Roast Chicken, the English Muffin & A New Love in My Life

Let's start at the beginning of the day. Breakfast. Remember those very large English Muffins I made last week. Well this week I made them the correct size, still came out rather large, but added Cinnamon. Wow wow wow. Want to try them? They really are easy. Click here for a life changing experience, well sort of life changing.

Now on to dinner. A Roast Chicken. A simple meal but one that I am not quick to make. Why? Fear of serving raw meat? Maybe. But I have a meat thermometer so that should not be the issue. It is because I tend to over think the roasting of the chicken. But it is quite simple. Just put some lemon and herbs into the cavity and pop it in the oven. Ta Da! Don't believe me? Well read this recipe and you too will see how simple this is.

Side dishes were Roasted Acorn Squash and Roasted Potatoes. And dinner caught Archie's attention!

Now about that new love in my life. Bread pudding. Panettone Bread Pudding to be exact. My mother never made Bread Pudding, at least not that I can remember. We received a loaf of Panettone at Christmas and I wanted to find a use for it, other then toast. I put half of the loaf in the freezer and the other half was transformed into something so wonderful. The recipe is from Epicurious. I did not have enough Vanilla, I know I could not believe it myself. But I had Brandy extract. Oh yeah. That is the way to go. It was moist and the flavors were out of this world. The recipe is suppose to be prepared in a 13"x9" pan. Way to much for the 2 of us so I cut the recipe in half and used 2 round cake pans. Perfect!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

A few of my favorite things on one plate. Homemade pasta. Escarole and Beans. Sopressata. Burrata Cheese. Heaven. And I think Chris liked this dinner too. I made the pasta using my new(!!!) food processor. I am a newbie at making pasta in a processor. I used a different recipe for tonight's pasta. I found this recipe on the Food Network site. The dough seemed moister than the recipe I have been using. I have to tell you it was a lighter pasta. We could have eaten the whole pan, but we did not. And the whole idea of making the pasta in the food processor was amazing. No more egg running over the side of a wall of flour and mixing everything on the table top.

Besides homemade pasta there was the Sopresseta and Escarole and beans. A perfect combination on any dish, from pizza to pasta. I sauteed a sliced onion in some olive oil and than added the cubed Sopresseta. Next I added the chopped escarole which had been cooked in boiling water for about 5 minutes and drained. (The water the escarole was cooked in was added to the pasta water.) I seasoned everything in the saute pan with crushed red pepper, salt and pepper. Half a can of drained Cannelini beans were added as was 2 tablespoons of butter, 1/4 cup chicken broth and 1/4 white wine. After the wine cooked down. I added the cooked pasta along with a little of the pasta water. I cut the Burrata cheese into 4 sections and added it to the top of the pasta. Delicious!

And if it is the weekend I had to have baked something. 

 

Last week I jumped into baking English Muffins. This week I made Whole Wheat and Honey English Muffins. The recipe said to make 10 muffins. For some reason I did not want 10 muffins. I wanted 8. Well, we know have 8 Extra Large English Muffins. Luckily they are really good!