July 9, 2008
Chicken Cutlets with Herb Sauce
So this is one of those titular “30 Minutes Meals”, which is definitely what attracted me to this recipe. Well, that and the potatoes. I love red potatoes! The problem is that it took wayyyy longer than 30 minutes, but I fully attribute that to the fact that I’ve never made it before and that I’m just a slow cook. I have no doubt an experienced cook would totally knock this out of the park in 30 minutes, but it you’re like me, it’s probably going to take you longer.
I made quite a few mistakes with this one (though it still turned out well), so after the recipe I will include notes that go a bit more into my process and what I learned, so that you won’t make the same mistakes as well. As usual I made some substitutions which I’ll note also, but I’m listing the original ingredients.
July 7, 2008
This weekend in food
Well, I didn’t get much of a holiday this weekend seeing as I had to work both my jobs all three days, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t celebrate. I made lots of food, to the point of overcompensation probably.
I celebrated the fourth by making Braised BBQ Beef from Simply Recipes, which was sooooo good and quite easy to make. I’ve never been much of a beef eater, but I’m trying to expand my horizons and this was definitely a good start.
I also made Oven “Fried” Sweet Potatoes to go with it. Really good, though perhaps a bit soft, even after following the instructions for making them crispier. That recipe is from Mollie Katzen’s The Vegetable Dishes I Can’t Live Without via Serious Eats.
July 3, 2008
Garlicky Red Beans and Sausage
This is my favorite new recipe. What’s really surprising about that is: (1) it’s dead simple (or at least I made it that way) and (2) it’s from the Weight Watchers cookbook. You wouldn’t think something like that would be so good, but I swear I could eat it every single night.
The main thing to note is that this my version of the recipe. I took some shortcuts and also switched the meat (but I’ve had it with the original meat and it was good that way, too). I’ll make notes where the changes are, though.
July 1, 2008
Fried Pasta
Have you ever heard of such a thing? I mean, I know you can fry pretty much anything, but fried pasta? I’ve never heard of that before. Well, I’m here to say fried pasta = yum!
A few weeks ago my boyfriend, Brandon, and I went to Copelands and we were basically blindsided with this item. We had ordered spinach and artichoke dip as an appetizer and assumed that it would come with tortilla chips like every other restaurant we’ve ever eaten spinach and artichoke dip at (which is A LOT). But Copeland’s is not every other restaurant. The dip comes out with a plate of fried bow-tie pasta. At first we just looked at it in astonishment and even a little disgust, but neither of us are ones to turn away fried food so we tried one. Oh. My. God. I could eat them all day long. I would say pasta and fried food are my two biggest weaknesses, so to combine them is just ungodly.
The worst part is that the portion was ginormous. It was like 5 parts pasta to 1 part dip. AND WE COULDN’T STOP EATING THE PASTA EVEN WHEN WE FINISHED THE DIP. It was horrible …
June 30, 2008
Parmesan Pork Cutlets and Mashed Potatoes
I’m always looking for new recipes for easy and fast dinners to make. But a lot of times fast and easy = boring and no flavor. The other thing I’m always looking for is good pork recipes. I have chicken dishes out the wazoo, but barely any good pork ones. The other night I was pleasantly surprised to find a recipe, which I had torn out of a Real Simple magazine ages ago, that was successful on all counts.
I paired this recipe with my absolute favorite side dish: mashed potatoes. I used to think “real” mashed potatoes were too much work and would make the kind from a box instead, but then I found this recipe and realized how simple they are to make. I probably make mashed potatoes at least once a week these days.
June 28, 2008
Pies, Pies, Pies
I consider myself a fairly good baker. I’ve always had a sweet tooth, cakes, cookie, brownies, etc. I’ve been making those since I was a kid. Pies are different though. Pies always seemed too hard, so I haven’t made many pies before. Maybe once a year during the holidays I’ll try to make one, always with varying results. But when I saw this pie the other day, I knew I had to make that.
I thought this was kind of hard to make if only because it had so many steps with varying wait times before and after each part. But that’s probably just because all the pies I’ve made in the past have been the mix it together, pour in crust variety. Next time, I’d probably just do a premade pie crust to make things a bit easier and faster.
The hardest part was definitely the marshmallow topping. My crappy little handmixer was not made for such things. Plus I think I burned the syrup (it turned yellow!). As I was trying to pour …
