Last night my friend came over for dinner. Gene and I wanted to both make something yummy and delicious. Gene made his Chicken Marsala, and I made my version of crab cakes. I will share that recipe with you now.

Let me preface this recipe by saying: some people are very picky about their crab cakes. Many people want the cake to be straight crab and very little anything else. I am not one of those people. I absolutely love to make these cakes with lots of colorful tasty vegetables. Here is how I made them.

You will need: 1 pound of lump crab meat ( the one Costco sells in the can is perfect), 3 green onions, 2 different colored bell peppers ( finely chopped), half a red onion ( finely chopped), 3 cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, half a lemon worth of juice, worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, a dash of toasted sesame seeds, dry mustard powder, and about a quarter cup of mayonnaise. ( You will also need a little bit of flour for dusting, and peanut oil to fry them in.)

There are a lot of ingredients as you can tell, but the recipe itself is SUPER easy. All you have to do is combine all the ingredients in a bowl. After mixing the ingredients together, all you have to do is form medium size patties, dust them with a bit of flour, and put them in a frying pan ( pre-heated for about 2 minutes with peanut oil). They cook pretty fast. Give them about 3 minutes per side, and you are done.

I like to serve my crab cakes with a nice homemade dipping sauce. For my dipping sauce, I used : hoisen sauce, sesame seeds, hot sesame oil, plum sauce, garlic powder, and a little bit of soy sauce.

This recipe is really yummy and a definite crowd please.
ENJOY!

Last week I made my version of “caprese” bruschetta. I had a good amount of Mozzarella, Basil, and Tomatoes left that I wanted to make a beautiful pizza to go along with the tasty appetizer. The pizza was super super easy to make, but that’s probably because I didn’t make my own dough. I came home at 6 from work, and didn’t have enough time to make it from scratch. The grocery store sells these freshly basked pizza crusts that make life sooooo much easier. Once I had that, all I had to do was cut up all my toppings.

Personally, I am not a fan of red pizza sauce. So instead of slathering the crust with tomato sauce, I used a mixture of the garlic pesto I had left from the appetizer I made earlier, as well as some balsamic vinegar ( I like it almost on everything)

After brushing the “sauce” on, I started to layer my toppings. I used:  mozzarella, parmesan, feta, tomato, and some sausage ( Gene won’t eat a meal if it doesn’t have meat.. so I had to put some manliness in it). I also used some  basil, but I did not add the basil until about a minute before it was done baking so it wouldn’t crisp up and burn. Basil does not taste as good when it is crispy.

I baked the pizza in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes. ( all the ingredients are already cooked, so basically I was just waiting for the crust to get golden brown before I took it out). If you like your crust a little more crispy, turn on the broiler and put the pizza under the broiler for no more than 2 minutes, it will get the job done in no time.

I don’t think I even need to say how yummy it was, just take a look at the pictures, they speak for themselves.

ENJOY!

Last week  I decided to make one of my favorite dishes in the entire world, my version of bruschetta…. well except without the bread.  Our parent’s gave us a box of their very own home grown tomatoes, so I thought they would be excellent in this dish. This time I gave this simple delicacy a little twist that added some fantastic flavor.

The basic ingredients for this “caprese” bruschetta are : Basil, Mozzarella, Tomato, and Balsamic Vinegar…. but for my special twist, I also added a bit of garlic pesto.

I have always wondered if there is a “proper” way of stacking the “caprese” bruschetta, but I figure if it tastes good, then it doesn’t matter what way it’s stacked. So here is what I did:

First I started with a big slice of my parents’ very own tomato.  Then I brushed the top of it with a little balsamic vinegar. Then I laid a perfectly sized piece of basil on top of the tomato and brushed it with balsamic vinegar as well. Then I placed a slice of fresh mozzarella cheese on top of the basil and finally put a dab of garlic pesto on top.

Personally, this dish is phenomenal on a piece of crusty fresh sourdough bread, but it tastes just as yummy without the bread. So make it either way and ENJOY!

This dinner dish came from one of my favorite food blogs: Cooking For Engineers.  Usually try to follow recipes as closely as possible, but often I end up making “modifications” due to lack of ingredients, equipment, or other reasons.  For this dish, I followed the recipe exactly.

Brining the chicken

• 2-3 x 8 ounce boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 gallon zip top bag
• 4 Cups filtered water (cold)
• 3 tablespoons kosher salt

Fill the zip top bag with the filtered water and kosher salt.  Close the bag and shake it around until most/all of the salt dissolves.  Put the chicken breasts into the bag and store in the refrigerator for 1-1.5 hour(s).

Creating the Chicken Marsala dish

• 2 tablespoons olive oil (extra-virgin olive oil is ok too)
• 4-6 ounces sliced white mushrooms
• 1 cup of sweet Marsala wine (ask for it in the supermarket)
• 4 tablespoons heavy cream
• salt + pepper to taste

After the stated brining time (up to 1.5 hours), take the chicken out of the bag and rinse with cold filtered water.  Salt + pepper the breasts on both sides (not too liberally, since the brine created a good amount of salty flavor).  Heat a 10-12 inch stainless-steel (don’t use non-stick) pan with the oil on medium-high heat.  When the oil is heated (3-5 minutes), place the seasoned chicken breasts in the pan and don’t touch them for 5-6 minutes.  Then flip the breasts over and cook another 4-6 minutes.  While the breasts are finishing cooking, make sure they do not get into the “overcooked” zone.  If using a meat thermometer I would remove the breasts when the thickest part in the middle hits 155 F as there will be some carryover (continuation of cooking after removing from pan).  When the breasts are ready, take them out of the pan.

Add the sliced mushrooms to the pan.  Spread them out evenly in the pan and allow to cook for one minute.  Then add the Marsala wine to the pan and let it reduce for 4-5 minutes.  Add the heavy cream to the pan.  Stir the mushrooms, wine, and cream together and cook/reduce for another 4-5 minutes.  Add the cooked chicken breasts back to the pan and get them well coated in the pan-sauce.  While coating them, keep them in the heated pan for another 3-4 minutes to make sure they are re-heated well.  Take the pan off the heat and serve the chicken breasts covered in the sweet/creamy pan-sauce.

Overall, the dish ended up being very good.  Anna enjoyed the tenderness of the chicken breast (no easy feat).  This was difficult to accomplish, as chicken breast can be a tough beast, literally.  The trick to accomplishing tenderness in a tough cut of meat like this is mostly in the prep (brining) in addition to very careful cooking.  Chicken breast meat is one of those foods that goes from mouth-watering perfect to tough as concrete in literally under a minute.  This is why I did my best to “watch the chicken” as it cooked and pull it off the heat as soon as I felt it firm up when touched.  It’s always useful to know what cooked meat feels like when touched, but just in case, you can always cut it at it’s thickest point to make sure the meat is not raw in the center.

Many of you have been complaining that we haven’t updated the blog in a while… our sincerest apologies… what happened was the cooking did not stop… but Gene was coming home later then usual from work, and he is the one with the artful eye for taking pictures, so I couldn’t exactly photograph the cooking process while doing it.

Last night, I waited until Gene came home to start cooking, so we could blog about it

I made Chicken Picatta. Essentially, it’s a breaded chicken. The ingredients I used were : 5 chicken breast halves ( that’s 2.5 full chicken breasts), panko bread crumbs, flour, 3 eggs, 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter, 1.5 tablespoons of water, olive oil, 1/4 cup of lemon juice,  2/3 cup dry white wine, capers ( if you like them as much as I do)  salt. pepper, and parsley ( for garnish).

First, I put my, already thin, slices of chicken breast on a board. I beat them with a meat mallet ( but only slightly, not to flatten them, just to make them more tender). Then, I sprinkled both sides with salt and pepper. As that rested on my board, I prepared three dipping plates. The first plate was the flour mixture. Into that mixture I put a cup of flour, salt, pepper, and a little garlic powder ( not part of the original recipe, but who doesn’t love garlic ) and mixed that all together. Into the second shallow bowl I beat 3 large eggs and mixed that with 1.5 tablespoons of water. The third plate had about 2 cups of panko bread crumbs.

To prepare the chicken, I dipped the chicken breasts into the flour mixture, shook off the excess flour, dipped them into the egg mixture, and then into the bread crumbs. After doing that will all 5 pieces, I placed them in a pan ( preheated with olive oil). I browned the chicken for about 2 minutes on each side. After the chicken breasts were browned, I placed them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and put them in the oven ( 400 degrees) for about 5 minutes. I know it sounds like a really short time for chicken, but the pieces are pretty thin, and they require less time to cook.

While the chicken was in the oven, I made the sauce. In the same pan that I browned the chicken in, I put the butter, white wine, lemon juice, capers ( any amount that you are comfortable with), and some salt and pepper ( to taste). I boiled that sauce until it reduced to about half it’s original quantity. Once the chicken was ready, I poured a bit of the sauce over it and plated it with a few pinches of fresh parsley to garnish.

I also made a simple Romain salad as a  side with Roma tomato’s, baby English cucumbers, and a dab of balsamic.

WARNING: When I found this recipe, there were many reviews about how the sauce was WAYYYY to sour ( from the lemon of course). The original recipe was for 1 full breast. It called for 1/3 cup of lemon juice. I more then doubled the recipe ( in terms of chicken and other ingredients), and used even less lemon juice then the original recipe called for…. and it was still too lemony. So as a tip of advice add the lemon juice verrrrry slowly. To be safe I would go with a tablespoon at a time. Once the sauce starts to boil, taste the sauce and add lemon juice accordingly.

The chicken was so amazingly tender, not dry at all, and just tasted phenominal. Even without the sauce this chicken was great. I really recommend this dish. It was fast, easy, yummy, and it put a smile on Gene’s face…. a winner in my book!

Today’s lunch: Lettuce, carrots, red cabbage, cucumber, tomato, marinated pork loin.

Made myself an over-sized Light Tuna sandwich for lunch today. Very simple, whole grain white high fiber tortilla, chopped tomato, chopped cucumber, pinch of salt and pepper. Then drain and add a 5 oz can of Light Tuna (in water). Total: 300 calories, 30g protein, 15g fiber

P.S. The part that made it over-sized was the abundance of vegetables.

Last night Anna let me cook.  She’s been hogging the kitchen for the few days before and I wanted to get my turn behind the wheel.  I decided to skip the recipe books and do something straight out of my head.  I like to take on challenges so last night’s challenge was to make boneless skinless chicken breast taste like something exciting while keeping it moist and juicy.  Well, let’s see how I did.

Chicken Breast + White Potatoes

I always look for opportunities to use a variety of cooking techniques, so last night I went with my trusty (recently purchased) pressure cooker.  I filled about 3 inches of the cooker (8 quart) with homemade chicken broth/stock (can’t remember which).  I then put in a raised steamer basket into the bottom of the cooker (to avoid boiling).  I followed up with 2 medium quartered white potatoes.  The potatoes covered the bottom of the basket, becoming a perfect base for the chicken breasts.  I seasoned the breasts with granulated garlic (Kirkland), ground sea salt (Kirkland), and ground black pepper (Kirkland).  The breasts were then placed on top of the white potatoes in the cooker.  The cooker was pressurized and taken off the heat 8 minutes later.  I let the cooker de-pressurize naturally.  The breasts were then put into a small oven save dish and broiled on one side for about 3-4 minutes about 4 inches from the heating element to allow some browning.

Asparagus Sautéed in Garlic Olive Oil

The other part of this meal was asparagus.  I minced a head of garlic finely (yes, that’s not a mistype, one small head of garlic).  Then I heated 2 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a deep saute pan on medium-low heat.  The garlic entered the pan and immediately produced some intoxicating aromas.  The asparagus followed a minute later (don’t wait too long or the garlic will burn).  A few pinches of sea salt followed.  I mixed the asparagus with the olive oil and garlic as much as possible, but for the future I will cut the asparagus spears in half to allow for better pan movement.  After turning off the heat, the pressure cooker was ready with chicken and potatoes, so for added flavor, I put the cooked potatoes into the deep saute pan with the asparagus and coated them as much as possible in the garlic oil “mixture”.

Side Salad

On the side I quickly chopped up a cucumber, radishes, and some red-leaf lettuce.  Put this all in a bowl and add a few pinches of ground sea salt and a tablespoon of Balsamic Vinegar.  Simple, clean, and healthy.

P.S. I added a few Trader Joe’s canned whole tomatoes to the plate (I love these).

For those of you that know Gene and I, you may know that we have been on a sort of health kick in the last few months. We are trying to get in shape for our wedding ( January 23,). As part of our healthy diets, we started cooking with a lot of turkey. Gene can’t live without meat, and since meat has quite a bit of fat and calories, we needed to find a healthy alternative. Over the last few months I have been experimenting with different turkey recipes. One of the recipes that Gene and I both seem to enjoy are my Turkey/Veggie Katleti ( Cutlets).

I knew the borscht would take me a really long time to make, so I decided to make a few katleti for Gene while he waited for the soup. They are pretty simple to make….. all you need is ground turkey, carrots, spinach, dill, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, onion, an egg, salt, pepper, and a little flour.

Recipe:

First I chopped up half an onion and grated 1 carrot. Then I chopped up a handful of dill , parsley and spinach ( the amount of each is totally up to your taste buds). I put the ground turkey, and all the chopped ingredients in a large bowl and mixed the ingredients together. In a separate small bowl I beet 1 egg, and added 1.5 tsp of Worcestershire sauce.  I then added that liquid mixture to the main meat mixture. After mixing it up, I added up 3 tablespoons of flour, as well as salt and pepper to taste.  After giving it a final mixing, the katleti are ready to make.

I like to use a non-stick pan for the katleti. I sprayed the pan with Pam and let it heat up for a minute. In the meantime, I took about a tablespoon of the mixture and molded it into a burger patty type mold, and put in on the pan. I put as many cutlets on the pan as I could fit and let them cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side.

The key to making amazing cutlets is making sure they are cooked through ( no one wants raw turkey) and also making sure they are moist and tasty

Enjoy!

A few days ago, when we were making stuffed cabbage, we bought ingredients to make borscht as well.  It was pretty late, so we decided to stick with one recipe that night…. Last night I decided to make the borscht. For those of you who are not familiar with borscht, it is a beet based Eastern European soup that contains tons and tons of vegetables. The recipe itself is very simple, but it involves a whole lot of chopping.

Gene and I both grew up eating borscht quite often. Some people prefer to make theirs with meat, but others ( like my mother) opt to only use vegetables.  The entire time I was making it, I kept thinking of how my mothers tastes.

So how do you make it you wonder….. well I’ll tell you my secrets

the ingredients are: beets, carrots, onions, potatoes, cabbage, canned tomatoes, vegetable stock,  dill, sugar, lime juice, salt, and pepper.

First, what I did was chop up an onion and a carrot. Then I peeled and diced 3 beets. After that, I grated another two beets and put that aside. I then chopped up 3 red potatoes into bite size pieces. And finally, I chopped up a small white head of cabbage.

After showing off my non-existent knife skills with all those ingredients, I put the onion, carrot, diced beets, potatoes, and cabbage into a pot and poured 4 cups of vegetable stock over it. I added a bit of water on top of that because I felt there wasn’t enough liquid, but the recipe only called for the 4 cups. I let that mixture come to a boil on high heat, and then I reduced the heat and let the mixture simmer for about 45 minutes.  After the 45 minutes, I added the grated beets to the (now red/purple) soup. I also put in 3 tablespoons of lime juice, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and some salt and pepper to taste. After letting that cook for about another 10 minutes, I added some chopped dill to the top. At that point, the soup was ready to enjoy.

The key to plating the soup was  first going to the bottom of the pot and getting a ladle (or two) full of the vegetables. Then, I  brought the ladle to the top of the pot and got the liquid. I garnished the bowl with some more shopped dill and a tablespoon of sour cream.

And there you go….. the secret to making an amazing borscht.

Enjoy!