6 posts tagged “dinner”
The Husband and I like hanging out with other married couples. We've sort of fallen into the habit of having dinner with our friends K and J once a month, either at our place or theirs. This month was our turn, so we had them over and I made chicken paprikash. K has a very Polish background and I grew up in a super Polish/Ukranian town, so we both know from hearty peasant food and have a great time talking about pierogis or kielbasa or other tasty things, so when I decided to make paprikash I was really playing to him. Especially when you consider J hates mushrooms.
The recipe I used was from a local food blogger. I'd made it once before and the Husband loved it. It's hearty, it makes a lot and it calls for a pint of sour cream. How can you go wrong with that? Ha ha ha. As has been mentioned before, I should have READ AHEAD!!! tattooed on my forearm. While I had made the recipe before, I totally forgot the "Let cook for one hour" step. Heh. When we got home from work I though oh, we have an hour, no problem. I had the Husband start with the mushroom, onion and garlic cooking and I cut up the chicken and tossed it with the flour and spices. I don't know why, but whenever I put something through a flour dredge it takes me twice as much flour as the recipe calls for and I never remember that so halfway through the dredging I had the obligatory "put more flour in the dish" moment while the Husband browned the chicken pieces. Somewhere in the middle of all that K and J showed up, so I informed them my lack of forethought meant they were going to have to wait for dinner.
Once dinner was simmering on the stove I did have my only moment of forward thinking and started on dessert. Dessert was chocolate cupcakes with melty centers, recipe taken from my page a day cupcake calendar. The recipe had you melt the chocolate and butter together, then let it cool. The cupcakes needed to cook for 20 minutes, then sit for five, then be served immediately, so I did the figuring and got everything ready to put them in the over when we sat down to dinner. That actually worked out well, and the Husband made the noodles to go with dinner while I was doing that, so we were just about ready to sit down to dinner when I realized I forgot the vegetables. Argh! I can not be organized!
Dinner went well. J picked out the mushrooms and handed them around to everyone. Everyone loved the paprikash and had second helpings, so I figure it was a success. J made a comment I hadn't even considered- chicken paprikash is a lot like beef stroganoff. There's a sour cream based sauce, chunks of meat, mushrooms, you eat it with noodles, relatively slow cooked, huh. Around the end of dinner the timer for the cupcakes went off so I opened the over door. They didn't look done so I muttered "stupid oven" and let them go for a few more minutes. About three minutes later, I realized oh! They're not supposed to be done! Crap! The cupcakes that were on the edges of the tray didn't have the melty centers, but the ones more toward the middle did. It didn't matter, everyone seemed happy and ate a bunch.
All in all, it was a nice dinner with friends. Right now I am debating adapting the recipe for the crock pot. That wouldn't be too hard, right? Ha! You know me!
Last night I was going to make pumpkin gorgonzola pasta but we were out of evaporated milk. It's been cooler outside lately, so I was in a pasta mood. Tuna noodle casserole? Nope, we're out of tuna. (How could we be out of tuna?) What DID we have? We had the makings for orecchiette with pancetta and peas.
This recipe intrigued me, probably because it called for saffron. The only thing I knew about saffron was that it was a very expensive spice that turned things orange and I think they use it in Spanish cooking? Looking it up online, I understand why it's so expensive. Saffron threads come from crocuses (croci?). Each crocus has a couple of the red saffron threads and it takes about 150 crocuses to yield one gram of saffron. Wow. Now I know why it's so expensive. Not at Trader Joe's, apparently, because I think I was expecting to pay an arm and a leg and my 1 gram bottle wasn't that expensive.
Now that I'm thinking about it, most of the makings for dinner came from Trader Joe's- the alfredo sauce, the pancetta and the saffron. You'd think the orecchiette would have come from there too, but I had to do some searching for that and found it at Mal*Wart, of all places. The peas? Grocery store.
This was another of those "5 ingredients or less, 15 minutes or less" meals and again, they didn't lie. While waiting for the water to boil I chopped the pancetta, then cooked it with the saffron while the pasta boiled. Normally when I drain pasta, I have one of those little hand drainer things that you hold against the pot, but every time I'd tip the pot and shake it, I'd get more water out. I ended up having to go and get the colander out because some of the orecchiette, which is shaped like little ears (hence the name), suctioned itself to the sides of the pot. I'm used to shells, which you can shake the water out of with no problem. I'm not entirely certain why you had to fry the saffron with the pancetta, but it did dye the alfredo sauce a pale yellow when I added it.
Normally when you add the sauce to the pancetta, you would add the peas, but the Husband hates peas so I did those in the steamer and just added them to mine. I tasted the pasta, sauce and pancetta, then I tasted the finished product with peas added in. I think it was better with the peas- the peas not only gave it a bit of color, but their sweetness cut through the almost too salty pancetta. That made me worry. How would the Husband just like the sauce, meat and noodles without that buffer there? Unfortunately, for him it's a texture issue, so no dice getting him to eat them. I had my dinner with a glass of viognier- Saint someone from Trader Joe's, and in case you're curious yes, I do buy all my wine there- and it went pretty well. The first time I had a glass of the wine I thought it had a little too much of an afterbite but it went really well with this dish. I think I need to take a wine class, though, because when I looked up viognier it said that it goes well with spicy dishes, strong flavors and fresh fruit. Well, maybe the pancetta gave dinner a strong flavor?
When the Husband got home I explained what dinner was. He was enthusiastic about it, mainly because the kitchen smelled like cooked pancetta. I warned him that I thought dinner needed the peas to balance the flavor. He enjoyed dinner, but agreed that it was really salty. His thought was that maybe next time I make it, I add some pearl onions to his. Interesting thought. I think they'd probably do what the peas did for me, except for giving it color. Hm.
Final say- we'll be doing this one again. It'll be interesting to try adding pearl onions and see what the Husband thinks of how it effects the taste. Recipe number three gets a thumbs up.
A couple weeks ago, I posted about a recipe I made from this cookbook I picked up and was falling in love with, the Spaghetti Sauce Gourmet. This time we tried the bowties with chicken and mushrooms.
This recipe, like the last one, came together quickly. It wasn't a 15 minute recipe, but I think it was done in under half an hour, which is still a bonus, and it was made entirely from things I had in the pantry, which is a double bonus since we're broke this week. You boil the pasta, and while that's going you brown some chicken tenders that you've salted and peppered. Once those are done you take them out and put in mushrooms and minced garlic and brown those, then add dry white wine and cook it down. Once that's cooked down you pour in a jar of alfredo sauce and put the chicken back in- I sliced the tenders into skinny pieces- and warm it up, then serve it over the pasta. Easy cheesy, literally!
Getting down to details, I used canned mushrooms this time because I didn't have any fresh, although next time I think it'd taste even better with fresh. I also didn't cook the mushrooms quite so long because they were canned, so the mushrooms and the garlic weren't quite brown. At one point during dinner, the Husband asked, "Did you put nuts in this?" because he'd found a bit of minced garlic that looked like a tiny piece of chopped nut. I think next time it's fresh mushrooms and let that and the garlic brown more. Usually I buy Ragu alfredo sauce, but all I had last night was Trader Joe's alfredo and wow. It was super tasty. Ragu alfredo is kind of like the Campbell's soup equivalent- it's thin and kinda watery, where the TJ's alfredo is thick, creamy with a little bit of texture to it and has this great flavor. I think it's also about the same price, so you know what I'm getting the next time I'm there, which is usually every Saturday. As for the wine, I tend to cook with cheap wine (sorry, Ted Allen!). I had a bottle of Livingston Cellars Rhine wine that I don't even remember buying in the back of the fridge, so that's what went in. According to the web site, the wine is crispy and fruity, which is not really the dry white I should have put in, but hey, it's what I had. The recipe also suggested sherry. Surprisingly, I don't think I own any sherry. I probably should make the investment, given how often I cook. I served this with green beans and a glass of Vinho Verde, and I find it amusing that when I looked at the entry for the last recipe I made out of the cookbook, I served that with green beans and Vinho Verde as well.
So far, it's been two super tasty recipes out of the Spaghetti Sauce Gourmet and we're willing to call it $20 well worth spending. We can't wait for the next one!
A couple weeks ago, I picked this book up from the library. Real reason I picked up the book? Because the tomato sauce parts of the cover are squishy, and that is cool. The whole premise of this book is that there are four basic sauces out there- tomato, pesto, alfredo and cheddar, and you can either make your own or you can use stuff from a can, but there are a lot of tasty, quick and easy things you can make with those four sauces. As I started looking through it, I noticed that about 95% of the recipes did sound really good. I realized that this was probably going to be something I'd want to own, so we went to the bookstore and picked it up the very same day. Last night, I finally got to make something from the book. Yay!
Last night's dinner was Hungarian pork cutlets in creamy paprika sauce. I had some pork cutlets in the freezer- only three, when it called for six, but that really wasn't a problem. Basically you saute some minced onion, then sprinkle the cutlets liberally with paprika and brown them. You add a jar of alfredo sauce and, because we're mushroom whores, I added a can of mushrooms and then you let it simmer until the pork is cooked. In our case, I let it simmer until the egg noodles I made to go with it were done cooking. Whole thing seriously took 15 minutes. You know how Rachael Ray says "This dinner will only take you 30 minutes!" and then you're still cooking and it's been more like 45 because you didn't go to culinary school and you're not a knife skills whiz, or because you're a lazy whore who didn't wash her produce when you got home or because you insist on taking 10 seconds to go to your trash can because you find the idea of a garbage bowl repugnant? This recipe had the whole super easy designation, with a note that it was 5 ingredients, 15 minutes and they didn't lie. Biggest time consumer? Cooking the pasta. I also did some green beans to go with it and had a glass of Vinho Verde from Trader Joe's. Side note- I remember buying a bottle of Vinho Verde at Trader Joe's when I was there with J and S and J asked me, green wine? Is it really green? No, but it really has a green grape taste.
The Husband loved dinner. It took a lot of convincing and a Klondike bar bribe to make him not go back and devour the remaining cutlet, and this got his vote of approval to make again. It also made us really excited to try other recipes. One down, 159 to go!
To me, fall and winter suggest certain things. One of those things happens to be Saturday evenings spent making soup and listening to Prairie Home Companion, all cozy in our house with candles burning. This past Saturday was sort of the kickoff for the fall season, since I made soup and we did listen to PHC, although our listening was in the car as we went out to pick up supplies. Dinner was mini ravioli soup and cheddar biscuits.
I had seen the Cheap Fast Good ladies on the Today show when the book came out, and browsing through it at the bookstore it looked like a good buy. After all, we're all looking for cheap, fast, good recipes, right? So far, I haven't made a lot out of it yet, but when you consider how many cookbooks I own, on top of the Cooking Light subscription, it makes sense. The recipe I used for mini ravioli soup comes from this book.
Let's see, I used a bag of Trader Joe's mini ravioli and one of their 32 ounce containers of organic free range chicken broth- it calls for 28 ounces, but I added it all. After all, you're putting in dry ravioli, which is obviously going to suck up the broth, right? 4 extra ounces isn't going to hurt.Everything else came from things from the pantry- onion, mushrooms, worcestershire sauce, minced garlic. Really simple.
To go with the soup I had thought about having my husband pick up a baguette, because he is a crusty bread ho, but he forgot his phone when he went out so I went with choice two, cheddar biscuits. This recipe I got from friends, it's basically the biscuits they give you at Red Lobster. Here's the recipe.
Cheddar Biscuits
2 cups baking mix- Bisquick, Jiffy, whichever.
2/3 cup milk or water
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 stick butter- a quarter cup?
garlic powder, Italian seasoning and parsley to taste
Heat the oven to 450. Mix the making mix, liquid of choice and cheese together. Drop on a cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. While they're baking, melt the butter. Add in the seasonings. When the biscuits are done, brush them immediately with the melted butter. This recipe makes about 12-15 biscuits.
Of course we were out of cheese, because it wouldn't be me making something if I didn't realize halfway in that I was missing something important, so we drove out to the grocery store, listening to PHC on the radio. This was actually a good thing, because while they tell you to let the soup boil for three minutes, the last time I tried that the ravioli didn't get done completely, so they had hard little bits. This time the soup sat on the turned off burner while we were out and when we came back half the liquid had disappeared and the ravioli were nice and soft. The biscuits took no time at all and soon we were happily eating soup.
Oh! One last note. Normally we'd enjoy this soup with parmesan cheese, but we were out so the husband grated some ancient, hard Dubliner cheddar. Tasty. Not as good as the bite that parmesan would give it, but still good nonetheless. A great way to start fall.
I am no food writer, as you will see below in what happens to be my first food post. Technical terms? Hah!
Last night's dinner was "stuff". What is stuff, you may ask? Well, there's the direct answer and the story answer. Let's go with the story answer. When I was a kid, my mom used to make this thing for dinner. It was called "idunno". Why? Because when I asked my mother what she was making for dinner, that's what she replied. Oh, she knew what she was making, but she'd just thrown a couple things together in a pan and we liked it, so rather than give it a name it was just easier to go with that answer. In this case, I did much the same and my husband said hey, this stuff's good, so the name stuck.
Here's a history of stuff. When I was living in my first apartment, I had an urge for smoked sausage. As a kid, my mother would get the Hillshire Farms or the Eckridge smoked sausage and serve it with either acorn squash or mac and cheese- Stouffer's, frozen, in the red box. I tend to serve other things with my mac and cheese- made from scratch either from a recipe I got in home ec in 7th grade, or from a fabulous recipe that calls for gouda that I got from Cooking Light- and while I like acorn squash, I couldn't see eating an entire squash myself, so I decided to try it with other things. It was fall when I first made stuff, and fall seemed to call for hearty things, like pasta. Here's the recipe.
Stuff
Pasta- any tube style pasta works, like penne or rigatoni
Sauce- I'm lazy and use some from a jar. Your choice.
Smoked sausage- again, your choice- sliced in one inch pieces
One green pepper, cut in large chunks
One red onion, cut in large chunks
Fresh sliced mushrooms
Seasonings- up to you
Cook the pasta according to the package directions, drain and set aside. Fry the sausage pieces according to the package directions and set aside. In a large pot- we're talking dutch oven size- cook the vegetables over medium to medium high heat until the mushrooms are brown and the veggies are cooked but are still crispy. Add the sauce and the sausage. At this point, season with whatever you're into- I like Italian seasoning and garlic salt. Finally, add the pasta, toss to coat and serve. Serves a ton of people, or you and your husband for the next three or four days.
When I made stuff last night, I used organic penne from Trader Joe's, organic Ragu garden vegetable sauce and Hillshire Farms smoked sausage. It's been a while since I made stuff, so I was a little rusty. I completely forgot to season it until it was done, so it just got a little bit of kosher sauce sprinkled over the top. It still seemed to
turn out fine. It made the whole house smell good, like fall. One day maybe I'll be adventurous and make my own sauce to go with this, but I'm the first person to admit I'm a lazy lazy whore and opening a jar's quick and easy, so who knows? One thing I do know is we ate it like a pack of starving dogs. I had water with dinner last night, but it goes well with a dry red wine too.
The stuff ended up being today's lunch, as well, and it tastes just as good reheated, maybe a little better because the flavors set in a bit. My husband ate his with some shredded colby and monterey jack cheese on top and enjoyed it that way too. Stuff ends up being really cost effective, too, because for under ten dollars we're getting probably about eight or nine servings. I should throw in that I'm an average sized person and my husband's a big guy, so that should tell you about the size of the servings. Yay stuff!
