If I Can't be Diane Lane

I'll make Tuscan chicken & beans and pretend the sun is out.

After a slight cooking hiatus, I'm back in full force and ready to try another meal from the cookbook. I actually bought the ingredients for this one last week but got lazy and dialed Yum Yum Chinese instead.

Ingredients: chicken, rosemary, salt, pepper, chicken broth, 1 can cannellini beans (drained), and sun-dried tomato sprinkles. Food Lion didn't have cannellini beans or sun-dried tomatoes in sprinkle form so I went with Great Northern beans because they looked the same as the ones in the picture (apparently a good deduction on my part) and regular sun-dried tomatoes (found once again in the trusty yet oddly out of place Sons of Italy section, not in the seemingly obvious tomato products section). I don't know if rice as a side dish is "Tuscan" but it sounded good and I was pretty sure I couldn't mess it up.

Cost: around $10

Once again I read the instructions and cut things up BEFORE heating the pan, but I didn't take into account the amount of ingredients and size of the pan, so about 2 mins. into heating the chicken I had to make an emergency pan transfer. I'm getting really good at these emergency mid-cooking manuevers. While the chicken browned I started the rice, rinsed the beans and chopped the sun-dried tomatoes into confetti (I decided the idea of tomato flavored confetti is less weird than tomato flavored sprinkles). For some reason chopping up sun-dried tomatoes made me feel very Rachel Ray, I think I even started talking out loud while I did it, I may have said "yummo".

Once the chicken was almost done, I dumped in everything else and simultaneously realized I was supposed to season the chicken with the rosemary, salt and pepper before I put it in the pan. Once again, emergency mid-cooking seasoning manuever. Since a lot of the meals from this cookbook have been a little bland, I added more of each of the seasonings than it called for.

I let it all simmer while the rice was finishing up and then served it up


Verdict: Diane Lane non ha nulla su di me. (apparently that means Diane Lane has nothing on me...I Googled an Italian translator so it might actually say Diane Lane has smelly feet, I have no idea)

This was definitely the most filling meal so far, and it made great leftovers.

We had planned to try another pork recipe tonight but I think we're going to the state fair instead. Bring on the turkey legs and fried oreos.

Let's get those Omega-3s

Backlog Blog: I actually cooked and started writing this one a week or so ago...I'm a busy lady and honestly, cooking was starting annoy me. Just a little. I think I'm back now.

I wanted to try fish again and this time buy better quality fish (since I'm still blaming the first failed fish attempt on the flounder because it couldn't possibly be my fault). I chose the Orange Glazed Salmon from my cook book for which it suggested steamed snow peas and rice as side dishes. Instead I decided on steamed broccoli and whole wheat couscous as sides because I wasn't about to try and convince Ty that he'd like snow peas and I finally found couscous at my Food Lion (should've know to look in the natural food section, health nuts always eat the weird sounding stuff) and wanted to try it.

The ingredients for this meal cost about $16, a little more than usual because I sent Ty to Joe's Market for the salmon (he also got some delish shrimp to much on while I cooked, I didn't include that in the cost though), but all the other ingredients can be used again in other meals. I think its ok to spend a little more on a better quality ingredient every once in awhile, especially fish and steak (mmm filet mignon). The other ingredients for the glaze are soy sauce, OJ and dark sesame oil (also found in the afore mentioned health nut section).




This go round I actually read the instructions for cooking each different part of the meal BEFORE I got started and figured out that steaming the broccoli was probably going to take the longest. As the water was coming to a boil I started prepping everything else: season the salmon with salt & pepper - check. Read and re-read the instructions on how to cook couscous - check. 'Place skillet over high heat until hot' - check. High heat until hot makes more sense to me than medium heat which, contrary to popular belief, is also HOT.

The broccoli went into the steamer pot (thank you Aunt T for giving us a great set of pots & pans a few Christmases ago - ironic because her and I were apparently not in line when they were handing out the cooking genes to our family) and started the couscous before I put the salmon in the pan, skin side up. 3 minutes later I went in for the flip (this was a disasterous moment with the flounder, you know along with the part where we had to eat it), the flip was successful and I officially decided flounder is the fish of the devil.

3-4 more minutes and the salmon looked ready, but I hate that you have to check the doneness of fish by seeing if it flakes easily. I haven't discovered a way to check flakiness without making one corner of it look like cat food. I removed the fish from the pan and covered it with aluminum to keep it warm while I attempted the pan sauce. 3 tblsps. soy sauce, 3 tblsps, OJ and 1/2 tsp. sesame oil in a hot pan creates a lot a sizzling and a lot of steam, but apparently that is how you deglaze the pan - probably the fanciest cooking term I've used successfully thus far.

The broccoli and couscous are ready so I arrange everything on the plates and pour the sauce over the salmon.




Verdict: the orange glaze is awesome on the salmon but if it sneaks its way into your couscous and/or broccoli you may go into salt shock.

The salmon was AWESOME and not just because it was fresh, but because I'm AWESOME. Ok maybe not, but it was really really good. I enjoyed the couscous also but Ty wasn't a huge fan of the texture. I believe he compared the texture to wood shavings, but again, not my fault :)

A West Coast Saturday

Due to technical difficulties, I don't have pics for this post...


I had a much needed group run Saturday morning (in addition to learning to cook, I'm also training for a 1/2 marathon in November - not sure where all this ambition has been hiding) and I had to help my mom & her friends throw a coed baby shower that afternoon for which I volunteered to bring an appetizer.

I actually didn't have to think to hard about what appetizer I wanted to bring, my mom & her friends have become addicted to this buffalo wing dip - they literally have it at every get together or other snacking opportunity - but I didn't want to go with something they've had millions of times (and it doesn't really involve cooking). So I thought back to last 4th of July when I was visiting my friends Kira & Jeannine in Huntington Beach and Jeannine made these amazing buffalo chicken bites (keeping with mom, etc.'s flavor theme - they're creatures of habit, no buffalo flavored appetizer could've caused some sort of rift in time or at least a dirty glance from mom).

Since deciding a few days ago on Jeannine's appetizer I started reminiscing about that trip and the fresh, yummy food we ate. This brought me to our Saturday morning breakfast which I'm now calling Kira's Cali Scramble.I know this blog is based on the fact that I can't cook, but one amendment to that fact is that I can actually cook a decent breakfast - as long as it doesn't involve toasting, I've been know to make charcoal out of a bagel.

Kira's Cali Scramble includes 1 diced avacado (they put avacado on EVERYTHING in California - love it!), 1/2 cup or so diced tomato (had to represent me & Kira's Mechanicsville roots with a Hanover tomato), 1/2 a package of sausage, eggs (I used 4 whole eggs and 2 egg whites), taco seasoning, cheddar cheese and tortillas.

I made the following mistakes from the start: 1. not dicing the avacado & tomato or mixing the eggs before I put the sausage in the pan. The sausage cooked faster than I expected, partly because 2. I still haven't mastered the whole medium vs. medium/high thing and the pan was too hot. Luckily these were easily remedied by taking the pan off the burner (and turning it down) while I finished dicing, etc.

Once I was prepared to continue, the sausage went back on the burner and I added the tomatoes to the mix. Once the sausage was done I poured the eggs in and added the taco seasoning. I'm usually a huge proponent of measurements but this time I just started with a little seasoning and put in more towards the end (does this mean I'm growing as a cook?). After the eggs firmed up, I tossed in the avocado. I've made this once before and found that the avocado starts to brown if its heated too much, so I saved it for the end. I also sprinkled on the cheddar cheese and mixed it all up.LOVE this stuff. You can eat it by itself or make a breakfast burrito. We're also big fans of Louisiana hot sauce on top. This breakfast cost around $8 and we had a little bit leftover. It's also fairly healthy when you use low fat sausage and replace a few of the whole eggs with egg whites. Avocados are high in fat but its the good kind - yep, I said good fat, and I can prove it: The Avocado Advantage

Right after we finished eating breakfast I got started on the buffalo wing bites. Looking back on making these I realize that I never actually saw Jeannine make these, I'm pretty sure I was asleep, and it was way more labor intensive than I thought it would be.

Ingredients are pretty simple: 2 chicken breasts, wing sauce (we both like Frank's), 2 cans of Pillsbury crescent rolls, chopped celery (optional - we opted out), and ranch or blue cheese for dipping.

The recipe calls for you to shred the chicken, something I've never done, so of course I Googled :) and found this: How to Make Shredded Chicken. Even though the thought of boiling chicken is totally foreign to me, grilling greatly increases the chances of burning, I'm fairly certain not even I can burn chicken that's completely submerged in water.

The chicken took exactly 20 mins. to boil and I started shredding it using the 2 fork method. 15 mins. and 2 hand cramps later I'd only gotten through 1.25 chicken breasts. I gave up on the forks and went caveman style with my hands. This was definitely easier but I recommend not skipping the step where you let the chicken cool after you boil it, cause its HOT. (Jeannine says Trader Joe's sells already shredded chicken - I think I'll go that route next time)

Next you mix in the wing sauce, I used way more than the 4 tablespoons the recipe called for, I think I bought freakishly large chicken breasts. I took the chicken and other ingredients to mom's house to finish up there. If my hands hadn't been dirty and everyone else hadn't been busy I would've have taken video of me and my aunt attempting to make these buffalo bites look edible. Halfway through I had to pour a glass of wine to calm my nerves.

To make these bite sized you're supposed to roll out the crescent rolls, separate the triangles and then cut them in half. The problem with this is when you do that you end up with one 1 equilateral triangle and 1 scalene triangle (my friend Meg will love that I threw those terms in here, she's a math teacher). Your supposed to put the chicken mix in the middle of the now smaller triangles and bring the corners up to a point, which is fairly easy with the equilateral triangles, but I had a tough time figuring out how exactly to wrap up the other ones. My 1st idea was to make them look like diapers (because we're at a baby shower, cute right?) but seeing as I don't have a lot of experience with diapers or the crescent roll dough, Aunt T and I gave up on that idea and just did our best to cover the filling with the dough (some of which ended up looking very similar to Christmas presents when my dad wraps them).

The redeeming quality to crescent rolls (because the dough is a pain in the butt) is that once they're baked, they all pretty much look the same regardless of how they're rolled, tucked or pinched. We baked them at 375 for about 12 mins or so. They were a BIG hit!

The Verdict: I should own a restaurant in Cali that only serves breakfast :) and I'm never shredding chicken again.

Both dishes ended up being very good and relatively inexpensive to make. The ingredients for the buffalo bites cost about $11 but making them takes at least an hour (cooking, assembling, & baking) and I recommend you recruit at least one person, preferably someone skilled in origami, to help you assemble.

I have a busy week ahead (some of which involves a meeting at a wine cafe and a wine tasting with my college friends - tough huh?) but I'm determined to tackle at least 2 meals during the week and 1 next weekend.

Conquered by the Other White Meat

After the just OK meal from last night, I was hoping to redeem myself with pork, which on its own typically has pretty good flavor. But, I have found that an ingredient's natural flavor is no match for my lack of culinary ability.

The recipe for Balsamic Pork Chops calls for pork loin chops, lemon-herb seasoning, balsamic vinegar and chicken broth. I actually already had all of these ingredients except the lemon-herb seasoning. Yes, even the balsamic vinegar - I may not be able to cook but I can chop up some lettuce and put oil & vinegar on it with a reasonable degree of competence. The cookbook suggested serving this with roasted asparagus & couscous and Ty was in the mood for a Caesar salad. I already had the salad & fixins, and I picked up the asparagus at good old Food Lion but if you've been following along you'll remember the neither I nor the manager of my local FL could come up with what exactly couscous was, much less where it could be found. Good thing my dear friend Uncle Ben makes a wide array of nearly fool proof side dishes (I stress nearly...)

I pre-heated the oven to 450 and spread the asparagus on a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. That's all the cookbook called for but I'm beginning to learn that Cooking Light = Cooking a Little Bland, so I sprinkled on a little garlic salt. While the oven heated I chopped the romaine and tossed it with Caesar dressing, shredded romano/parmesan, & garlic salt (that's the way mom does it...garlic salt is my family's go to fix it). I also got the pan hot - I still haven't quite mastered the difference between medium, medium-high & high heat - and sprinkled the pork with the lemon-herb seasoning.

Salad goes into the fridge, asparagus goes in the oven and pork goes in the pan.

Hmmm I've got like 3 mins. of time to fill before I need to flip the pork, what to do...when my food needs a little flavor, I go to garlic salt. When my hands need something to do, I pour a glass of wine.

Ok pork is flipped, asparagus is almost ready, cut to me & Uncle Ben. Roasted Chicken flavor heat & go rice - can't be easier. Popped it in the microwave for 90 seconds, realized after about 60 seconds I missed step 2 of 4: tear packet to release steam. I believe the explosion was averted by 4 seconds.

Regained my composure just as the pork was ready and it was time to make the balsamic pan sauce. I have a history with sauces (see post #1). This one was only 2 ingredients: chicken broth & balsamic vinegar - not so intimidating. Pork comes out of the pan, sauce ingredients go in and simmer (thank you Google for teaching me what that means). Everything was done at about the same time (even Uncle Ben):

The Verdict: Needs salt.

Garlic salt, seasoning salt, celery salt, doesn't really matter - this meal was lacking majorly in the flavor department. Even Uncle Ben failed to meet our expectations. I probably forgot to mention all seasoning mixes this cookbook calls for are Mrs. Dash style (I go for the store brand, dried herbs are dried herbs to me). I'm a huge fan of healthy cooking but I also am a huge fan of really enjoying my food. Everything seemed to be cooked well, but a little sodium chloride goes a long way and I think could have made this meal much better.

We're heading to OBX this weekend and I intend to relax, enjoy my friends, drink some wine and not think about cooking until we get back :) Next week I'm planning to tackle chicken, salmon and a vegetarian dish.

Here fishy, fishy, fishy...

The pressure was on last night at dinner: I had to cook for 2 strapping Ohio boys instead of the usual 1. And if you think Ty is a picky eater, you should meet his brother Jay.

We chose to make the Grecian Grouper from the cookbook, the ingredients sounded simple enough: grouper, Greek Seasoning, frozen spinach (thawed), feta & diced tomatoes. The cookbook suggested serving this with orzo, which I WAS able to find during my Food Lion scavenger hunt on Sunday, but it didn't give a recipe on what to do with it. So I used one from the package that called for chicken broth, minced garlic and asiago cheese.

I had to make a few substitutions based on FL's selection and what we had at home: we got flounder instead of grouper, I couldn't find Greek Seasoning but Google led me to believe it is very similar to the Italian seasoning mix I already had and since the only time I've ever bought asiago cheese was when it was baked into my bagel at Panera (mmmm I love Panera), I used grated parmesan. All said, this meal cost me about $9 and fed 3 people!

It looked like the fish was going to be a quick fix so I got the orzo started by bringing 3 cups of chicken broth to a boil and chopping up the garlic (without hurting my self might I add). The recipe said to dump the garlic & orzo into the boiling chicken broth and then let it simmer uncovered for 7-8 minutes. There are a few possibilities for what happened next: 1. I didn't completely understand how to "bring it down to a simmer" (Google says...Simmering is a cooking technique in which foods are cooked in hot liquids kept at or just below the boiling point of water and higher than poaching. To keep a pot simmering, one brings it to a boil and then adjusts the heat downward until just before the formation of steam bubbles stops completely.) hmmm...should've Googled BEFORE starting...or 2. I may have added too much orzo due to inaccurate measurement (it said 3/4 a pound & it was a 1lb. bag - they need to take a tip from Alton Brown - give it to me in measurements that don't require a scale) or 3. which is most likely: a combination of both. More on this in a minute...

The fish did in fact cook very quickly and I admit I did not have my other ingredients totally ready for this (spinach was not completely thawed - I really need to pre-read these recipes in the morning, this thawing thing is throwing me off my game). Lucky for me, the Green boys aren't big spinach eaters so I didn't need the whole package anyway. I got the pan nice & hot, threw some Italian seasoning on the flounder and away we go:

When i went to check the bottom of the fish for browness, I realized that flounder is not a particularly sturdy fish and that flipping them over was going to pose a few logistical problems (i.e. they were probably going to break all apart and end up looking like canned cat food). The recipe said to remove the pan from the heat, flip the fish, top them with the spinach, feta & tomato and then cover them to allow the spinach, etc. to warm. With only a slight feeling of apprehension (knowing there was one more frozen pizza in the freezer) I went in for the flip.

For the most part, my large spatula was able to keep them in a general fish-shape. A few stray pieces were easy to fit back into the fish fillet puzzle. Getting them out of the pan was not a complete disaster either:

The verdict: I'm going to place blame on the flounder.

The meal was not a total disaster but none of us were particularly fond of the fish/spinach combo. The orzo ended up tasting pretty good (I added butter...that's supposed to make everything better right?) but I think it was a little under cooked. I think we'll move on from this recipe, not defeated, but not planning on a second attack. We'll definitely give orzo another shot, but I'm consulting Alton next time.