A Trip To España...

Good evening everyone! So for tonight's dinner I took a little trip to Spain! On the menu tonight was Rachael Ray's "Piquillo Pepper Chicken with Spanish Rice". Olé!!

First up you start the rice. To begin with you place a good handful of sliced almonds into a skillet to toast them. Rachael Tip: Watch the almonds closely. This goes really quickly and they can burn. As Rachael says "Your nose will know when they are done"! When the nuts become fragrant and slightly browned, take them off the heat and reserve them. Also, to get the greatest shelf life out of your nuts keep them in the freezer. Nuts have oil and oil can spoil so keeping them in the freezer gets you the longest use out of them! In the meantime, put the chicken stock, saffron, turmeric, golden raisins, salt and pepper in a pot and bring it to a boil. Drop the rice, reduce the heat to simmer and let it cook for about 18 minutes. Once the rice is done, add in the sliced almonds and flat leaf parsley and it's good to go! 

While the rice is cooking, prepare the chicken. The chicken is really simple. Season it with salt and pepper, and when the EVOO ripples and wafts a little bit of smoke, add the chicken breasts in. If the breasts are 6oz, they should cook about 6 minutes on each side. Luckily the breasts i bought were really close to this. Two of them were a little big so I pounded them out with a meat mallet to get them to a uniform thickness with the smaller chicken breasts. Worked perfectly! Obviously, if the breasts are smaller they will take less time and if they are larger allow a little more time to cook. Once the chicken is done, you can remove it to a plate and cover with foil to keep it warm. Into the skillet you cooked the chicken in, add the piquillo peppers and let them heat through a minute or two. Piquillo peppers are a small spanish pepper that is usually in the same section of the grocery store as the roasted red peppers. The small grocery store next to my apartment didn't have them so I had to use roasted red peppers instead. If your market has the piquillos go with those but if not feel free to substitute roasted red peppers. Next, add the dry sherry and deglaze. I would recommend cooking the chicken in a stainless steel pan or cast iron pan if you have it. Using a non stick skillet won't allow the drippings to stick well to the bottom of the pan. When you use cast iron or stainless steel, deglazing with the wine pulls up all the bits on the bottom of the pan and adds tons of flavor to the sauce. If you have only non stick, that's fine. Still gonna taste great. But when i need to deglaze, i prefer a cast iron or stainless steel pan. Anyway, deglaze with the sherry and let it reduce a minute or two. I didn't have sherry and this small grocery store didn't have a wine section. Since I didn't feel like stopping by the wine shop and getting sherry, I simply used white wine. Sherry is a more spanish ingredient to use and if you have it use it and if you're gonna have to buy wine anyway, go ahead and pick it up. Rachael Tip: DO NOT use the cooking sherry that you might find over on the vinegar aisle. Cooking wines tend to be overly sweet and when you cook with wine it concentrates the flavor. As a general rule, if you wouldn't drink it, you shouldn't cook with it. Once the sherry reduces a little bit turn off the heat, add in the butter and parsley and stir around to melt the butter and it's done!

To serve this up simply plate the rice, then lay a chicken breasts on top and top with the pepper and sauce mixture. This one was a really tasty meal. It took me back to when I was a kid and my mom used to buy the yellow rice packages in the grocery store that she used to serve up with her baked chicken and green beans! That's the great part about cooking! It can instantly take you back! As Rachael says, cooking is good for the soul and after the day i've had, it was much needed! The almonds in the rice add a nice bit of crunch and earthiness and the golden raisins give a nice sweet bite here and there! The sauce over the chicken has great flavor and is a real winner! Hope you guys enjoy your own little trip to Spain! Until next time, Happy cooking!!

Recipe: This recipe is featured in Rachael Ray's "Look + Cook" cookbook! However, it was also featured on her talk show so the link is below!! Enjoy!!

http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=1407

Maybe I am Italian..

So my friend Dawn used to tell me that she was convinced there was Italian in my heritage because my Italian food seems to always be a hit! After tonight, I think she may be right. On the menu tonight was Rachael Ray's "Pork Chops Smothered with Peppers & Onions and Buttery Tomato Spaghetti".

The first thing I did was start the pasta side dish. Put on the pasta water to boil and then start the sauce. The sauce for this is probably one of the easiest pasta sauces you'll ever make. This sauce comes from Rachael's mother. Her mother doesn't like to chop and so she created this tomato basil sauce that doesn't require any chopping! Almost no chopping at all involved in this one!! Start out by melting 6 Tbs. of butter in a pot over medium heat. Yes, 6 Tbs. is correct, after all it is called "Buttery" tomato spaghetti. So melt the butter and then add the tomatoes and veggies. You simply peel an onion, cut it in half and toss it in, grate one clove of garlic in, add a few leaves of torn basil and season with salt. Now a couple things. I also add a bay leaf. The recipe doesn't call for it but I love the flavor of bay with onion and tomato. Secondly, I actually roll up the basil leaves and chiffonade them.  When you chiffonade you slice the basil leaves into very thin strips like a basil confetti. I don't like biting into big pieces of basil so I go with the chiffonade. If you don't mind the bigger pieces, just tear them  and throw them in. Let it reduce over medium heat for about 20 minutes and it's done. The recipe calls for crushed San Marzano tomatoes. San Marzano tomatoes are imported from a specific region in Italy and are a rich sweet tomato. Rachael Tip: Make sure if you buy San Marzano tomatoes that you are actually buying a product from Italy. Look for DOP on the label or make sure that San Marzano isn't the brand name. Some companies use San Marzano as their name but the tomatoes are not imported. I couldn't find crushed San Marzano so I substituted crushed Italian plum tomatoes and it was still fantastic. If you start the pasta water to boil and then begin the sauce, you should drop the pasta and finish the sauce and just about the same time. Once the pasta reaches al dente, reserve a cup or so of the starchy cooking water and then drain the pasta. Add the starchy water to the sauce and then toss with the pasta until it forms a nice sauce on the pasta. The starchy cooking water is essential in this. It is what helps the sauce to stick to the pasta.

Rachael Tip: This tip is for the storage of your basil. Most herbs can be washed, dried, placed in a plastic food storage bag and put in the refrigerator. Basil doesn't tend to like the cold as much so the best way is to place in a cup or vase of water and keep it on the countertop. I brought mine home today and did just that and in about an hour, it was drooping. Rachael's tip to extend the life of the basil is to take a plastic food storage bag and place it over the cup of basil. This creates a greenhouse effect and can help to extend the life of the basil by a few days!

Once you have the pasta sauce underway you are ready to start the pork chops. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees to begin with. Before you start cooking at all, take the chops out of the refrigerator to knock the chill off of them. Rachael Tip: Bring the chops up to room temp before you put them in the hot pan. Placing super cold meat in a screaming hot skillet will cause the meat to seize up. Also, pat it dry before seasoning and placing in the skillet to get a great caramelization on the meat! Once the chops are at room temperature and you've started the pasta sauce, heat the EVOO in the skillet until it begins to ripple and waft it's first bits of smoke. At this point it's ready for the pork chops. Add them to the skillet and leave them alone! You want to leave them on one side for a few minutes to develop a nice brown before you flip them to side two. Once they are browned on both sides, remove them to a plate. While the chops brown slice the onion, peppers, chile pepper and chop the garlic. The chile pepper for this is a red fresno chile pepper.

Rachael Tip: Fresno's are a mild chile that have a sort of fruity heat to them. If you have a higher heat tolerance you can slice it with the seeds and ribs left in. If you have a lower heat tolerance, remove the seeds and ribs from the pepper and then slice. The seeds and ribs are where the heat lives in any chile pepper.  Once the chops come out add another drizzle of oil and add in the veggies and add in the fennel seeds. Cook until the veggies soften up a bit and then add in the tomato paste and cook it out for a minute. At this point you can deglaze the pan with wine. You can use either a white or red for this dish. I prefer red and my favorite red wine is Nero D'Avloa. Nero D'Avola is a red wine from Sicily that is great. It's usually inexpensive but if you have a red wine that you really enjoy, by all means, use that. Once the wine cooks out for a minute, add the chicken stock to the pan. Slide the chops back in, including all the juices that have collected on the plate, and then place the onions and peppers on top. Put the chops in the oven and then let them finish cooking through for about 10 minutes or so. 

This one turned out to be really good. If you enjoy the drinking wine, it would be great with a glass of the Nero D'Avola. I myself don't like drinking wine so for me a nice glass of sweet tea was enough. This one was really good and I think you'll all love it. Until next time, happy cooking!!

Recipe: Both recipes were featured in Rachael Ray's book "My Year In Meals". The buttery tomato spaghetti was also featured on her Food Network program "30 Minute Meals". The recipe for the spaghetti can be found at the link below! Enjoy!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/buttery-tomato-spaghetti-recipe/index.html

It was a sloppy kind of night!

Hello all!! So tonight's dinner was a sloppy one, but it was a good one. Tonight was the first time cooking out of Rachael's "Book of Burger" and it turned out great!! On the menu tonight was Rachael Ray's "Sloppy Chipotle Joes & Double-Baked Crazy-Crisp Oven Fries with Balsamic Ketchup & Green Sour Cream".

First up are the oven fries. These were really great and reminded me of when my mom used to make homemade french fries at home when I was growing up! You start out with russett potatoes. You skin the potatoes leaving a little bit of skin at each end of the potato. This is done for esthetic reasons only, but if you like the skin you can leave more of it or if you don't like skin on the potatoes, you can remove all of it. Once peeled, you slice the potatoes into think planks no more than 1/4" thick. Once the planks are sliced, you slice each plank into thin strips. Throw the potatoes in a bowl and mix with EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil for those who don't speak the Rachael Ray lingo), salt and pepper. Place the fries on two cooling racks placed on top of a baking sheet in a single layer, without crowding the potatoes. Rachael Tip: Placing the potatoes on a cooling rack on top of a baking sheet allows the heat in the oven to circulate all around the potatoes allowing them to get crispy all over. If you just place them on a baking sheet, one you'll have to turn them and if you don't they will not get crispy on one side. The potatoes go into the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Once they come out you can add the flavoring of choice. The recipe in the book lists several choices. Rachael's favorite is Garlic and Rosemary. I chose to go with melted butter, garlic and parmigianno-reggiano cheese! When the potatoes come out of the oven, turn the oven up to 425 degrees. Melt 1/2 stick of butter and add two crushed garlic cloves to the butter. Let it melt and cook over medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes. At this point, discard the garlic cloves and drizzle the butter over potatoes and add in the parmigianno-reggiano cheese and toss it all together. Scatter the potatoes back onto the cooling racks and when the oven comes up to temperature, put them back in for 15-20 minutes or to your desired crispiness! When you place the fries back in the oven for the second time, you can whip up the Chipotle Sloppy Joes!! They take absolutely no time at all! 

So the sloppy joes couldn't really be any easier! Take the ground chuck and place it in a skilled with EVOO and brown up. Rachael Tip: When you are browning meat, you want to get a great caramelization on the meet which gives great flavor! The best way to do it is first get you pan screaming hot! When the oil ripples and begins to waft it's first bit of smoke, it's ready! Secondly, pat the meat dry! If the meat is wet, it won't caramelize. Pat the meat dry with a paper towel and when the oil is ready, add the meat to the skillet and LEAVE IT ALONE! Don't mess with the meat for a few minutes. This allows the sugars to develop on the meat and give you a great caramelization and crust! While the meat caramelizes, chop the onion, garlic and red bell pepper. Once the meat is caramelized you can begin breaking it up. Rachael Tip: You can break the meat up with a wooden spoon as it browns or you can use a potato masher! The potato masher does a great job of breaking the meat up! Once the meat is browned, add in the onion, garlic, red bell pepper and chipotle in adobe puree. For info on how to make the chipotle in adobe puree, check out my blog from September 21st. It's in there as a Rachael Tip. Toss the veggies, chipotle and meat together and let the veggies sweat out and get tender. While the veggies are cooking, mix together the tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce and brown sugar with a little salt and black pepper. When the veggies are tender, mix in the sauce and let it simmer until it is thickened! At this point they are ready to serve! Take whatever type of burger bun you prefer and add the meat mixture and you are ready to go!

The sloppy joes can be served with a few different toppings. Of those suggested I chose extra sharp cheddar cheese and I also made a green sour cream! The recipe calls for just sliced avocado but I'm not a big fan of avocado. This green sour cream was made the first time when I made Rachael's Chorizo strata for my two fav nursing school classmates, Taylor and Jessica!  It's incredibly easy and it tastes amazing! Take one cup of sour cream, one ripe avocado, juice of one lime, salt and pepper. Mix it together in the food processor and it's good to go. Absolutely delicious! I used it as the glue on the top of the bun to make it stick to the sandwich. I also made a dipper for the fries. I made Rachael's balsamic ketchup. Again, incredibly easy. Take 1 cup of organic ketchup and add 3 tablespoons of Balsamic Drizzle. Rachael Tip: You can find balsamic drizzle in several supermarkets or you can make it yourself. Take 1/2 cup of a good, aged balsamic vinegar and 2 tablespoons of dark brown sugar. Mix it together and reduce it over medium heat until it is reduced by half, and thick and syrupy. Super easy! Mix together the ketchup and the 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar and a little black pepper and that's it!. Delicious dipper!

This one had a lot of flavor and was a lot of fun to make! It would be a great menu for a small get together with friends. Something Rachael recommends is getting slider sized buns which would make it a fun party meal! Hope you guys enjoy this one! Until next time, happy cooking!

Recipe: The recipes for this dinner are all found in Rachael Ray's "Book of Burger" with the exception of the green sour cream. That however is outlined in the blog, no recipe needed!

Chicken, Potatoes, Fruit & Cheese....Enough Said!

Good evening all! So dinner tonight incorporated a lot of my favorite things and turned out to be a real winner! On the menu tonight was Rachael Ray's Sliced Chicken with Apples, Pears, & Camembert Mashed Potatoes!!

First up start the potatoes. You can use any potato you like to make mashed potatoes. The recipe calls for yukon gold potatoes and that's what I always use unless the recipe specifically calls for a different potato. Reason being, the yukon gold potatoes have such a soft skin there is no need to peel them. Simply chop the potatoes into like shapes and sizes, place them in a pot and cover with cold water. Place them on the stove, put the lid on them and bring them to a boil. Rachael Tip: Two tips in one here. First tip, Do not fill the pot with water before you place the potatoes in the pot and don't cover them in warm water. Place the potatoes in the pot first and cover with cold water to ensure even cooking for all the potatoes. Second tip is to be sure and take the lid off the potatoes when they start to boil. The potatoes have a lot of starch in them and if the lid is left on after they start boiling, the starch in the potatoes will cause the pot to overflow. Once the potatoes are done, drain them and return them to the hot pot. Rachael Tip: Returning the potatoes right back to the hot pot will evaporate the remaining water on the potatoes and prevent having runny mashed potatoes. Season the potatoes with salt and pepper and mash with the milk, cream or half and half, whichever you prefer, and the Camembert cheese. Camembert is a soft brie cheese that is widely available in most supermarkets today, but if you can't find Camembert specifically, you can use any ripe brie cheese. While the potatoes are cooking, you can move on to the chicken!

The chicken really couldn't be any easier. Take 4 chicken breasts, season with salt and pepper on both sides and cook them until done, about 12-15 minutes depending on the size of the breasts, turning once. Heads up on the chicken breasts. Make sure to get chicken breasts that are not overly large. They should be about 4-6oz. each. The chicken breasts I bought were much larger than that, took much longer to cook, and wouldn't all fit in the pan at the same time so I had to cook them in two batches, thus causing me to take a lot more time to make dinner than I wanted to. If you have a market locally that has fresh chicken in a case like going to a butcher, that is where I would recommend going to purchase (Whole Foods is my fav place to go). Buying prepackaged can lead to random weight chicken. But, I digress. Once the chicken is cooked remove it to a plate, Cover with aluminum foil and allow the juices to redistribute in the chicken while you prepare the apple and pear. 

In the same skillet you prepared the chicken melt the butter and add your apple and pear to the pan. There are a couple different apples you can use for this recipe. Thankfully, living in New England now, apples are plentiful here. I really love the honey crisp apples and that is what i used for the dish. Of the apples listed in the recipe, 

use whichever you have access to and whichever have the best price at the market! Once they are in the pan, season with salt and nutmeg. I recommend using freshly grated nutmeg if you have it. You could substitute already grated nutmeg if you have it and don't want to purchase whole cloves of nutmeg, but the freshly grated nutmeg has a stronger flavor and the aroma is amazing! Squeeze in the lemon juice and give everything a toss. Heads up!! You're going to need the zest of the lemon for garnish so be sure to zest it before you cut it and squeeze out the juice! Once the apple and pear are tender crisp squeeze in the honey and toss and let it cook out for about a minute longer. I actually add most of the thyme at this point as well. The recipe calls for you to simply garnish the plates with the thyme and lemon zest but i actually threw some of the time into the apple and pear while the honey cooked out and saved a little of it for garnish. 

When the apples are done, remove the chicken breasts from the foil and slice each breast on an angle. Plate the potatoes on the plate and fan the chicken breast slices around the potatoes. Top them with the apple and pear and garnish the plate with a little of the thyme and some lemon zest. The end result is really great! The chicken has a nice salty and peppery taste and the fruit has a sweet and tart flavor that balances out perfectly! The potatoes are rich and creamy and make a great compliment to the chicken and fruit. This one was great and I hope you all enjoy it! Until next time, happy cooking!!

This recipe can be found in Rachael Ray's cookbook "Look + Cook"