beans and onions and the six way is the whole kitchen sink with some chopped garlic. It is all served on a cute little oval plate and a pack of oyster crackers.

Now, don’t sit there and wrinkle up your nose and tell me that sounds disgusting. It’s not I promise! We seriously crave this stuff. We crave it so much that my cousin and her husband Brian actually sent us a case of the Dixie Chilli in cans for Christmas. My dinner adventures actually involves these cans of chilli.

When I was making out my weekly menu my husband said “Ohh! Let’s have some of that Dixie Chilli!!” Now, a lot of times in my house the terms “Cincinnati Chilli” and “Dixie Chilli” are interchangable, remember that. Anyways, Tuesday, 4:30pm rolls around and I started the chilli. I’m in my kitchen in a zen-like state happily cooking, and anticipating gobbling up some chilli for dinner and stoked that I was using my new cast iron dutch oven that was a Christmas Gift from my aunt. I wasn’t really paying attention and my recipe calls for cocoa powder (for color! Don’t even wrinkle your nose!) and I reached into my cabinet and pull out the can. I put in my cocoa and it was too late when I realized that I had grabbed the Special Dark cocoa powder instead of the regular. My chilli, looked like friggin’ sewage, I couldn’t believe it. Of course as I’m realizing this, guess who walks in the door? My husband.

I’m pretty sure the exchange between us went like this:

Husband: What in the hell are you doing?

Me: Making Cincinnati Chilli like you wanted.

Husband: Um why didn’t you just open a few cans? Why did you make everything so hard on yourself?

Me: Uhhhh. . .

Yes folks, I screwed up. I completely forgot about those precious cans in my pantry and I made myself a shit-ton of work. Had I just heated up the cans of chilli, all I would have had to do is boil a pot of water for spaghetti and all I would have had to wash up after dinner was the big pot, three bowls, two forks, two spoons, two drinking glasses, and one sippy cup. Regardless, we had an awesome dinner and I decided that I would share the recipe for my chilli since I have had many folks ask me for the recipe. I challenge all of you to make this and then you let me know what you think!

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1 large onion chopped
1 pound extra-lean ground beef
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon red (cayenne) pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa or 1/2 ounce grated unsweetened chocolate
1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 (16-ounce) package uncooked dried spaghetti pasta
Toppings (see below)

In a large frying pan over medium-high heat, saute onion, ground beef, garlic, and chili powder until ground beef is slightly cooked. Add allspice, cinnamon, cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, unsweetened cocoa or chocolate, tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, cider vinegar, and water. Reduce heat to low and simmer, uncovered, 1 1/2 hours. Remove from heat.

Pittsburgh’s Best Kept Secret, Cookbooks, and Cherry Chicken

On the 14th my wonderful husband and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary, as a treat to ourselves we went to dinner this weekend at La Tavola on Mount Washington in Pittsburgh which happens to be Pittsburgh’s best kept secret. When a lot of locals think of Mt. Washington, they immediately think Le Mont and like which isn’t a bad thing, but folks also think of multiple dollar signs. La Tavola is actually very nicely priced, about as much as you would spend for some dishes at the Olive Garden, but the food is homemade. If you are stumped for a nice place to eat in the Pittsburgh area, be sure to check it out. Make things easy for yourself though, and make a reservation and don’t do it the day before. The restaurant is on the smaller side and tends to get packed.

Cookbooks. The past two weekends, I have stopped by the local Barnes and Noble and picked up two cookbooks. One is called “Fresh From The Central Market” Cookbook, which is a collection of recipes from people who have stands at The Central Market in Lancaster, Pa. According too the book, The Central Market is the oldest Farmer’s Market in the Country. I thought that was pretty cool and add that to some of the recipes it contains, and I thought it was a good choice. The second book I picked up is a Taste of Home cookbook and it deals with recipes you would make for a church supper. I happen to like Taste of Home magazine, all of the recipes are submitted by readers, so they have been tested by home cooks like myself, and not some test kitchen somewhere. Instead of having a bunch of chef’s in white coats deciding if a recipe is good or not, you have a regular family testing it. Plus, most of these types of recipes have ingredients that aren’t off the wall and are readily available.

On Sunday, I decided that I was going to try out a recipe from the Central Market Book that really jumped out at me. This recipe was cherry chicken. I absolutely love cherries and anything cherry flavored and though that it sounded really good. My husband had other ideas. He’s not a fan of cherries and needless to say, was less than thrilled at the prospect of eating chicken that tastes like cherries and he was routing for pizza on Sunday night.

The whole cooking process of this chicken was pretty uneventful. No fires, no cuts, no huge catastrophes, no children or animals under foot. It was actually one of the more calm cooking experiences that I have had lately. I was very surprised though, by the ingredients in this recipe and how it took shape. First, it called for a can of bing cherries in heavy syrup, canned cherries in syrup is NOT the same thing as cherry pie filling. Cherry pie filling was what immediately came to mind when I first read the recipe but heavy syrup is different than cherry pie syrup. Heavy Syrup = sugar and water. Because of this, the syrup was not cherry flavored and this leads me to my next surprise in the ingredients: orange juice and lemon juice. These two ingredients took over the flavor profile of this dish. Instead of this dish tasting like a cherry pie, it was actually kind of citrusy.

The verdict: A sweet and tangy chicken dish that completely surprised my husband and myself. It reminded me of a cross of chinese sweet and sour chicken and bbq chicken. What was even better is that it was so friggin’ easy to make! All I had to do mix up the sauce, dump it on the chicken, and every 20 minutes or so, spoon the sauce over the chicken. Within an hour or so you have a great chicken dinner, and all you have to do is serve it with your choice of veggie and side. I served this with parmesan noodle-roni, corn bread and a baby corn mixed veggie steam pack.

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Cherry Chicken

one chicken cut up (I used a pack of thighs)
1 can of bing cherries in heavy syrup
1tsp dry mustard
2tbsp corn starch
1/2 cup brown sugar packed
juice of 1 fresh lemon
orange juice added to lemon juice to make 1/2 cup of juice

Preheat oven to 375. Arrange chicken pieces in greased 9 x 13 baking dish. Drain cherries, reserving liquid in saucepan. Add dry mustard, corn starch, brown sugar, and lemon and orange juice to cherry juice in saucepan. Heat until thicken stirring constantly. Pour the thickened liquid over chicken pieces and arrange the cherries around the pieces of chicken. Bake uncovered for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until chicken is tender. Baste the meat with juices every 20 minutes or so.

Fajitas and Guacamole, ole!

I just love the food network. They have some of the coolest shows on there. One of which happens to be Throw Down With Bobby Flay. Bobby Flay is one of those people that can spark many emotions because of his little victory dance on the cutting board on Iron Chef. Many say that he’s arrogant and I could see that, it would be very easy to be arrogant while having a million and one cooking shows, restaurants out the wazoo (including one in the Bahamas), and all those cookbooks. I’m not giving him that as an excuse though. What makes me think that he’s not that bad is that he does Throw Down. The premise of the show is that he goes up against someone who cooks something awesome, he puts his own twist on it, and goes head to head with this person and there is a blind taste test and a winner is crowned. Sometimes Flay wins, sometimes he loses. To me, I think it takes a lot of balls for him to go up against these folks, he has a reputation to up hold and he could easily lose against Billy Bob, the best pickled egg maker of Western Pa. What really makes me think that Bobby Flay isn’t such a douche, is that he has actually said that he feels awful when he beats someone that he is throwing down against.

I was watching Throw Down a couple weekends ago, and Bobby was going to Head to Head with Father Leo Patalinghug in a steak fajita throw down. As a Catholic myself, this one caught my eye. It was nice to see a young priest, usually when one thinks Catholic Priest they think of a pious old man. What was even cooler about Father Leo, is that he has started an organization called Grace Before Meals which is all about strengthening families by sharing meals. I will link to his organization so you all can check it out. His fajita recipe looked amazing, and I decided then and there that I HAD to make fajita’s very soon.

I ended up making them last night. I was unable to snag Father Leo’s fajita recipe because he’s having a cookbook containing that recipe published and he was unable to post it on his website. For my recipe I consulted food network’s website and found one that sounded good that was written by Tyler Florence. I also managed to get my husbad to make some guacamole. Seriously, my husband makes the best guacamole. By guacamole I mean real guacamole, not the stuff in a can or jar, and I DO NOT mean that green sour cream slop they try to pass off as guacamole at Taco Bell. Real guacamole consists of avocado, fresh lime juice, finely chopped red onion, finely chopped jalapeno, finely chopped cilantro, and salt. Don’t sit there and wrinkle your nose at it without trying it first! Don’t let the fact that it’s green and has onions in it scare you. Avocados have a very mild flavor so most of what you taste is lime and salt. Plus they are extremely good for you! Vitamin E is your friend remember that, your hair and skin will thank you!

Sunday was the day that I was originally going to make my fajita’s, nature threw a monkey wrench into that plan because my avocados weren’t ripe and I wasn’t going to even try to eat these fajita’s without it because I was looking forward to the guac as well. Like I said in my last entry, I stuffed my avocados into a bag and let them sit for another day. While I made my cajun chicken and shells, I tossed together my marinade which consisted of: the juice of one orange, the juice of two limes, olive oil, salt, cumin, garlic, cilantro, and three chipotle peppers in adobe sauce. I ran my immersion blender through it and dumped it over my flank steak which I had put into freezer bag. That mixture went into the fridge until yesterday.

Yesterday rolls around and its about 5pm which is the time my husband gets off work. I figure he’s going to be home soon so I waited before I started dinner. Around 5:30 (the time he usually walks in the door) I start cutting up my peppers, the phone rings and its husband. He was just leaving work, which was a good thing because I realized that I had a few tiny onions and it wasn’t going to cut it for these fajitas. He stops at the grocery store and gets me some onions and by the time he gets home it’s a little after five. Once he gets home and settled he decides that he needs to go outside and salt our driveway because he almost slipped and fell on the ice that has built up from this crazy snowfall we’ve had the past week or so. I mention that he was going to make some guacamole and he said that he would do it and he tells me that he won’t do it at that second because the drive way needed his attention. I decided that even though I don’t usually do the guacamole thing I would do it because why should my husband have to work all day, come home to salt the drive way, iron his work clothes (which he did somewhere in this circus) and then have to help make dinner?

I will admit that I was nervous. I never make this and I was afraid I was going to mess it up. So here I am, mushing up avocados, lime juice, salt, onions and jalapenos, feeling stressed. I go to taste this stuff and it’s off and I’m not sure why. I realized the reason why the flavor was off was because I forgot to add the cilantro. I quickly chop some up and add it to the guacamole and it was good. I then lit the store and started to saute my peppers and onions and then I started my grill/griddle/panini press to cook the steak.

I get the steak on and I follow Father Leo’s 7-7-7 technique (7 minutes each side and 7 minutes to let the meat rest). By the time the second 7 minutes was up, I left it there because to the touch, the meat didn’t feel cooked enough because it was on the thick side. It was about 20 minutes to 8 and I took the steak off and let it rest and I let it rest a little longer. I go to cut into it and its still pink in the middle. Now, that’s not an issue to me. I like my steak pink on the inside, but husband does not so back on the grill it went. By this time it was almost 8pm and all I wanted to do is retreat to the corner and just gnaw on this steak like a friggin’ animal because I was that hungry. I took it off let it rest and cut into it. It was still a little pink but it was almost 8:30 and I hate eating late.

I must say though, these fajita’s were worth the wait. The marinade made the steak taste wonderful. The chipotle peppers gave them a really nice smokey and acidic flavor. The guacamole? Perfect! We were able to stuff these fajitas and that was a good thing since I forgot to make a side dish in all of the action going on in my kitchen. . .oops!

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Steak Fajita Marinade c/o Tyler Florence

# 1 orange, juiced
# 2 limes, juiced
# 4 tablespoons olive oil
# 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
# 3 chipolte chiles, in adobo sauce
# 3 tablespoon roughly chopped fresh cilantro leaves
# 1 teaspoon ground cumin
# 1 teaspoon salt

Cajun Chicken and Shells

This was actually planned for later in the week rather than Sunday. Sunday, I was going to make steak fajitas with homemade guacamole and I was actually salivating at the idea of that. Unfortunately, my avocados weren’t ripe yet, so they ended up being stuffed into a grocery bag to ripen for another day.

Like I had said, I had this planned in advance, I had a craving for this stuff since I hadn’t made it in a long time. I actually had to go dig for this recipe and buy dig I mean, I had to dig through my mom’s recipe box *cue the dun dun dun! music, for reals*. Digging through my mom’s recipe box is kind of like taking a hike through the woods or rock climbing or something. My point is, you never know what you’re going to find. My mother was a busy working mom who actually detested cooking. She hated it so much that during the week we would probably eat pizza twice and spaghetti twice, true friggin’ story. She did try though, which makes her recipe box kind of daunting because its full of things she tore out because it sounded good, easy, or both. I don’t mean specific things, some are pretty specific, like recipes that she sent away for from Mr. Food or recipes that were in ads for certain products. Most, however, a pages ripped out from magazines and there are multiple recipes on it so you don’t know which recipe she wanted exactly, or things scrawled on napkins.

I had tried to do a search for this recipe online since that’s where found it, get this, almost 10 years ago! Unfortunately, I was unable to find it, probably because I’m not that patient. I had originally made this recipe when I was 17 years old. When I was in high school French Club and Student Art League would sponsor a Mardi Gras celebration every year (does anyone know if they still do this??). Since I was in French Club I was pretty heavily immersed in this, in fact, I looked forward to it. It was held in the evening on Mardi Gras and there would be French/Creole/ Cajun food, you could dress up, we would crown Mardi Gras King and Queen, and it was such a great time. Even as a teenager I was all about cooking for this thing. I would spend weeks trying to figure out what I was going to make. The first year it was held I actually made jambalaya and it went over very well. If you have ever made jambalaya you know that sometimes you need patience to pull it off. I do not possess this virtue and every time after the first time I made it, it came out bad. Instead of making a huge fool of myself in front of my peers (I already was not popular), I chose to find something else to make.

I came across this recipe called “Char’s Chicken and Shells” and it consisted of chicken cooked in cajun seasoning and garlic butter, shell pasta, a sweet tomato sauce, and cheese. All of the things I hold near and dear to my heart. Now, I’m from Western Pennsylvania, way far away from New Orleans. I honestly, had no idea (and still have no idea) if it really was cajun, it said it was cajun so dammit, it was! Char could have been born and raised in Minnesota for all I know and just threw this together once night out of sheer desperation. Needless to say, I made this, and it was a huge
success, every bit of it was gone and I was happy. It was also a huge success when I made it Sunday.

———–
Char’s Cajun Chicken and Shells

1lb of pasta shells
2 cans of Hunt’s Spaghetti Sauce with Meat
1 c sugar
1 bell pepper chopped
2 tbsp minced garlic
Tony’s Cajun Seasoning (to taste)
garlic butter (you can just use butter sprinkled with garlic powder)
American or Monterey Jack Cheese
boneless chicken breasts

Coat chicken with garlic butter and sprinkle with cajun seasoning on both sides. Bake at 350 for one hour in large rectangular baking dish. Meanwhile, saute veggies til tender, add sauce and sugar. Simmer about 20 minutes.

When Chicken is done sprinkle a little cheese over them, then spread cooked shells on top. Sprinkle more cheese over shells. Pour sauce over shells and allow it to sink in to the bottom. Sprinkle with more cheese and bake an additional 20 minutes or so till bubbly.

Cream Sauce = EPIC FAIL! (but it tasted good!)

Every once in a while you have a meal that just doesn’t start as you would like or end as you like. Dinner for me last night, was both scenarios. I make my weekly menu out a week ahead of time and one of the recipes I was looking forward to in particular was this chicken fettuccine in a lemon cream sauce. I love pasta, it’s easy, it tastes good, it’s versatile, and to me, when its in a nice cream sauce it’s classy!

I’ve started prepping before I cook and it’s been making things easier. Instead of me getting all flustered and worrying about burning whats on the stove while trying to get stuff together, I have it all on hand and I can dump it in when I need it. While, glancing at my recipe I saw that I needed white wine. Yeah, didn’t have that. I had just about everything but white wine. I figured that was no big deal, it was needed to make an easy shallot/garlic reduction I could just use chicken broth. I get further down into the recipe and I saw that the recipe called for fresh parsley. Uh oh. I was about 98% percent sure that I didn’t pick any up at the store. I rummaged through my crisper drawer anyways and found that I was right and I did not pick up any at the store. I decided that some frozen peas would suffice. I know the parsley is there more for the flavor and not the color but I thought the peas would add a nice green color.

I cooked the pasta first, that was easy enough. Once it was drained into the strainer I decided to tackle this cream sauce. I’ve been making my own alfredo sauce from scratch for years and I knew this lemon cream sauce would be a breeze. So I dump so olive oil into the pot and start cooking my onions and shallots. Immediately, panic starts to set in. If you remember (or you might not if you’re new here) when I started this blog, I had just gotten a new gas range because oven on the old one decided to crap out on me. I was so in love with this range because it had a nice griddle in the middle of the range that could also be converted into two other burners. Well, as nice as that is, sometimes the burners are a bit temperamental. It can take a VERY long time for them to heat up, but when they do heat up, boy do they ever! I’m always soaking pots and pans because they get stuff burnt on to them on the lowest setting. It’s irritating and since I was looking forward to this dish, I was NOT going to let this happen to me. The last thing I needed was my shallots and garlic burning. Burnt garlic tastes AWFUL!

There I was though, stressing out about the garlic, and I dump in some chicken broth (in place of the white wine) and wait for it to cook down. I stand there stirring it like crazy so the damn garlic doesn’t burn, I was so nervous I swore I could see the bits of garlic getting brown, I was never more happy when the broth cooked out my liking. I could then dump in a pint of heavy cream and a pint of chicken broth. The instructions said to cook until the sauce thickened. Normally, when I make alfredo, it doesn’t take too long. So once the period it usually takes for it to thicken passed. I was nervous, but I picked up my book and went and sat down on the little step in my kitchen. No sooner do I sit down, when my son comes into the kitchen, and he’s hungry. He gets into the fridge and pulls out a yogurt and brings it to me. I tell him no because dinner will be soon, and make him put it back. He then brings me a whole pack of cheese. I tell him no and make him put that back. He comes back over with an entire bunch of bananas. I tell him no once again, take the bananas from him and tell him to go see daddy. He starts to go back to the living room.

I check my sauce. It hadn’t tightened up at all. A little irritated, I shrug it off to it not being hot enough, so I grab my book and sit down again. In comes my son again. He decides to grab my spoon and I try to get it off of him and he throws it. Wonderful. I check the sauce again and it’s STILL not tightened up. I decide to get all alfredo on it and dump in some parmesan cheese (this was NOT in the recipe). I mix it up and I think that it’s thickening up a tad so I dump in the chicken, lemon juice and lemon zest. I figured that maybe that would help it along? I turn around to find my son up to his elbow in a glass of water that I had poured myself earlier. I tell him no, take it off of him and tell him to go back to the living room to see daddy. I put the cup on the counter and I start getting together silverware and plates so I could set the table. I take the silverware out into the dining room and I hear and thud from the kitchen. I come around the corner and theres my son, standing on the stoop between where I cook in the kitchen and the eat in part of the kitchen, the cup my water was in was on its side and theres water dripping down the stoop. I took a deep breath, yelled for my husband to come get ready for dinner, and I walked back over to my sauce that STILL hadn’t tightened up enough. I was tired, irritated, and hungry and do you what I said? I said “SCREW IT!” and I dumped in the pasta and the peas. I mixed it together and served it, it looked like milk soup with pasta and some peas and chicken thrown in but I didn’t care. I served it to the three of us and you know what? Even though something went horribly wrong with this recipe, it tasted absolutely fantastic!

I will be making this recipe again in the future, I am going to play with it though because the sauce should not have been as thin as it was. I’m thinking that there might have been a typo in the recipe, because 2 cups of cream and 2 cups of chicken brother seems a bit excessive. Be sure to stay tuned!

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Fettucine With Chicken and Lemon Cream Sauce

1 pound boneless skinless chicken meat
2 tbsp olive oil
1 pound fettucine noodles
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 small shallot minced
1/2 c dry white wine (or chicken broth)
2 cups chicken broth (beware of this!!)
2 cups heavy cream
1/2 bunch of parsley chopped (I dumped in an unknown amount of frozen green peas)
juice and grated peel of one lemon

Prepare the pasta according to directions on box.

In large saute pan, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil over medium high heat. Add garlic and shallots taking care not to brown (and stress yourself out if you’re me LOL!). Add wine and cook until reduced by half. Add chicken broth and cream, simmer over medium high heat, stirring occasionally until the sauce starts to thicken.

Add chicken, parsley lemon juice, and grated peel. Combine with pasta serve with Parmesan.

The Wayward One Returns

I realize that it has been a super long time since I have updated this thing. It’s been so long, and I’m so ashamed that I haven’t even bothered to go back and see when my last update was.

I will admit that I have been going through some stuff in my personal life (none of it bad) and I really have been in a cooking and eating slump. We all go through it and I think its normal. At least, in my eyes its normal. One of my Resolutions for 2010 was to read more and the first book that I finished for 2010 was none other than Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. That book has helped lift the fog that has been lingering over my head and I have seemingly got my cooking groove back and I have resparked my interest in this blog (as well as an email from a friend who asked about this blog.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I know that I did. I made a kick ass orange chipotle glazed spiral sliced ham for Christmas Eve courtesy of Aaron McCargo Jr (aka Big Daddy on Foodnetwork). I also was given a cast iron dutch oven by my favorite Aunt for Christmas as well as a Waring Pro bar blender (in red, my favorite color) from my wonderful husband. You can definitely say that I have been itching to do some real balls to the wall cooking.

During my holiday time, I did a lot of tv watching because seriously, it’s been snowing practically non stop here in Western Pa and its been freezing cold as well. Who wants to go out in weather like this??? I sure as hell don’t. A new show ended up catching my eye on food network, its called Worst Cooks In America. It stars Anne Burrell (she is/was Mario Batli’s sous chef on Iron Chef America) and Chef Beau MacMillian (he’s I guess a restaurant chef?) and its basically a cooking boot camp with folks who cannot cook whatsoever. It’s one of those shows that’s a pure train wreck. These contestants are awful, and they’re awful to the point where you want to say that it’s all act, but really, you make up shit like this and that made me really sad. Two of the contestants managed to bungle canned soup. How in the hell do you do that?!? One chick made three cheese mac n cheese with cheddar cheese, cottage cheese (yes, you read that correctly) and smoked Gouda and the cheese were only partially melted. The one guy…crikey. You could tell he was product of his mommy doing everything for him and coming from a period where he was told that it doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you try your best and you’re creative, that’s all that matters. Why? Because the challenge was to replicate the chef’s dish exactly and this clown decided that he was going to use the Nori paper to decorate the outside of the bowl rather than put it in the soup like the chef did.

After I got over the initial shock over how awful these people where at cooking, the show actually started to irritate me. Only a few contestants seemed ashamed by their lack of cooking skills, and the rest acted like it was amusing and cute. No wonder Anne Burrell was talking to her team like they were a bunch of 4 year olds, she was as irritated as I was! I think I’ve said in previous entries, not knowing how to cook should be a source of embarrassment. You need food to live and if you don’t know how to prepare yourself or your family a meal, you fail. No question about it, you fail because you cannot take of yourself. Part of me wanted to make up excuses for these folks such as ‘Ohhh well…maybe they didn’t have anyone to teach them, they didn’t take home ec etc etc’. That’s BS right there because nobody ever taught me how to cook, I taught myself. My mother hated to cook and she flat out told me in high school that I was not allowed to take any of the practical classes like Home Ec and Shop, because it was my job to take AP and Honor’s classes so I could go to college. Many could say that with the Women’s Movement of the 60’s and 70’s could have led to stuff like that because more women are working outside of the home and the general attitude of equality between the sexes has gotten more women out of the kitchen. To me both of these theories are complete and utter BS. Why? Because really, all you need when it comes to learning how to cook is how to read.

That said, I am dedicating 2010 to helping everyone to improve their cooking skills. Here’s to a delicious 2010 everyone!

The Best Pasta Dish EVER!

I’m a pasta girl. I would eat it every meal if I could and never get bored. The only thing about pasta though is you can only get so creative with it. I have tossed every veggie known to man in my pasta, I’ve made home made alfredo sauce(which it to die for BTW), home made red sauce, I’ve added different proteins, but the only thing I hadn’t done until yesterday was make chicken carbonara.

I am NOT a fan of bacon. Actually, I’m not a huge fan of any breakfast meat except for scrapple, but thats a different entry 🙂 I just never understood the point of eating the stuff since its 95% fat. I also didn’t like the flavor, which I am learning now is sometimes an acquired taste. Anyways, while making up my menu for this week I was searching for something different for dinner. I feel that sometimes I’m making the same thing every week and it gets boring. Normally, I wouldn’t make something this rich during the week because of my weight loss efforts. Lo and behold though, I found this recipe in my Comfort Classics Cookbook by Weight Watchers. I don’t think that its exactly like the original though. Yes, there is an egg in this recipe, the hot pasta and the hot pan you pour it into cooks it.

Anways…this stuff was awesome. Much better than I thought it would be. It was smokey and creamy and bacony and just all together wonderful.

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Chicken Carbonara

6 ounces pasta
3/4 cup fat free milk
1/3 cup Parmesan Cheese
1 large egg lightly beaten
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
4 slices of center cut bacon
1 small onion chopped
1 garlic clove minced
1 cup cooked chicken breast chopped.

Cook the pasta according to package directions. Drain and keep warm. Meanwhile, whisk the milk, cheese, egg, salt and pepper in a bowl until blended.

Cook the bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium high heat stirring occasionally until bacon begins to brown. Add the onion and garlic and cook until brown. Add the chicken and cook until heated through. Reduce the heat to a medium low, add the pasta and the milk mixture. Cook, tossing until the sauce is thickened and creamy.

chicken carbonara

Pasta Salad

I’ve really hit a wall lately when it comes to eating lunch. Usually I one of two things: English muffin pizzas or a veggie burger on an English muffin. Maybe, if I’m lucky and ambitious, I will go to subway. I love me some English Muffin pizzas but seriously, they can get boring. When what you are eating gets boring, you tend to eat whatever you can find to shake things up. In my case, this usually spells disaster because boredom usually leads to binging. Because of the tendency to binge, I have to have strict guidelines when it comes to lunch because I want to be able to eat a decent dinner. I strive to eat something filling that is below 6 Weight Watchers Points this is sometimes not easy to do because a lot of those healthy frozen meals tend to be between 6 to 8 points.

I recently bought a Weight Watchers cookbook that has healthy takes on traditional not good for you comfort food. I found this recipe for pasta salad. Pasta salad is one of those things that I hold near and dear. Any cookout I go to I immediately gravitate towards the pasta salad and/or macaroni salad, this is because no two people make the same kind of pasta or macaroni salad. My Aunt Marlene, just happens to make the best in the entire world. Her salad is the proverbial yard stick that I use to see how everyone else’s pasta salad measures up. She makes hers with rotini pasta, cubed mozzarella cheese, chunks of pepperoni, tons of Italian salad dressing, and salad supreme to taste. It is the best. Though, I wouldn’t want to know how many Weight Watchers Points that stuff is. It’s probably one of those things where the world is better off if the caloric information goes unsaid.

The recipe I found has mozzarella and cherry tomatoes in it. I, not being an avid fan of tomatoes decided to tweak this recipe. I threw in a jar of roasted red peppers because I love them and I’m still getting that red color. Also, instead of using an oily salad dressing you make your own flavorful dressing out of lemon juice, lemon zest (the yellow part of the lemon), olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, and fresh basil. The result is a vibrant, tasty pasta salad that not only tastes good but looks like it should be served to you at either a posh Italian restaurant or one of those hella expensive spa resorts. The best part? If this is made with cherry tomatoes its only 142 calories per 3/4 cup serving! How wonderful is that?

I realize that a lot of the things that I post on here are Weight Watchers recipes. Weight Watchers to me, is one of the best things to ever come around. I have lost 56 pounds since having my son in September of 2007 and I owe it all to Weight Watchers. They teach you how to eat correctly and how to adopt a healthy lifestyle with out having to make huge sacrifices. I’m not someone who is being paid to endorse them, but if you are wanting to lose weight I urge you to go check out a meeting. I have a link to Weight Watcher’s in the link section of this blog be sure to check it out they have a function to find a meeting near you and you see what kind of specials they are running.

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Pasta Salad With Roasted Red Peppers and Mozzarella
(adapted from Pasta Salad with Tomatoes and Mozzarella from Weight Watcher’s Comfort Classics cookbook)

6 ounces whole wheat penne pasta (I used regular)
2 tsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves minced
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
2 tsp lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, diced
1 jar roasted red peppers cut up
1/2 cup fresh basil

Cook the penne according to the package directions. Drain and rinse under cold water, drain again.

To make the dressing, heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook stirring often until the garlic is golden. Transfer the oil mixture to a large bowl, stir in zest and lemon juice with salt and pepper. Add the pasta, cheese, roasted reds, and basil. Toss to coat.

Pasta Salad