Tuesday, June 22, 2010

New Adventure

So, last weekend I bought an Italian Cookbook at Barnes and Noble in their bargain priced book section. It is titled "Italian at Home: Favorite Restaurant-Style Recipes". I have always enjoyed eating Italian food out at restaurants and decided I would pick one night a week and try some new recipes out of this cookbook. I am talking 3 course meals once a week and have chosen Mondays (for now) as my night for IWAD, or Italian Wine and Dine. I also have the pleasure of a volunteer sous chef, Brandy! A while back she told me that she would like to learn how to cook a wider variety of foods, and since I love to cook (and I cook 4-5 nights a week) she asked if we could cook together. Well, back then it didn't work out, but that's a whole other story. For now, she is happily (I think...maybe it's the wine involved) being my sous chef.

On our first IWAD last Monday, 6/14/10, we made a wonderful appetizer called "Caprese-Style Tartlets". It was very easy to make and they turned out very yummy! The only recommendation I would have is to be sure to slice the tomatoes very thin so the juice doesn't squirt out and burn you when you bite into them. I also didn't bother with refridgerating the tomatoes in pesto for 30 min to overnight because I didn't read the recipe ahead of time and didn't have time to waste. Not sure that it would have made much of a difference anyways.

For the entree we made "Pest Chicken Mac & Cheese". Not exactly the most sophisticated of names, but I'm not sure what else you could call it. The dish was very tasty, but the sauce did turn out a bit thick. I will take the blame for that though, as I probably cooked it too long. There are two things that bothered me about this dish. First, cooking the pasta and the chicken should be a step in the recipe, not something you find out needed to be done after you get to the last step. Another reason the sauce was too thick was because I didn't have the pasta and chicken ready in time.

For dessert we attempted to make "Minted Pears with Gorgonzola". The first step was to peel the pears and leave the stems on. Well, poor communication from me to Brandy resulted in stemless peeled pears. The second mistake I made was to leave the juice mixture simmering in the pan for longer than 20 minutes. The result was burnt honey mint grape juice. It made a wonderful air freshener though :) I did, however, have to thow my husbands old (supposedly non stick) pan in the trash after that. So, for dessert we had more wine and sauceless, stemless, grapejuice soaked pears. I didn't even bother with the gorgonzola at that point.

"Caprese-Style Tartlets"
  • 3 tomatoes -Small/medium sized
  • 3 tablespoons pesto -I get low fat pesto..yes, there is such a thing...or you could make your own
  • 1 sheet frozen puff pastry (thawed) -In order for me to make six 4 inch rounds I needed 2 sheets (each package comes with 2) and you can make up to eight tartlets
  • 6 oz fresh mozzarella cheese -I just bought a log and sized however much I needed from it
  • 2 tablespoons kalamata olive tapenade -This was by the jarred tomato sauce in my grocery store
  1. Slice each tomato into thin slices (about 1/3 inch thick). Discard tops and bottoms (DUH!). Place tomato slices in resealable food storage bag with pesto, tossing to coat. Refrigerate 30 minutes or overnight. (Like I said before, I didn't refrigerate, but continued directly with step
  2. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
  3. Cut out 6 (4-inch) rounds from sheet of pastry. I used a plastic cup that had a 4-inch diameter rim and made 8 rounds out of 2 sheets of puff pastry. Top each round with 2 slices marinated tomato. Bake 12 minutes or until pastry is golden brown and puffed.
  4. Preheat broiler. Turn your oven to "broil" setting. Slice mozzarella cheese into 1/4 inch thick slices. Top each tartlet with 1 slice of cheese. Broil 1 minute or until cheese is melted. Top tarts evenly with tapenade. Serve warm.
"Pesto Chicken Mac & Cheese"
  • 4 cups milk
  • 1 clove garlic, peeled and smashed
  • 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter -I used margarine
  • 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 8 ounces fontina cheese, shredded
  • 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup pesto
  • salt and black pepper
  • 1 package (6 ounces) baby spinach
  • 1 package (16 ounces) radiatore or penne pasta, cooked and drained -I couldn't find radiatore and used penne
  • 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and chopped
  1. Bring milk and garlic to a boil in small saucepan. Reduce heat; keep warm. Discard garlic. Make sure you leave the garlic clove formed (not chopped up) so you can fish it out of the milk with a slotted spoon.
  2. Melt butter in large saucepan over medium heat; whisk in flour. Cook and stir 2 minutes. Gradually add milk, whisking constantly until smooth. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cook and stir 10 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat. Make sure it doesn't get too thick as the cheese is going to thicken it further!
  3. Add cheeses to the sauce, whisking until smooth. Stir in pesto; season with salt and pepper. I didn't add any additional salt and pepper. Toss spinach, pasta and chicken with pesto mixture until spinach wilts. Serve immediately.
"Minted Pears with Gorgonzola"
  • 4 whole firm pears with stems, peeled
  • 2 cups concord grape juice
  • 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh mint
  • 1 tablespoon honey
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese
  1. Place pears in medium saucepan. Add grape juice, mint, honey, cinnamon stick and nutmeg; bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low; simmer, covered, 15-20 minutes, turning pears once to absorb juices evenly. Cook until pears can be pierced easily with fork. Remove pan from heat; cool. Remove pears with slotted spoon; set aside. Discard cinnamon stick.
  2. Bring juice mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. Place pears on individual serving plates. Pour juice mixture over pears. Sprinkle gorgonzola cheese evenly around pears.

1 comment:

  1. Brandy's Reaction/Scoring (1-5):
    Score - Course - Reaction
    2 - Appetizer - Pretty good
    3 - Main Course - Good staple dinner
    ? - Dessert - Who knows what these silly things would have tasted like?! I'm sure they would have tasted completely different than the recipe due to the lack of stems anyway!! ;)

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