Hey, it's been forever. Let's give this another try.

Here are some things I have cooked recently, just to show you I haven't been at home eating frozen pizza...I've got cooking club on Saturday and hope to make a nice dinner on Sunday, so I will blog those as we go....

Chicken Scampi - One of my true specialties



A nice dinner of honey glazed thighs, salad and roasted mixed potatoes



I made those rolls from scratch!




Mustard glazed steaks before going under the broiler



After



Kabobs we made for mother's day

Wednesday's Dinner

Mmmm.

Quick post to tell you how to make the easiest, most delicious chicken (or at least the most delicious I have made in a while).

1. Strip and chop the leaves from three sprigs of rosemary (chopping rosemary is quite satisfying and smells so fantastic).

2. Smash up as many garlic cloves as you would like (let's say 4)

2. Wash and trim boneless chicken breasts

3. Put chicken in a glass dish (casserole style) and cover with equal parts balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil

4. Cover chicken with the rosemary, garlic, some kosher salt and ground pepper

5. Marinate at least 10 minutes, although the longer the better

6. Heat a skillet on Med-High

7. When skillet is hot, put in chicken and some (or all of the vinegar oil mixture)

8. Cook around 12 minutes flipping a couple times.

Enjoy:





I served with oven-roasted rosemary new potatoes and some sauteed squash and zucchini. Check out the potato recipe I highly recommend it!

Sometimes things go wrong.

Monday night I was ready to cook. I was looking forward to dinner in front of a new episode of Heroes (finally!) and was trying out a calzone recipe for the first time.

I came home and started making the dough with my new supply of yeast, bread dough, sugar, salt and olive oil. The mixing and kneading went well. I tried out a new technique of placing the bowl of dough in a closed (turned off) oven with a bowl of hot water on the bottom rack. This was supposed to create a warmer environment encouraging faster rising, but I can't really say I noticed a difference.

My other inspiration for the evening was trying my hand at a Caesar salad dressing (minus the anchovies and raw eggs). I found a decent sounding recipe on Cooking light for the dressing and mixed it up.



While whisking and thinking of crisp romaine lettuce with parmesan cheese, I suddenly desired garlic croûtons for my salad as well.

"I'll make them! We have some bread!"

And, boy, did they look good:



But, as stated in the title, sometimes things go wrong.

Broiler on, croûtons in the oven, my attention turned to the filling for my calzones. The room filled with the delicious smell of onions and garlic sauteeing in olive oil as I added chicken sausage to the mix.

Things got smoky.

Must be something on the burner, the smoke is coming from under the skillet.

Nope.

OH.
SHIT.

"Justin, something is on fire again!!"



Windows opened, coughing, disappointment.

A promise to myself to ALWAYS set the timer, even if I am only broiling something for "a minute" (today's lesson).

I managed to shake it off and get dinner on the (coffee) table in time for Heroes. Well, at least in time for a DVR delayed viewing.

Color is not great, but here is the final plating:



The recipe I started with can be found here, but I altered it a bit, including switching out the peppers for some frozen spinach and making 4 larger calzones in lieu of 8 small ones.

Left-overs were yummy too.

Baked earlier this week...

Justin's birthday was a week ago so on Sunday I made him a Devil's food cake with a chocolate sour cream frosting. I made the cake without oil or shortening, so I am convinced it was healthy!




I also made two loafs of French Bread on Sunday which lasted us two dinners, two lunches and one big snack:

Ouch.

I just burned my stomach on the stove. Yesterday I met a chiropractor at my gym who said I am clumsy because of issues with four of my top five vertebrae. Could that be true? I'm sure. For now though, I will blame the burn on taking on too much cooking for a Thursday night.

So, what is on this Thursday menu? Bread sticks (from scratch), turkey meatballs and tomato sauce (ditto on the scratch - although I did use a can of crushed tomatoes), fetucinni (not from scratch - I don't have the pasta attachment for my stand mixer yet), and a salad. It's 10:15 and it's almost all done but I have lost my boyfriend to a hip hop show across the street. He'll come back for his plate soon though.

What have I learned from today's cooking? Dough will raise nicely if covered by a large bowl (traps heat and moisture), yogurt can be used as your liquid in Italian bread, if your bread is browning faster than the inside is cooking cover with tin foil, cook tomato sauce as slowly and on as low heat as you can and you can take a nice mile and a half run around your neighborhood while waiting for dough to rise.

Also of note, the new path leading from Valley Street to the Western Prom (replacing my beloved yet decrepit stairs) is one bad ass workout.