Quick Post: There's a fungus among us

Over the July 4th weekend, I took the BF home to Brooklyn for his first trip to New York City. I promised more walking than he had done in years. I'm not sure he heeded my warning to the extent he should have.

That said, I was the one that ended up with blisters.

The blisters were brought on by the red leather Liz Claiborne heels that I wore with my black and white dress to Babbo, one of Mario Batali's restaurants in Greenwich Village.

As you might imagine, every single thing we tasted was extraordinary. Literally...it was light years beyond ordinary. The asparagus and fresh ricotta ravioli was mouth-watering. The chianti-stained tagliatelle with wild board ragu was out of this world. The grilled garden vegetables tasted better than any grilled veggies I have ever had. My sister and brother-in-law each had a secondo, and I picked off of everyone's plates. Everything was magnificent.

But what might have been best was the BF's porcini tasting menu. The dishes were:
Anitpasto – Porcini mushrooms with arugula and balsamic drizzle
Primo - Tagliatelle with porcinis in a cream sauce
Secondo – Pork tenderloin encrusted with porcini, sea salt, and something else we can't remember

Lastly, we ended the meal with a pistachio and chocolate semi-freddo. I used the chocolate stick that was on top to stir my cappuccino. A divine ending to a spectacular meal.

Then we walked to the subway so the BF could see Times Square at night. That's where the blisters began.

Quick Post: An Admission of Love

Many of you know of my obsession with grilled cheese. I even spoke of at one point opening a grilled cheese sandwich shop.

But this is not about my love for grilled cheese. It is an admission of love...for Mark Bittman.

I pretty much adore everything he does. As I've mentioned before, even if it's something I will never try, his attitude is so attractive that I will scan the recipe, read the article, or watch the video.

Here my obsession meets my love: One of Bittman's Videos entitled, Actually Grilled Cheese.

This is 2:24 minutes (with an additional 15-20 seconds for the lead in ad) of Bittman's dry wit (he suggests adding mustard, pesto, ben gay or sunscreen to the sandwich) and his simplistic yet brilliant food ideas.

I am in love once again.

Garlic Anyone?

In keeping with the attempt to eat healthy, I decided to try a recipe that I've been wanting to try for a while. Baked chicken with a coating of All-Bran (Garlic and Herb) Crackers. I was excited about it. This is a considerably higher fiber option than regular breadcrumbs. And lower calorie to boot (18 crackers to a serving). Plus those crackers are wicked tasty.

Off to the store I go. Well, lo and behold, no All-Bran Crackers. Now, this is the grocery store where I shop almost exclusively, so I know that I've purchased them there before. But now the shelves are filled with the store brand gourmet crackers, none of which are even near my beloved All-Brans. So what to do? Well, I go back to the original recipe. Instead of All-Bran crackers (which was my touch) I picked up some Fiber One Cereal. A co-worker of mine has done this baked chicken thing with Fiber One before, so I knew it could work. My only concern was that the cereal has a sweetness to it that I wasn't sure I wanted in the coating of the chicken. The plot thickens.

When I got home, I had 3 plump chicken breasts, which were clearly larger than the 4 ounces each that I needed. I had looked at a baked chicken recipe and they gave a cooking time for a pounded out chicken breast. Perfect. I weighed them out and they were about 8oz each. Perfect. I pounded them out and cut them in half. But before I had even gotten to the chicken, I put 1.5 cups of Fiber One Cereal, garlic powder, dried oregano, dried basil, some salt and some pepper in my Cuisinart. (If I couldn't have gotten my hands on some Garlic & Herb crackers, gosh darnit, I was adding garlic and herbs!) Pulse pulse pulse until those little branches of Fiber One are made into powder.

I whipped up three egg whites (not until frothy, but until all the aspects of the egg whites were more homogenous than right out of the shell). With one hand (always keeping one clean), I put the now six pieces of chicken breast in the egg whites, turned them about and then into the powder. It worked swimmingly. From there, on to a baking sheet. (Did I mention I pre-heated the oven to 350? Quite a household commitment in 100 degree Texan weather, I might add.)

Once all six pieces were done, I put the baking sheet into the oven (middle lower rack) and baked them for 20 minutes. A quick flip and back in for 3 minutes. They were golden brown and cooked perfectly. Success!

While the chicken was cooking, I put together a bean puree that was the suggestion of the BF. I put two drained cans of Great Northern Beans and put them in the Cuisinart. I peeled three garlic cloves and threw them in. Let me stop here. That was too much garlic. I should have listened to BF. He told me that it was going to be too much. Let me repeat. I should have listened. In addition to the way too much garlic, I added some extra virgin olive oil. I probably should have used the really good stuff for this as the taste would have been a nice addition. Pulse pulse pulse. After tasting it (and, yes, I could tell it was too much garlic at that point), it needed something. I added some red pepper flakes and cayenne (not much of either, for the record). All in all, it's definitely something to do again, just not with as much garlic. This recipe made 4 servings.

So, if you put a serving of the puree and a serving of the chicken together, it's only about 200 calories. Tomorrow night, I'm going to add a spinach salad with some balsamic drizzle. I think it will work really nicely. Maybe the salad will break through the garlic of the puree. Fingers crossed.

Quick Post: My Favorite Spices and Another New Recipe

Cumin is almost always the front runner. Something about that smokey and versatile just seems to go with everything I make. Well, almost everything.

But, last week when I did my salmon en papillote recipe, I decided to turn to the old standards of the spice cabinet, dried oregano and dried basil. In that recipe I considered using herbes de provence as I often have on my sauteed zucchini, but a while back I guess I put too much on and did not enjoy it. So I figured, why not try the oregano/basil combo. It worked perfectly.

So today when I was making a healthy meal (trying to modify my calorie intake...wheee) that also tasted good, I thought about those two spices again. I browned about a pound of ground turkey and stirred in vegetable primavera pasta sauce. I then put those two items into a dish, rinsed out my large skillet, and put a touch more olive oil in. I sweated half an onion (in retrospect, a full one would have been more than okay in this recipe) and threw in two diced golden zucchini (the most amazing marigold color you've ever seen) and one diced green zucchini. And what did I season them with? Why dried oregano and basil, of course.

Since I had put salt and pepper on the ground turkey and the pasta sauce already had plenty of salt, I didn't put any more in with the zukes. Once they were cooked through (with a bit of bite left), I mixed them with the turkey and pasta sauce. It was great. I had had a hankering for a pasta dish, but this satisfied that craving without the actual pasta. This recipe ended up making 4 servings of 330 calories each, which fits perfectly into the meal size I'm going for.

Quick Post: Just Desserts

My culinary experimentation and exploration is primarily of the savory variety. I do make profiteroles with chocolate sauce. I do make a citrus pound cake with lemon sauce. And I do make banana bread. But overall, I'm not really much of a baker, which for some reason says to me that I'm not much of a dessert maker. But recently when I just got my KitchenAid stand mixer, I made a chocolate chip cookie batter (much of which was eaten raw), so perhaps that will change.

Probably due to that mini-success, a lot of dessert recipes have been catching my eye. Some require baking, others require freezing, and even some require grilling. Some are better in the winter, while other should probably only be made in the summer. Either way, they all sound tasty.

Jamie Oliver's Lemon, Lime, and Peppermint Sorbet: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/lemon-lime-and-peppermint-sorbet

Lemonade Cookies: http://foodblogga.blogspot.com/2009/09/lemonade-cookies-monsoon-monocookie.html

Grilled Fruit with Lemon Zabaglione: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Grilled-Fruit-with-Lemon-Zabaglione-352991

Hmm....seeing a common theme? I'm a sucker for citrus.

And since it's Peach time in Texas, I've been thinking of making a peach and cherry rustic tart. Sadly (my former baking instructor's heart is breaking as I type this), the likelihood of my making my own dough is...well...none. I still have a pie shell in the freezer (how long do those things last in there? hmm). I'm thinking about just rolling that out and using it. I'll be sure to keep you informed if I attempt ths recipe.

Lastly, I would like to publicly commend my BF on his outstanding custard. The other day I went over to his apartment, and couldn't identify what he was cooking on the stove. He wouldn't tell me. (He joked it was just something he found on his stove and thought he'd see what it tastes like.) When he was done stirring, he poured into three mugs, scraped some nutmeg on top, and put the three mugs in the fridge. After dinner, he handed me one with a spoon - it was fabulous custard. It was absolutely delicious. He is now planning on getting a creme brulee torch. I support that decision.