I took this picture in Riorges, France in September. I know it's not a particularly Christmasy picture, but I love all the colors, and they remind me of Christmas decorations on a tree.
Start with a chicken breast on a sheet of foil.
some fresh lime juice.............
olive oil of course......and a little salt and pepper.
Wrap it all up in the foil making little packages and bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes. Yes, only 20 minutes. It came out tender and soft and really delicious. I found this recipe on page 683 of How To Cook Everything ( red Anniversary Edition) by Mark Bittman.
I can't believe it's been so long since I have posted here. It's not like I haven't been cooking. I think I have been cooking more than ever but my household has been a little....well let's just say I have been very busy. I made these popovers last Sunday morning. They were eaten so quickly that I didn't even have time to photograph them with the scrambled eggs they accompanied.
I didn't fill this pan very evenly and you can see how they popped. One thing is for sure.....Popovers are delicious whether they are small or giant!!
Happy Valentine's Day to all.
I found my heart shaped muffin pan and filled it with brownies. Andy tasted one straight from the oven. The verdict was DELICIOUS!!!!!! My recette sort of came from Mark Bittman's book, "How To Cook Everything", page 881. I would have posted this on the Waiting for Bittman blog but I changed the recette so much that I wasn't sure it could still be considered his. I used less sugar, more chocolate, bittersweet chocolate instead of unsweetened chocolate, more vanilla....are they still brownies?
Hope you all have a day filled with much love.
It's market time so I am off to another city again. It always starts with a taxi to the airport.
I prefer an aisle seat but this time I sat in the window seat.
My view from the window.
The hotel room.....doesn't look so different from all the others.
The coffee machine. This room had a little kitchen complete with microwave and fridge.
The depressing view from the window.
This was the INSIDE of the hotel. There is a big atrium and it kind of looks as if you are in a tropical land with the palm trees, but trust me.......it's just Deerfield, IL. All of the sales reps set up on the same floor with their doors open for three days. Buyers come from all over IL, WI, MI, OH , and IN to buy fall and holiday lines. On Tues night I get to pack everything up and head home.
While I have made ricotta cheese at home, I have never attempted mozzarella in my kitchen until now. Benjamin came over to share in this cooking adventure and in preparation I looked up several different recipes on the Internet and in magazine articles. Every one was similar in certain ways but very different also. They all said that this is a difficult cheese to make but I figured that since my ricotta was so good this would be easy. I mean, how difficult can it be to make something in the kitchen????? I found one recipe that said that it was important to sterilize the entire kitchen before making this cheese. Yeah.....like that's going to happen! I also found a recipe that said you could make mozzarella in 30 minutes so that was the one I printed out. BIG MISTAKE!!!!! These things take time and you can't rush a curd.
A gallon of milk produced this tiny amount of curd. In all the instructional pictures I saw, the curds were big and think and had been sliced into little cubes in the pot. Our curds were anemic and not stiff enough to be sliced. Pretty pathetic, huh? They turned to mush when we tried to put them in very hot water to make them into mozzarella cheese. I don't know where we went wrong. I am not sure if we ever achieved a "clean break"as they say. I never saw real whey (the grayish liquid).We felt we had to salvage this in some way so we "recooked" the milk to make ricotta cheese.
I added some buttermilk to the pot, and immediately the curds separated from the whey.
The recooked leftover milk produced this beautiful ricotta. At least all was not lost. By the way, ricotta means "recooked" and comes from the whey that is left over when you make some other kind of cheese.
We are going to try again but this time we will buy curds that are already made. This is Benjamin looking for places that sell curds. He found Todaro Bros. They will sell curds by the pound. When I took the Mozzarella Course at Artisanal Cheese Institute, we started with the curds and went from there. At first I thought it was like cheating, but now I see the wisdom! Stay tuned for Makin' The Mozz, Part Deux.
This is my version of the chicken I had at Shelley and Rob's house last year. It was wonderful and inspired me to try my own version. It has now become a staple in my kitchen.
I like to serve it with an eggplant casserole. This one is just sliced eggplant over a bed of sliced onions, with a can of whole peeled tomatoes on top. A little olive oil and you are done. It cooks with the chicken and couldn't be easier. Everything is ready at the same time.
A little salad completes the dinner. Now for the recette.......
This is the amount of olive oil I put in the pan to start. Just enough so that the chicken doesn't stick while it bakes.
I pound each piece of chicken in between two layers of plastic wrap. It keeps my counter clean and I don't even have to wash the mallet.
Each pounded piece of chicken gets dipped in egg ( you can use just egg white or a whole beaten egg), and then pressed into seasoned bread crumbs. I prefer boned chicken breasts for this because they are so easy to work with.
Once they are dipped and pressed, I roll them up and place in the pan. If there is any egg or bread crumb mixture left after all the cutlets are breaded, I mix it together to form a paste and spread on the tops of the rolled chicken. This time I only had enough paste to do a few of them.
I add olives, prunes, lemon wedges, lemon zest, rosemary and sage all around the pieces of rolled chicken. I then add a final splash of olive oil on top.
This is a close up of the final splash of oil. I don't think it's possible to use too much olive oil ever but you just need a little more here. I cook this for about an hour at 325-350, covered with foil. The aroma from the rosemary fills the kitchen and is fabulous.
It all started with my conversation partner introducing me to a friend, who had just made some Indian food, and brought samples for everyone to taste. He told me it was something his mother used to make and was called "Bonda". They looked like little balls of dough that were filled with potatoes and vegetables and spices. They were battered and then fried. I'm not sure exactly how they were made, but they were delicious. He promised to send me the recette. He told me I would need Gram Flour ( something I had never heard of before) and exactly where to go to get some. Gram flour is also known as chicpea flour, or besan flour or chana flour in case you were wondering. Off I went to 28Th Street and Lexington Avenue.
Welcome to the world of Indian Food. There were two stores on this block. The first one I explored was Sinha Trading Co., at 121 Lexington Ave. The sign in their window says, "We stock everything you can think of", and they do!!
There were shelves and shelves of spices. Some looked familiar and some I had never seen before.
Rows and rows of beans, lentils, and rices.
All kinds of nuts and finally, several different kinds of flours. I had my choice of Gram Flours.
These desserts were in the cases in the front of the store.
More desserts.
Then the cutest restaurant around the corner. Yes, it is called, "CURRY IN A HURRY". Too bad it was early in the day and they weren't open yet.
The next store I visited was, Kalustyan's at 123 Lexington Avenue. They also had wonderful desserts inside though I am not sure they were all Indian.
And more desserts.
They sold all kinds of dried fruits.
They sold spices in jars.........so many spices.
Spices in little plastic bags....so many bags.
My favorite packages were the sugar coated fennel seeds. They looked so bright and sweet.
But my find of the day was citric acid. What is that you ask???????? I have been looking for citric acid for months now. You use it when making mozzarella cheese and though I don't know if it is used in Indian cooking, I will certainly use it this weekend. It's time to make mozzarella cheese!
This is the picture I took from the airplane. Yes, I pulled out my camera to take this picture just like a real tourist. How else could I get such a lovely picture of the wing?? It's a good thing I was alone and couldn't embarrass Andy. I had the entire row to myself this time and was able to stretch out for the flight.
This was the inside of the hotel. Where is my room? I forgot the room number.
Everything looked the same. Too many floors. Too many rooms.
This was the view from my window.
My in room coffee machine. As usual the coffee was terrible. Even the coffee in the lobby coffee shop was terrible. At least I remembered to bring my own tea and Splenda.
