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...
Mushroom/Garlic/Shrimp Creamy Pasta
Tonight’s dinner was based simply looking at my fridges and saying “what am I going to eat tonight”. I had a container of mushrooms left over from the mushroom app I made the other day. And I had some cream cheese, also from the app, and something I rarely have in my fridge. I always keep frozen shrimp in my freezer….so… A sauteed Mushroom and Shallot in a white wine cream sauce with Shrimp, served on Angel Hair Pasta. This was a fun, quick and incredibly good meal. In a skillet I melted some butter, and put in a fine sliced shallot and four sliced white mushrooms. I cooked these down for about 10 minutes and then added two thin sliced garlic cloves. Once the aroma came up on these, I poured in about 1 cup of pinot grigio and reduced...
Don’s Fall/Halloween Gumbo
Carrying on a 20-year tradition of Halloween Gumbo, on Sunday afternoon, Saara Przybylek and I worked up a couple pots of this wonderful Cajun fare. The recipe below is for a single pot. Plan to start cooking at 2 pm if you are serving at 6 pm. It’s all about the Rue (roux) Rue is flour and oil, cooked slowly to a chocolate brown on a medium heat. Sounds easy. Pull up a chair, put on some music and get ready to spend about 30 minutes stirring a pot. I have found cooking the rue in a dutch oven on the stove is faster. Ingredients 1 cup flour 1 cup vegetable oil That’s it. I start with the pot that everything will be cooked in. So this is generally a large stock pot. For stirring, I like a large wooden spoon. It won’t transmit heat and it has a soft touch. NEVER be...