Stroganoff Wars

It's been nearly a year since my last post, which is unacceptable. Honestly, I haven't been cooking much in the past year but that is no excuse. Here's my attempt to get back on the horse, so to speak...

This weekend I celebrated the ability to cook with mushrooms (my boyfriend was not around for dinner, mushroom hater!) and thought there no better way than to whip up some hamburger stroganoff.  Everyone has a different way of going about it so I thought I would take the NY approach instead of my mother's.  The recipe is simple enough and turned out a tasty, creamy, sensation.

I diced up half of a sweet onion and softened it in a large pan with some olive oil. I drenched about a pound of lean ground sirloin with worcestershire sauce, sea salt, and cracked pepper and added it to the pan to brown. I also added a package of fresh sliced mushrooms at this point. Once I was satisfied with the doneness (that's not a word) of the meat, I mixed in a can of cream of mushroom soup along with an 8oz package of cream cheese diced up.I cooked it on low and covered for about 20 minutes... mind you, you have to stir it every 5 minutes or so.  Put that over some egg noodles and yum yum.

It may have been a bit too rich and creamy for my taste but delicious nonetheless. I think next weekend we will attempt a stroganoff with wine and no cream of mushroom... keep tuned.

Chicken Breasts with a Creamy Walnut Sauce

I found this recipe in Cooking Light Magazine and only had to make a few adjustments.  For one, I don't care for sauteed chicken so I broiled mine instead with a coating of olive oil and a dusting of salt and pepper.  I also found that garnishing the chicken with toasted walnuts made it 10 times more fabulous!

I started off with 2 slices of bread that had been left out for a day to dry.  I trimmed the crust off those pieces and cubed it up.  I then put that in a bowl with a cup of organic low sodium chicken broth... that's right, a girl has to watch her waistline!  Don't worry, it doesn't harm the flavor at all.  Let it stand for about 10 minutes and then put it in a food processor along with a 1/3 cup of toasted walnuts, about a 1/4 cup of chopped fresh flat leaf parsley leaves, 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, maybe 2 teaspoons of lemon juice, and 2 chopped cloves of garlic.  My word of warning... don't overdo it with the lemon juice, it was the major downfall of my first attempt at this.  Blend it until smooth, it will certainly look funny.

Once the chicken was done, I just put this mix in a skillet/saute pan and heated it, stirring until it had thickened.  Spoon it over the top and load on some extra toasted walnuts.  Yum Yum!

By the way... to toast walnuts... spread walnuts on a cookie sheet and pop into the oven at 325 for about 8 - 10 minutes.  Simple!

Espresso Steak

I don't eat steak too often on my grand salary as a general manager, but when I do, I like to jazz it up a bit.  This time I decided to go the route of espresso.  After all, coffee and steak are two of my favorite things.  No, the steak will not taste like coffee but it does add a nice something to it.

I used a pastry brush to coat the steaks with a nice raw wildflower honey.  I find that clover or tupelo honey is too sweet for this kind of cooking, wildflower is mild enough.  Next I sprinkle espresso on it (maybe about a teaspoon total).  Dust with Montreal steak seasoning and maybe some sea salt if you're so inclined.  Grill or broil to desired degree and tada, espresso steak.

Proscutto Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

As I was saying, New Year's Day was a lazy day of food and movies.  After one quiche and two movies, we attempted dinner with great success.  This is a meal I gleaned from one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants on the far northwest side of Chicago.  It always seems quite extravagant but truly takes little effort.

I preheated the oven to 400 and began trimming the fat from my pork tenderloin.  Can I just say I find it annoying trying to shop for an un-marinated pork tenderloin at the grocery store?  Anyway... I like to coat the tenderloin in olive oil to keep it moist while cooking and then I rubbed it down with dried Dalmatian Sage leaves (don't encrust it though... sage is very powerful).  Next I wrapped it in proscutto which is challenging since it is so thin and rips easily.  I typically lay all proscutto over it and then carefull duck under the ends and roll it.  It helps to have four hands at this point.  Tie the loin up with twine so the proscutto stays put.

I created a bottom layer wedges of sweet onion, baby golden potatoes and baby carrots in a ceramic baker to create a rack for my roast.  I covered the bottom with about 1/4 inch of water.  Next I placed my tenderloin on top of the veggies and threw it in the oven.  After about 35 minutes it is good to flip the roast so the proscutto gets crisp around the entire roast and it cooks evenly.  Roast it for another 25 minutes or so until the meat is at least 155 degrees in the center.  Let it stand for a good 5 minutes, slice it up and dig in.  Mind you, the meal was far more enjoyable than the 3rd movie in the Resident Evil series.

Italian Quiche

New Years day became a lovely lazy event of movie watching and fine cooking with a dear friend and loved one.  We started off our day around noon with a delicious Italian inspired quiche.  I am horrible at pie crust making (unlike my mother who is a master) so I cheat and buy the frozen shells... this keeps life simple and minimizes time in the kitchen.  I've always been an immediate gratification type of girl anyway.

I turned the oven on to 400 and started prepping.  While the oven was heating up, I sauteed half a package of sliced mushrooms and about 2 cups of baby spinach with a drop of olive oil.  I threw in about 6 thin slices of panchetta that I chopped up and cooked until the fat had melted but watched so it didn't brown.  I removed that from heat and set aside assuming the oven had preheated and was ready.  I put the pie shell in the oven empty and baked it for about 8 minutes.  While that was cooking, I shredded the about a cup or so of Gruyere cheese and sliced a roma tomato.  I also beat 3 eggs with a half cup of milk and about a tablespoon and a half of flour.

Once the 8 minutes were up, I took the shell out of the oven and got to work.  I put about half the cheese in the bottom, spread the spinach, mushrooms, and panchetta over the cheese.  I then poured the egg mixture over that and sprinkled the rest of the cheese on top.  I then put the saute pan back on the stove top and heated up the tomatoes sprinkling them with olive oil and dusting them with basil, sea salt and cracked pepper.  Heat them on both sides and then top the quiche with them like you are putting pepperoni on a pizza.  Put this back in the oven at 400 for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake another 15 to 20 minutes

My Apologies

So I should say a little something about the 2 month absence of posts.  I DON'T COOK DURING HOLIDAY!  I work in retail as a manager and therefore have no time for cooking between the week of Thanksgiving and the week of New Years. I generally live as a bachelor during that time with only salad dressing, left over take out, and hummus in the fridge.  I did cook for my employee holiday party and New Years so I will post a few of those recipes but unfortunately I didn't take time to take pictures so the blog will be a little boring.  Now that the season is over, I should be able to go back to posting a bit more regularly.  Thanks for checking in :)

An update on the Mighty Minestrone

Ok, so I made this soup again but thought I'd try to be clever... it didn't quite work out the way I hoped.  I have always been annoyed at trying to scoop out the gooey blob of parmesan cheese after its done so I thought, "why not tie it up in cheesecloth?"  Made sense, right?  WRONG!  While it was much easier to get the cheese back out of the soup, the flavor wasn't nearly as good.  This was a FAIL.  Apparently when you already have a good thing going, it is best not to monkey with it thinking that you're clever.