After a day of baking...

Stop and Shop Fried Chicken, Fresh Steamed Green Beans and
Homemade Baked Macaroni.

The Book Club, Nora Webster

Why do I go to a book club meeting where the food served is based on the book that we read and I do not take photos? Fill in your own answer because I can not find a good one. I had the camera/phone in my pocket. But then you start talking and enjoying the company and you leave and realize, "Damn I did not take any photos!"

Now that we are done with that...

This month's book was Nora Webster by Colm Toibin. It story was set in Ireland so we had an Irish dinner. Gretchen was the host and she put out an amazing spread. There were 2 or was it 3 different Irish Soda Breads. I think hers was the best. An Irish Bacon and Cabbage Soup that I will be making for Chris. Just delicious and who doesn't like bacon! Gretchen said that she added more salt and pepper and probably a few teaspoons of thyme and at least 4 cups of chicken broth. The broth was perfect for the freezing cold weather we have been dealing with.

There was some Cheese, which was from Ireland and Crackers and I know I am missing something else. Here is where a photo would have come been helpful.

Desserts looked delicious. (I gave up sweets for Lent) There was a Frangipane tart from Marjolaine Bakery. There was fresh fruit (that's what I had!). And I made my first batch of Gluten Free cookies. Flourless Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. I used Sunflower Butter instead of the Almond Butter and my cookies looked like Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. Not sure why but everyone said the tasted fine! Yeah no photos....

Thank you Gretchen for a wonderfully delicious book club meeting!

A Different Chicken Pot Pie

This was suppose to be a Creamy Veggie Pot Pie with Rosemary but as I was preparing it I thought why not add cooked chicken meat. Well I did and while it was good it was not as good as our usual pot pie. I liked the idea of using the cannellini bean and vegetable broth for the gravy. It tasted good and Chris did not even realize what it was until I told him. But it was the crust. We both prefer my Pate Brisee to puff pastry.

The original recipe was from Foodista.

My version of Creamy Veggie Pot Pie With Chicken And Rosemary

Ingredients-
1 can (15 ounce) white beans, rinsed and drained

1 tablespoon rosemary, finely chopped

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup vegetable stock + extra

1/4 yellow onion, roughly chopped

1 medium carrot, washed, trimmed, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 celery stalk, washed, trimmed, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1 medium white potato, washed, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1/2 cup string beans, washed, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1/2 red pepper, washed, cored, chopped into bite-sized pieces

1/2 broccoli floret, chopped into bite-sized pieces
 
1 zucchini, sliced
2 cups cooked chicken, from rotisserie or from preparing chicken broth, cubed
1 pastry sheet, room temperature and brushed lightly with butter
sea
salt and pepper




Method-
Preheat oven to 425F degrees.

Place white beans and rosemary into a food processor with vegetable stock. Purée until smooth and creamy. Add additional vegetable stock to thin, if desired. This white bean purée will be your “gravy”. Set aside.

Heat butter in a large saucepan. Cook onion, carrot and celery in butter for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add potato, beans, bell pepper,broccoli and zucchini. Sauté until vegetables are just slightly cooked and the edges are slightly brown. Add the cooked chicken. Season with salt and pepper.

Put the roasted vegetables and chicken in a baking dish. Pour white bean and rosemary gravy over the bowl.

Take the pastry sheet and lay half of the sheet across each of the top of the baking dish. Seal and tuck the edges. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until the crust is brown.

Salsicce con Finocchio e Olive

 

Tonight's recipe for dinner was from this week's featured cookbook, Lidia's Favorite Recipes. I had purchased a fennel bulb a while back that I did not use all of it. I did not want to waste it so I froze it following these instructions (click here). That cut down on the cooking time.

This dish is delicious. The saltiness of the olives and the flavor of the fennel a perfect together.

Salsicce con Finocchio e Olive, Sausage with Fennel and Olives, from Lidia's Favorite Recipes.

Ingredients -
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
12 sweet Italian sausages (about 2 pounds)
1 cup dry white wine
6 large cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 cup large green olives, squashed and pitted
3 large fennel bulbs (3 1/2 to 4 pounds), trimmed and cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 teaspoon salt

Method -
Pour half of the olive oil into a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausages; cook, turning occasionally, until browned on all sides, about 5 minutes or more. Carefully add wine and bring to a boil; cook until reduced by half. Transfer sausages to a platter; pour over cooking liquid.

Add remaining olive oil to skillet over medium heat. Add garlic cook about 1 minute. Clear a hot spot and cook the crushed red pepper in it for a couple of seconds. Add olives; toss and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add fennel chunks and stir to combine. Season with 1/2 teaspoon salt, cover skillet, and cook over medium high heat for 20 minutes, stirring now and then, until the fennel softens, and begins to color. Add a little water to the pan if fennel remains hard; you want it to be wilted but not mushy.

When the fennel is cooked through, return sausages and wine to skillet. Toss together with fennel and cook, uncovered for about 5 minutes. Adjust the season to taste.

The Stuffed Artichoke

Not bad. Getting closer....

Bollito di Carne

I remember eating this soup as a child. When I saw the recipe on the Cooking with Nonna site I was very excited. Another soup I knew Chris would love. I made the soup on Saturday while I was up to my elbows in flour and butter. It could not be easier. Put everything in a pot and let it simmer.
Bollito di Carne, Meat Soup from Cooking With Nonna

Ingredients-
2 Lbs Beef short ribs
2 Whole large potatoes
4 Carrots
1 Large onion
5 Plum Tomatoes
3 Stalks of Celery
EV olive oil
Salt

Method-
Put in a pot 3 quarts of water and the meat.
Before the water comes to a boil, remove from the top all the brown particles floating on the water (This is very important as it removes some of the fat and leaves the soup clear!)
Add to the water, the potatoes, the celery, the onion and the tomatoes cut in small pieces.
Add 3 Tbs of EV olive oil.
Let the meat and all the vegetables cook for about 90 minutes. Check on the meat as you want it to come easily off the bones. I let it simmer for about 2 1/2 hours as I was busy with cookie dough and honestly forgot about it!

The Cooking with Nonna site recommends serving the soup with some spaghetti. We opted for Italian bread. Chris loved dinner. And it made enough for 2 nights!

Pizza For Me and Pizza For You

 The Bacon and Onion Pie with Ricotta and Olives.

 The Swiss Chard, Broccoli and Olive with Ricotta.

Tonight is a big TV night. No not the Oscars. On the Food Network on Cutthroat Kitchen one of the contestants is the son a couple I worked with at Fitzwilly's Restaurant back in the 80's. Their son is a chef. Very excited to see the outcome. And of course Downton Abbey is on first!

Chicken Cacciatore and a New Mixer

So image that you have to make a lot of cookies for a fund raiser. You finish mixing your first batch and you have the second batch ready to be mixed. Then your 24 year old Kitchen Aid mixer dies. There was a sound of something snapping and I could not lift the handle. It just fell. I was shocked. And sad. The mixer had been a bridal shower gift from my Mom. I really could not complain as it had lasted 24 years. But today it dies? I was mixing 5 different cookies! I was screwed. First reaction was of course tears. Next Chris said I should see if I could borrow my sister's until I figured out what to do. I called but she was out. Next suggestion was to buy a new one. Oh I did not want to go out today. I had so many cookies to make! We are 3 exits from a William Sonoma outlet store. I called and they had the 6 quart machine. Off I go. I put the 6 quart mixer in the shopping cart and then I think to myself that the 5 quart would probably be fine. What the hell was I thinking! Idiot. I buy it and I go home and I try to make a double batch of a recipe and the machine is struggling. It has no heart, no soul. I realize I made a huge mi$take in making thi$ purcha$e. My sister calls at that exact moment. I tell her my story and she tells me to return that mixer and get the 6 quart. I am so lucky I have a sister like Lenore. So I called the store and explained that I just purchased the mixer and tried it and it is not large enough for me. They told me I could return it. Oh, it it has started snowing by now. I clean the mixer up and repack it and return it. I purchase my 6 quart mixer and come home and make a triple batch of a cookie with no problem. All is good. I went to put the mixer in the cabinet where the previous mixer lived and it it too wide. This is when I poured my first glass of wine!

Lucy enjoying the 5 quart mixer box.

Now on to dinner. Dinner was an amazing recipe from Lidia's Favorite Recipes. Oh yes I forgot to mention my latest idea. You see I have a lot of cookbooks.

These are not all of them.

So I have decided that each week* I will feature one cookbook. (*And already a disclaimer - Next week, February 29 - March 6, will not be included in this as I will be baking many cookies on Saturday and Sunday and we will be eating from the freezer for that week!)

This week is Lidia's Favorite Recipes and tonight we had Chicken Cacciatore.  Delicious. I added zucchini in place of the mushrooms and added black olives too.

My version of Chicken Cacciatore.

Ingredients-
1 chicken cut up
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
All-purpose flour for dredging
4 tbsp cup vegetable oil
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, cut into 1-inch cubes (about 1 cup)
1/4 cup dry white wine
One 14 oz can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp. or 1 yellow bell pepper, cored and seeded, cut into 1/2-inch strips (about 1 cups total)
1/2 pitted black olives

Method-
Season the chicken pieces generously with salt and pepper. Dredge the pieces in flour, coating them lightly and tapping off excess flour. Heat the vegetable oil in a wide braising pan with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil until a piece of chicken dipped in the oil gives off a very lively sizzle. Add as many pieces of chicken to the pan as will fit without touching (do not crowd the chicken; you can always brown it in batches). Remove the chicken pieces from the skillet as they brown, adding some of the remaining pieces of chicken to take their place. After browning all the chicken and removing it from the skillet, add the onion to the fat remaining in the pan and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes.

Pour the wine into the pan, bring to a boil, and cook until reduced by half, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and oregano, season lightly with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil. Tuck the chicken into the sauce, adjust the heat to a gentle boil, and cover the pan. Cook, stirring a few times, for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the zucchini and peppers, and toss until the peppers are wilted but still quite crunchy, about 8 minutes. Season the vegetables with salt.

Add the peppers and zucchini to the chicken pan.  Add the olives.

Cook, covered, until the chicken and vegetables are tender, 10 to 15 minutes. (Check the level of the liquid as it cooks; there should be enough liquid to barely cover the chicken. If necessary, add small amounts of water to maintain the level of liquid as the chicken cooks.) Serve the chicken pieces nestled between the vegetables on a platter.

Lasagna alla Norma

The today was the first Friday of Lent. Lasagna alla Norma was our first meatless meal.
I started saving recipes that I wanted to try during Lent on my pinterest page, Recipes For Lent. Tonight's recipe is from The Italian Dish blog. I did make a couple of changes to the original recipe. I used regular lasagna noodles. I used Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce and I added some roasted zucchini and homemade ricotta.


My version of Lasagna alla Norma

For the roasted eggplant and zucchini:

1 large eggplants, cut into barely one inch cubes
1 zucchini sliced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoons dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoons sea salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and spray with Pam (cooking spray).  Place the eggplant ingredients in a large bowl and toss everything together well. Place the eggplant on the baking pan. Roast the eggplant for about 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Remove from oven and set aside. Repeat this with the sliced zucchini, roasting for only 20 minutes, turning the zucchini over half way through the cooking time.

For the sauce:
2 cups canned imported Italian tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
5 tablespoons butter
Salt to taste

Put the tomatoes in a saucepan, add the butter, onion, and salt, and cook uncovered at a very slow, but steady simmer for about 45 minutes, or until it is thickened to your liking and the fat floats free from the tomato. Stir from time to time, mashing up any large pieces of tomato with the back of a wooden spoon. Taste and correct for salt. Puree the sauce with an immersion blender.

For the lasagna:
1 boxes of lasagna noodles cooked according to the package
1/2 cup Homemade Ricotta
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon oregano

In a baking pan, place about ¾ cup of the sauce in the bottom of the pan and spread it out to cover the entire bottom. Place noodles in one layer, covering the whole pan. Add sauce and spread on the noodles, making sure they all are covered. Place a fourth of the eggplant on the tomato sauce, a fourth of the ricotta for one layer. Repeat three times more. For the last layer, place noodles on top and cover with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with the mozzarella and oregano and Parmesan. Cover tightly with nonstick foil or use regular foil, spraying the underside with cooking spray. 

Bake for about 45 minutes.  Remove foil and bake another 15 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for about 15 minutes before slicing to serve.

Hope everyone has a relaxing weekend!

Chicken Parmesan

On Monday, I was off from work so I made my Mom's Chicken Cutlet recipe. Tonight we had Chicken Parmesan with some of those cutlets. I had some tomato sauce in the fridge and some home made ricotta cheese. Yum, yum, yum! I put the dish together before I left for work and Chris just had to pop it in the oven. Oh this was really good. The chicken was moist. The sauce was delicious and the ricotta, well forget about it. The all the ingredients made for a perfect balance of flavors.