Monthly Archives: May 2010

Chicken Breasts Amandine

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

I’m getting pretty spoiled with this cookbook; this was another quick and satisfying recipe.

You start out by cutting chicken breasts in half and then pounding them until they are quite thin. The chicken cutlets are dredged in flour, then egg and finally panko bread crumbs and sliced almonds. The cutlets are then briefly sauteed.

Unfortunately, I did have a major problem with the almonds burning. It was a bit of a juggling act to get the chicken cooked through before the nuts completely burned. We were able to pick off the most grievously blackened almonds, and the chicken was moist and flavorful, with a really crunchy crust from the panko.

I served this with bell pepper coleslaw (also from the book) made with bagged coleslaw mix and a simply dressing of mayonnaise, vinegar and honey. To jazz things up, you added a sliced bell pepper to the coleslaw and dress it at the last minute, so everything stays crunchy. I also added sesame seeds since I had some laying around. Neither Bryan nor I like coleslaw, but this was really good and went well with the chicken.

Enchilada Casserole

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Currently cooking out of Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O’Dea

One of the things I really like about this blog is when someone tries a recipe out of a book that I’ve cooked from and recommends it to me. So it was with this recipe.

I had originally skipped by this dish when I first browsed through the book. I figured I wouldn’t like it for several reasons, the main one being that the corn tortillas would probably turn to mush and make the whole dish soggy and mushy. And I wasn’t far off the mark. However, it turns out that mushy corn tortillas aren’t half bad.

Basically, this is just layers of enchilada ingredients. You start with a layer of corn tortillas, topped with a layer of rotisserie chicken in canned enchilada sauce. Then you layer on black beans, sliced black olives and cheese. Then repeat two or three times. The whole thing is baked in the slow cooker, on low, for about 4  hours.

The corn tortillas did dissolve, but instead of being mushy, they thickened the dish. The first night it was a little soupy, but on the second and third day, it continued to thicken up. The flavors melded together very nicely and just got better every day.

Thanks, Linda, for the recommendation!

Here’s the link to the recipe on O’Dea’s blog: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/01/crockpot-enchilada-casserole-recipe.html

Quick Pork Cassoulet

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

Porky goodness!

(Anybody else remember the Frugal Gourmet and how he used to proclaim his love for piggy?)

Anyway, here’s another really good recipe out of The Best Simple Recipe. This may not be traditional cassoulet, but it’s fast and easy, and makes a great dinner. You start out by browning chunks of pork tenderloin, sliced Kielbasa sausage and onions. Then you add diced tomatoes, cannellini beans, garlic and chicken broth to the pan and simmer for about 10 minutes. Then you enjoy porky goodness.

Like the quick bean chili recipe, this recipe has you puree half the beans. This gives the cassoulet a thick, silky texture that you’d normally get from hours of cooking. Like most of the other dishes we’ve cooked out of this book, leftovers were just as good as the first night’s meal. The only thing I would change would be to add another can of beans. After pureeing half of them, there weren’t that many whole beans in the finished dish.

Shrimp Romesco

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

I think I’ve said it here before, but shrimp is not one of my favorite foods. But when I saw this recipe, I was intrigued enough to try it. Also, I had a big bag of almonds sitting in my cupboard.

Romesco sauce is a classic Spanish sauce of red peppers, thickened with almonds. In the Cooks Illustrated version, the sauce is made with jarred roasted red peppers and garlic, and the almonds are toasted with bread crumbs and sprinkled on the shrimp at the end.

This dish is fantastically simply. The sauce comes together quickly, in the food processor, and the shrimp take only a few minutes of cooking. The end result is a bright, tasty dish that even I liked. We had a lot of sauce left over, so the next night, I broiled some frozen mahi mahi and spooned the sauce over the fish.

Parmesan Chicken with Cherry Tomato Salad

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

I could tell you how easy this was, but I’ve already done that with most of the other recipes out of this book. I could tell you how tasty it is, but I’ve done that with just about every other dish out of this book as well.

Instead, I’ll just say, “Go make this. You won’t be disappointed.”

Chicken cutlets are covered in flour, dipped in egg and coated in a mixture of panko bread crumbs and grated parmesan cheese. Then you saute the chicken in a bit of olive oil, a couple of minutes per side.

While the chicken is cooking, cut up some tomatoes (the recipe called for cherry tomatoes, but I used small regular tomatoes and quartered them) and chop some fresh basil. Toss the tomatoes with the basil, olive oil and salt and pepper.

When the chicken is done, serve it with a pile of the tomato salad. So good.

Chicken and Spinach Farfalle

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

I was having a bad day when I made this dish. Everything seemed to go wrong. I used too small of a pot to cook the pasta and went through three more pots putting this dish together (which resulted in cool pasta, unwilted spinach and a pile of dishes). I kept dropping the knife as I was cutting up the chicken (fortunately not on any of my extremities). And I burned most of the pine nuts instead of toasting them. Even after that the dish still came out fine.

This is pretty much a simpified pasta alfredo with spinach and chicken. You start off by browning chicken, then making up a quick sauce of garlic, lemon zest and juice and a half of a cup of cream. Meanwhile, you cook a pot of pasta and drain it, reserving about a half of a cup of the pasta cooking water. The pasta, sauce, chicken, spinach, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese and the reserved water are put back into the pot and mixed together. The heat of the pasta wilts the spinach, and the reserved water thins the cream sauce.

My biggest complaint about this dish is that I wanted more sauce. In fact, when we ate the leftovers the next day, I made another batch of the sauce. So, if you like your pasta a little saucy, double the sauce.

Oh, and make sure you use a big pot to make the pasta.

Easy Yogurt Corn Bread

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Currently cooking out of The Carefree Cook by Rick Rodgers

To go along with Bryan’s very tasty chili, we wanted some sort of bread. And what goes better with chili than cornbread? I decided to revisit The Carefree Cook for the cornbread recipe.

I come down on the northern side of the cornbread divide. I like my cornbread more sweet and cakey, but this recipe is distinctly southern. That is, there is only a tablespoon of sugar in the recipe. It is an easy recipe, using equal parts cornmeal and all-purpose flour. The liquid is primarily supplied by yogurt, an egg and a bit of milk.

We ended up with a pretty good piece of cornbread to go with the chili. It wasn’t overly dry and had a nice corny flavor. After a few bites, though, I missed the sweetness. Raspberry jam ended up adorning the rest of my cornbread.

Quick Beef and Bean Chili

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

This is what happens when I take a break from cooking — Bryan steps in and knocks out a winner. Maybe I should take a break more often . . .

I warily approached the preparation of Sunday’s dinner. I had offered to cook in a rare show of generosity to my wife. Let’s face it: When one person kinda sorta enjoys something, and another person oh-my-goodness loves loves loves it, the person who loves it is going to do it more often. Plus, on weeknights I’m not home until 6 p.m., and neither of us wants to eat at 7:30 or 8, so dinner duties have fallen heavily on my wife. That doesn’t mean I feel no guilt about it.

The beef chili dinner from The Best Simple Recipes was a great choice. It truly is a simple recipe, not just in preparation, but in the ingredient list. It’s got meat! Each of the other ingredients (an onion, beans, cumin, chili powder, garlic and just a touch of sugar) serves a specific flavor purpose. Nothing is added unnecessarily.

It’s a “mix together and stir” recipe, with two exceptions. The first exception is to cook the meat (hamburger in this case) and onion for a few minutes before mixing everything else in. That’s a no-brainer, unless you like mad cow disease.

The second exception is Cooks Illustrated’s trick to pulling this recipe off in 30 minutes instead of two hours. Puree half of the beans and tomatoes before adding them to the meat and onions. The puree allows the chili to be thick without adding hours of cooking time.

Top it with cheese and sour cream, and you’re done in a half hour to 45 minutes. Trista made cornbread to go with it, and I will let her add her own thoughts on that. (Hint: It was delicious.)

The chili itself is quite good. We enjoyed two dinners each from it, so it’s certainly fit to be eaten as is. But I see this recipe as merely the starting point. The paucity and sheer efficiency of ingredients provide lots of room to customize this to your tastes. Make it hotter, make it thicker, add black beans, use steak or chicken instead of hamburger – the list goes on. Will we cook this again? Yes, but it probably won’t be the same way twice.

My wife, bless her heart, mostly stayed away from the kitchen. I did detect once that a burner had been adjusted slightly, but she insists that she didn’t touch it, blaming it instead upon a “wascawy wabbit.” I’m not sure if I should believe her, but since she is the Best! Wife! Ever!, I choose to take her at her word.

Grilled Steaks with Homemade Steak Sauce

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Currently cooking from The Best Simple Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen

My days of buying steak sauce are over, unless I get lazy, but even that isn’t an excuse. This sauce is quick and easy, and you probably have all the ingredients in your pantry right now.

There’s a secret ingredient in this sauce. If you didn’t know what it was, you probably wouldn’t be able to guess it. The secret is raisins, plumped with hot water and then pureed. They disappear into the sauce, and give it a spicy sweetness.

The other main ingredients in the sauce are ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Dijon mustard and vinegar. Whirl everything together in the food processor until smooth and spoon it over grilled steaks, grilled hamburgers, roasted potatoes, etc.