Food Follies – Page 28 – Cooking, Baking, Recipes, Food, Desserts

Pasta from Heaven

John bought me an Atlas Pasta Machine for the holidays and we took it out for a first spin the other day. We made a basic dough recipe: 1.5 cups flour, 2 eggs, and a few drops of water in the food processor for about 30 seconds. (I’m not sure it can get any easier than that!)

Then, we followed the instruction manual’s advice and ran a few chunks of toss-away dough through the rollers first to clear out any residual ‘grit’ in the machine – this turned out to be a good idea because there were a few metal flecks in there from the manufacturing process.

Then, deciding on fettucine, we had a great time cranking out thinner and thinner sheets of pasta, and then running them through the cutter attachment. We placed them in boiling, salted water for about 3 minutes and WAH-LA – pasta! In fact, I think we might have made the noodles a bit TOO thin, they were somewhat papery, but they were really fresh and tasty with the (store-bought) five cheese red sauce. This pasta machine has already earned a prize spot in our appliance line-up – LOL.

Coming soon, our quest for the ultimate ravioli – stay tuned!

Uncorked!

I knew that almost finished bottle of Burgundy would come in handy soon! I took this photo on the kitchen table in ‘late’ afternoon – late for “winter, in the hills” standards, which was about 3:30 p.m. I thought it would be a really cool shirt or sweatshirt to wear to something like a casual wine tasting event, or event as a card if you’re having a classy party or something. (Or even if you’re just feeling quite ‘unstoppable’ – LOL – okay, sorry, should have warned you about the upcoming pun!) Anyway, click on the image to see the shirts and such if you like.

The Wonder of Homemade Sauce

On Christmas Eve my family would always make Baked Ziti, a hearty combination of pasta, cheese and sauce that overwhelms the mouth with deliciousness.

Since I was home this Christmas, I decided to do things right and make a homemade sauce. What an amazing difference! This sauce recipe is pretty basic, but when the sauce is allowed to simmer for a few hours the flavor really blends. There’s no commercial sauce that even remotely compares to the level of flavor we got from this sauce.

A Few Sour Grapes

In our ongoing adventure in learning about wine, we bought an unknown brand to go with our Christmas meal: a Covey Run Cabernet Savignon from Washington State. We had an eye of the round roast, baked potatoes, and baby glazed carrots for the meal, which was splendid, but which conflicted horribly or was completely overrun by the flavor of the wine, which I wasn’t overtly fond of just by itself either. It seemed to have a sour taste that had nothing to do with ‘robust flavor’. I wonder if it might have been better with something more zesty than your basic meat and potatoes, but that might have added even MORE conflict to the taste – just not sure. In any case, it was a learning experience – maybe next time I’ll stick to a Merlot when making a roast beef, and only kick the wine selection up a notch when we have an enthusiastically marinated steak or the like.

The Black Bear Diner

To celebrate my birthday yesterday we went to my favorite place for steaks: The Black Bear Diner. Their steaks are on par or better than the fancier steak houses around here, plus the prices are much better.

The Black Bear gives huge portions, I love their ribs and sandwiches as well. My only complaint is the seasoning they put on their french fries. I’m 90% sure its MSG, judging by the weird physical reactions I always get after ingesting too much of that stuff.

Yesterday our waitress goofed a bit, bringing Kristen seasoned fries and then forgetting to return with the plate of unseasoned fries. She also forgot the obligatory slices of garlic bread that come with the steaks, so we had to ask for them. It all worked out however, and the steaks were as tender and juicy as always. I would have loved to have ordered one of their apple cobblers for dessert, but I’m pretty sure I would have exploded.

Orange Dreamsicle Birthday Cake

Yesterday, I had to keep John out of the kitchen while I was making his birthday cake for today (he’s a solstice baby!). Usually I try to make him either an interesting chocolate concoction (the best homemade chocolate cake I’ve made so far was a chocolate mayonaisse cake) or some kind of orange cake, which he’s liked since he was a kid. I’ve made a few orange cakes from scratch, with reasonable success, but haven’t found an orange cake mix in the store for years…

…Until I saw this Duncan Hines Orange Dreamsicle Signature Dessert mix in the store. I grabbed it a few months ago and have kept it in a non-descript paper bag in the back of the cabinet until now. (It’s not easy hiding cooking things when your partner likes to cook too!)

For various technical reasons with our kitchen at this time, I chose to go with the 9×13 sheet cake (keeping it in the glass baking dish) instead of making two round layers. The cake mix is a basic orange-flavored cake mix. Then, you mix boiling water with a powdered orange gelatin-ish packet (in a bowl, of course), and then add cold water too. After a few minutes, which you can spend poking holes in the cake, you slowly pour the gelatin mixture over top of the cake and let it soak in, and then chill it for an hour to set. The ‘frosting’ is a white mousse mix that you just add milk to and whip up.

Although buying it all in one box was certainly convenient, you could get a cake mix, a package of jell-o, and white mousse mix and create the same effect. Or do the cake and mousse from scratch too. Cake, poke holes, add liquid jello, chill, frost with mousse. Doesn’t seem like there’s too much that can go wrong with any variations.

So, how did it come out? Very tasty! The only problem was that the gelatin made it rather sticky and it stuck to the bottom of the pan a bit, making it hard to get a picture-perfect piece for a photo, so I can see why they tell you to turn it out of the pan you baked it in, maybe onto a cake plate or flat tray. In any case, here’s the birthday boy’s piece:

I’d definitely do some variation on this cake again. I REALLY like the white mousse and orange cake combination. The gelatin made the cake, as John suggested, a bit like a pineapple upside down cake because of the moist texture, but it was all quite light and festive and delicious in the end.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

Tonight we made Chicken Cordon Bleu one of my favorite dishes.

It’s also one I have seen maligned in sad and evil ways:

The most evil by far was done by a fellow cook I worked with who believed he was “God’s gift to cooking.” He dredged the unflattened chicken breasts in flour, added the ham and cheese, rolled it up and dropped it in the deep fryer to seal it in. Those of you who are familiar with restaurant deep fryers know how long that would take to cook the chicken thoroughly. (I didn’t try it, so I don’t know if it was fully cooked.)

As if to add insult to injury, he then made a cream sauce and poured it into the serving pan over the greasy chicken. The final result crusty brown chicken breast peeking out from a two inch lake of yellowish cream sauce, with pools of grease reflecting the flourescent lights from the cafeteria ceiling above. (shudder)

The second, less deadly but terribly disappointing entry was the Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich from Jack in the Box. For starters, it was done on plain grilled chicken, which was dry and tough. The “we don’t make it until you order it rule” (which means assemble it, not cook) left the overcooked warm chicken breast unable to melt the swiss cheese on the sandwhich. Finally, the supposed “creamy garlic parmesian” sauce tasted a lot like Ranch dressing to me.

The most acceptable food item using the name Chicken Cordon Bleu is the institutional pre-frozen type with processed chicken. They’re not great, but at least they’re tasty.

Homemade Chicken Cordon Bleu on the other hand is not that hard to make and is delicious! I made a slight error this time around, I breaded the chicken prior to rolling it up. This led to some excess cheese leakage from the the chicken, but the final result was still excellent!

Chicken Cordon Bleu

6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
deli ham
deli sliced swiss cheese (and/or monterey jack cheese)
butter
2 eggs
seasoned bread crumbs
(white rice and a cooked vegetable as side dishes)

Pound the chicken breasts flat (to about a half inch thick). Then layer the ham on top of the chicken, then the cheese, then about a tablespoon pat of butter.

Wrap the chicken breast plus ingredients up into a roll and skewer twice at different angles to prevent unraveling. Trim any excess skewer so that the piece is manageable. Break 2 eggs in a bowl, but don’t blend, just lightly break yolks. Fill another bowl with seasoned bread crumbs. Dip chicken roll in egg – make sure it’s entirely coated. Then, roll the chicken around in the bread crumbs until entirely covered.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and center is at 150 degrees (and not pink). Serve with skewers in, but REMOVE SKEWERS BEFORE EATING. Rice and a vegetable round out this meal nicely.

Live Life Uncomplicated?

I was browsing the wine isle in the grocery store a few days ago (Note: I grew up in NY state and still find it weird to be able to buy wine and hard liquor in a grocery store! (California)), and there was a bottle of wine on sale for $2.99. Since we’re still at the very beginning of developing our ‘wine tongues’ (I think I just made that up?), I figured it was a good thing to try the really cheap wines as WELL as the more expensive ones to give ourselves a larger range of experiences. I’d had Sutter Home Merlot before, but never a (red) Zinfandel, so I tossed it in the cart.

I know that Zinfandels are pretty mild wines, but I haven’t yet determined if this was ‘mild’ or ‘bland’. It wasn’t terrible at all, but mostly just tasted like, well, generic wine, and it didn’t pack any kind of a punch. John’s opinion is similar, “Drinkable, but not very interesting.” I suppose that’s why the back of the label says, “Our zinfandel is the simple choice to compliment life’s everyday moments. Enjoy Sutter Home wines and live life uncomplicated.” (Shouldn’t that be ‘uncomplicatedly’ (if that’s a word) since it’s describing the verb ‘live’?) Anyway, we give Sutter Home credit for being so… accurate in their labeling, and thank the grocery store for not making us invest too much for the experience, which was still enjoyable after all was said and done.

Top O’ the Muffin to Ya!

On cold mornings I love to whip up a box of Jiffy Muffin Mix. I tried the Apple Cinnamon for the first time the other day, very apple-y but kind of light on the cinnamon. Next time I’m definitely adding some cinnamon myself.

BTW if you have extra sour cream around, substitute it for the milk, it gives them a nice boost.

Christmas Cookies

Looking for some new Christmas Cookie recipes this year? Well, of course, you can always check through the Food Follies Cookie Recipe section, but I also just ran across another good resource, All Homemade Cookies, which is worth a good look-see!