Christmas Pounds

I haven't weighed myself lately (in a long time actually) but I am sure I way few pounds more than I did pre-holidays.

Over the past week or so I have eaten 5 large family meals (that I can remember) plus countless candies and cookies plus a couple really great meals at some local reastaurants (hurray for fishbowls). With all of that plus normal meals, you would think I could hibernate till at least February. I might.

But not until after tonight. Tonight we are going out with a friend of mine from work and his wife to one of my favorite restaurants: Kabob International. If you are ever in the STL area and have a chance, I highly recommend it.

Oh, one other thing. Harry and David Chocolate Covered Bing Cherries and Royal Riviera Pears are to die for!

Links - Better-meat with-12-birds with bacon-wrapped potatoes

• Make good meat better? I will have to try this one next spring when we break out the grill again! (I have followed AB's suggestions on brining pork for some time now and it is a key component in one of my favorite dishes ... Grilled Stuffed Porkchops that I will sometime post as a recipe)
• Turducken is sooo last season. 3 different birds just won't cut it any more. Now we need 12! (I would love to try this, but man its crazy!)
• Dates? Check. Bacon? Check. Parmesan cheese? Double Check. Sounds right up Kooz's alley. Maybe I will find time around the holidays to make some of these.
• I found this one a couple months ago, but I still want to try it. Gives me hope that I still might someday get my Reese's Brick. :)
• Em had some interesting spiced mulled wine the other night at a friends house. I wonder what other kinds of goodies could be made.
• Could all of the world's problems be solved by potatoes? Maybe.
  

Chicken Spedini

For Em's birthday, I made one of her favorite dishes ... Chicken Spedini. The dish was more involved than some, but WELL worth the extra effort. This recipe is an approximation of what I did for that meal, inspired by suggestions from Em's mom and random recipes I found online. I didn't measure anything; amounts are my best guesses. This recipe makes 4 pieces (we ate 3 w/ pasta and had one leftover).

Ingredients

• 4 chicken cutlets or thin breasts
• Juice of 3 medium lemons
  
• 1/2 cp seasoned bread crumbs
• 1/2 can diced tomatoes in juice
• 1 egg, hard boiled and diced
  
• 1/3 cp grated parmigiana cheese
• 1 tbsp misc Italian herbs (basil, oregano, etc)
• 1 tbsp sugar
  
• 3+ cloves of garlic diced
• 1/2 small or medium onion diced
  
• 2 tbsp butter
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
  

Steps

1. Pound chicken into thin pieces <1/2">
2. Mix breadcrumbs, cheese, herbs, salt and pepper, sugar together
3. Lightly coat chicken in breadcrumb mixture. Knock off excess.
4. In a small pan sauté the onion and garlic in a small amount of olive oil until softened.
5. Add onion/garlic/oil mixture to remaining breadcrumb mixture along with tomatoes, egg, and a small amount of the lemon juice. Mix adding enough of the tomato juice to form a thick filling
6. In a medium sized baking dish, add just a bit of olive oil and swish to coat the bottom.
7. For each piece of chicken, place a small ball of the filling mixture in the center and fold the ends around, wrapping the filling in the chicken. Place end side down into baking dish.
8. In the same sauté pay you used before, over medium-low heat melt the butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil along with a another clove (or more) of minced garlic. When the butter and oil start to sizzle, add the remaining lemon juice and stir to combine.
9. Spoon the butter-oil-garlic-lemon mixture over the chicken.
10. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.
11. Remove foil and bake for 10-15 minutes more.
12. Serve over angel hair pasta w/ the drippings and lemon/oil mixture that is left in the pan

Thoughts

This dish turned much better than I was anticipating. I always have some anxiety when I make a dish that Em has had growing up b/c there is no way it can compare to what her mother and grandmother can make.

The chicken was very moist, the filling (or gonza as Em's family calls it) was delicious, the lemon wasn't overpowering, and the pasta coated in the butter/oil/garlic/lemon mixture was yummy. Admittedly, I ended up making more of the sauce and spooned it over the chicken when I was removing the foil. Also, I finished them for the last 5 minutes or right under the broiler trying to get them to brown up a bit, but they turned out great and not overdone.

I was initially a little skeptical of how the filling was going to turn out (it ends up being very moist) w/ the egg, but the flavor was great. We ended up with extra. If this happens to you, just put it in the baking dish and enjoy. Tonight I am going to try and fry up the last bit of filling we have in a pseudo-meatball which I can't imagine will taste bad.

Photos

Super Simple Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Last night I made a batch Cream of Cauliflower Soup that pretty simple, fairly fast, and very good....

Ingredients:

• 1 head of cauliflower
  
• 1/2 large onion
  
• 1 - 2 cloves garlic
  
• 1 large baking potato
• 1 can chicken broth
• 1 can vegetable broth
• Salt-n-Peppa' to taste
• 1/4 cp. half and half (or more as much as you want ;-) )
• Olive oil
  

Steps:

0. Purchase one of these (or you can use a large blender or food processor, creaming the mixture in batches, but this thing made everything a ton easier)

1. Chop cauliflower and potato into bite size or smaller pieces.
   
2. Chop onion and mash garlic. Put this into a decent sized pot w/ 1-2 tablespoons of Olive oil and a dash of salt. Cook over medium heat until softened and semi-translucent.
   
3. Add cauliflower, potato, and broth to pot. Bring liquid to a boil and then turn down and keep simmering until potato and cauliflower chunks are soft (10-15 minutes).
4. Take off the heat and use your immersion blender to blend until smooth and creamy.
5. Add half and half, mix, and heat through

Thoughts:

• This was way easy and tasted really good ... perfect for a cold night.
  
• It could just as easily be done with other vegetables (potato, leaks, broccoli, etc). You will probably need some starchy vegetable or more cream depending on what your using.
• Some different seasoning or add-ins at then end would make it even more interesting.
• The immersion blender made creaming the mixture a snap. Just a few seconds and 90% was done. Another few seconds fishing around for any larger clumps and I was finished. Great consistency and no mess since I could put the thing into the dish washer.
  

Photos:

I was very hungry when it was done and anxious to try it so I forgot to take a picture ... imagine a bowl full of white creamy goodness with small flecks of black pepper showing.