It's been a week since I've posted and a mixed bag as to what I've cooked and what I haven't.
On Friday, the 11th, Rob and I went to our friend David's house for dinner. We try to get him over to our house, but he just seems to like to entertain at his place. David made Mexican food. We had venison and beef tacos, as well as chicken tacos. He made black beans with corn and red onions and also rice. Bruce and Lisa were at dinner and brought some killer guacamole. I brought a plum cake, that I thought was not going to work while it was in the oven. The recipe called for an 8 inch round cake pan. That's what I used, and it bubbled over to the point, I lost probably a quarter of the cake to the baking sheet I put under the cake pan. The cake turned out well. Lot's of nice lemon and plumb flavor, but not a recipe I will probably use again.
Since it was Friday I also made challah. Two loaves. We kept one and I took one over to David's.
I did not cook on the 12th either. We went to the wine walk. This is a promotion by the downtown business association to get people into their stores. You pay 18 dollars for a wine glass and then follow a map around to the different stores and you get a taste of the different wines each shop is hosting. You can quickly get drunk doing this. It doesn't help if you start at the downtown wine bar with a big glass of some lovely red wine. The businesses also have little snacks, so you can try out the food, the wine, and have a really good time with all the people you know that you see downtown. After all that wine we knew we had to eat something so our group, which had started out with four and had grown to ten moved to Sergio's a mexican restaurant in the downtown area. I had the half chicken quesadilla. It filled my plate, who know's how big the whole quesadilla is. It would have to be enough to feed like, I dont' know, a family of seven. Afterwards, we went to a Mexican bakery in town and looked over the pan dulce. Rob and I bought a couple of croissants to eat with our coffee the next morning, before tennis.
While we were at the wine walk, Rob made plans to play tennis with Nayil and Jeff, two of his good friends on Sunday. I invited them both for dinner after the tennis match and we had a great time. I wasn't sure what to fix, because I was all Mexican fooded out. No more Mexican, at least for a day, anyway. So after a quick trip to the grocery store, I fixed stuffed chicken breasts, potato gratin, and green beans.
The stuffed chicken breasts were pretty easy. I sauted one onion that I had diced in really small dice along with two cloves of garlic. I added a package of chopped frozen spinach after it had been thawed and drained. Really squeeze all the liquid out of it or you will have a runny mess. I then added about 1/2 cup of mexican cheese, it doesn't melt too much, so you have a nice textural play in the food.
Pound the chicken breasts flat. I butterfly them and then pound them between wax paper with a meat tenderizer. Once they are flattened put about two tablespoons of the spinach mixture on the breast, spread it all over the breast. Roll up the chicken breast and tie it with some kitchen string into a little bundle.
Put approximately 2 tbs of olive oil in a big pan. I made five chicken breasts, one for each of us and then one for my lunch the next day. Heat the oil and then cook the breasts until they are golden brown on all sides. They may not be cooked all the way through, but that's okay. You are going to cook them again in the sauce that you make for them.
To make the sauce take about 1 and 1/2 cups of chicken stock, (I make my own from the Friday shabbat chicken.) and deglaze the pan you cooked the chicken in. Scrape all the bits of chickeny goodness that is there. Once the stock is boiling take 1 tbs and mix it with 1 tbs of cornstarch, and mix the cornstarch mixture back into the stock. It should start to thicken almost immediately. Put the chicken breasts back in along with any juices that have settled on the plate while they rest, and cook them for another 5 - 10 minutes until the chicken is completely cooked through. Add a little bit of salt and pepper to the sauce and then serve the chicken breasts on a plate with the sauce drizzled over them.
To make the potatoes gratin, peel four medium sized russet potatoes and slice them thin. Oil the bottom of a small casserole dish and lay 1/2 of your potatoes in layers in the pan. Add 1/2 cup of your chicken stock and 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese, along with 1/2 of a sauteed onion. Slice the onion and saute it. Repeat the procedure with the rest of the potatoes, the other half of the onion and 1/2 to 3/4 cup of cheddar cheese to cover all the potatoes and the onion. Put it in the oven at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. So, do these first before you make the chicken.
Green beans, are green beans. Snap them and put them in the microwave covered with 1/2 inch of water. Cook for about seven minutes.
I loved this dinner. What great flavors. Nayil and Jeff cleaned their plates and came back for seconds on potatoes.
On Monday, I wanted fish. Rob will eat fish anyway he can get his hands on it, so I knew this would be a good meal. This summer Rob and his friend Tom went on a fishing trip in the Pacific. They caught a huge mess of cod, so I thawed two pieces of this wonderful fish in the refrigerator and we ate like kings.
I sauted one small onion and two small tomatoes diced in olive oil. Cook it down until it is one wonderful sauce, oh, add two to three cloves of garlic also. At this point, Rob took over and cooked the fish. He added a couple of bay leaves, some chicken stock, and some 21 seasoning salute from Trader Joe's. While he was cooking the fish, I cut up two small zucchini, chopped the tops off a bunch of asparagus spears, and diced a tomato. I sauted all of this in olive oil, just until the zucchini was cooked, don't cook it until it is mushy. It's better with just a little crunch. We ate this with rice. Cook your rice 1 to 2. One cup rice, two cups liquid. I used chicken stock. I never time my rice, I just cook it until there are little dimples showing in the top of the rice. It was a truly lovely meal. I love cooking with Rob. It's a lot of fun for both of us.
On Tuesday, Rob teaches class until late. So, I took the opportunity and made six loaves of round challah for Rosh Hashana this weekend. I have six more loaves to make which I will do when I get home from school today. Because I had made so much bread, I wasn't that excited about cooking dinner. We had a half a loaf of ciabatta from Trader Joe's that we needed to use up. Rob hates wasting food, and I hate hearing about it, so I used that as the crust for a pizza. I grated cheddar cheese onto the bread, about 1/4 cup for each half. I browned some hamburger that I had in the freezer. I'm trying to use up things in the freezer, because Rob will be hunting and bringing home venison to fill the freezer in about a month. I sauted a small onion, chopped up a couple of small tomatoes from the garden, halved some kalamata olives, and sliced up some artichoke hearts and put that all on top of the cheddar cheese. I sprinkled romano cheese over the top, and sprinkled some olive oil on top of that. I baked it for 20 minutes until the cheese was melted and that was dinner.
Last night we had leftovers. It was open house at school and then we went for a drink afterward, and I didn't want to cook. Leftover pizza to the rescue.
Now I think I'm up to date. I'll blog tomorrow with the venison dish I'm making for tonight. Oh, and the six loaves of challah.
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