Chicken Florintine

There was no doubt that tonight’s meal would take hours to prepare. But sometimes cooking a great meal is ABOUT the process. Wine was poured, a fire burned in the backyard, music played. All while preparing the meal. Tonight is Dons take on Chicken Florentine. Saara Przybylek provided most of the effort, since most of the effort was done by the sous chef. The result was a delightful, veggie-full meal. Wrapped in chicken. We’ll pound out 4 chicken breasts till they are about 1/4″ thin. Boil some small potatoes for about 30 minutes. Or, if you go the oven route, add them to the baking dish with the chicken rolls. In a bowl mix 2 cups of spinach, 1/2 cup of fine chopped onion, 1/3 cup of fine chopped red pepper, 1/3 cup of feta cheese, Juice of a...

Heart of Palm Lasagna

Sunday night’s dinner…Heart of Palm Lasagna. Something new, but still very familiar. When I cook my spaghetti sauce, I cook a lot of it for leftovers. My first choice, of course, is lasagna. But tonight will be different, for the first time I’ll use thin slices of heart-of-palm instead of lasagna noodles. You know…to be healthy. Kinda-sorta, if you don’t count the huge amount of cheese. Everything else is the same. On the bottom of a 9″ square dish goes some sauce, then some heart-of-palm, then ricotta cheese with some Parmesan. Repeat. More noodles and sauce until the top layer is sauce and cheese. This bakes in a 350° oven till it is bubbly, then broiled for a minute to crisp up the top. We served it with a wonderful salad....

Chicken Parm

With the last of my spaghetti sauce (I have yet to write up my heart-of-palm lasagna) I wanted to do a chicken Parmesan. Usually this is an easy me, but last night I wanted to up the game a bit. So I give you a mozzarella stuffed chicken Parmesan. I pounded two chicken breasts flat. I cut them in 2 so I had 4 chicken fillets. I placed them in between two sheets of plastic wrap and went to town on them. I dry dredged these in a flour/pepper/onion powder/garlic powder mix. I sprayed them with some olive oil and air fried them for 15 minutes. I was shooting for a crispy crust, but not cooked-through. In a glass baking dish I put down some of my sauce, two of the chicken cuts, some of my sauce, then a handful of mozzarella and parm. Then the second chicken cut (so I...

Mushroom/Onion/Ham Waffle

In my continuing breakfast series, I give you, quite possibly, one of my favorite breakfasts to date! A Mushroom, Onion, Ham Waffle. In a bowl, I added half a cup of flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of agave, a hint of salt and enough milk to make it a thick batter. To this I added a handful of shredded cojack cheese and two tablespoons of sour cream. Into this I folded a mushroom/onion/diced ham saute. This was poured into a pre-heated, olive-oiled waffle iron for 3 minutes. I had some Mexican creama, so I drizzled this on top of one of the waffles and topped it with two over-easy eggs. While the eggs cooked, I crushed some fresh ground black pepper on to and added a hint of cayenne. An absolutely delightful...

Don’s Classic Spaghetti Sauce

One of the first meals I cooked when I was a poor college student was Spaghetti and Sauce. The recipe is incredibly simple, and I called my mom up to ask her how the sauce I grew up with was made. And I still make it (other than the meat) the same way. Instead of using ground beef, which I later evolved to use ground chicken, I now grill or smoke chicken thighs. But everything else is the same. Very simple. Grill or smoke a back of boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Tonight I smoked a pack of thighs for about an hour. They don’t have to be cooked all the way through, as they will spend the next couple hours in simmering sauce. In a large pot, caramelize a large sweet onion in olive oil, add about 4-5 minced fresh garlic cloves at the end. You want them to...