Chicken Cacciatore

Laura
Okay, fine!  I’ll share my chicken cacciatore recipe (it’s Emeril’s recipe).  It’s also a slow cooker recipe which makes it great to serve to guests when you don’t want to be distracted in the kitchen. Serve it over some pasta with a side of garlic bread and you’re done!



Meredith made her Caesar salad dressing that I love so much.  There’s so much garlic in it, that despite those books about vampires, I knew I had nothing to fear.  Really though, is there ever such a thing as too much garlic?  I'll let her tell you about the croutons she made.

We finished the meal off with chocolate wine and the world's easiest tiramisu recipe.  Delish!

Meredith
I made croutons! Honestly- I don’t know why I’d ever buy croutons again. Wow- easy and SO good. I melted a garlic clove in some extra virgin olive oil with salt and red pepper flakes. Then tossed the freshly-cubed NEW YORK bread around in the pan until it was toasty and properly coated! OH- and the cacciatore was really yummy. I’d definitely keep in my recipe file as an easy go-to dish. But get the good cheese if you can. I’ve got a list of "must bring backs” for my next Long Island visit. It will probably require a large cooler.

Slainté! St. Patty’s Day Shepherd's Pie

Is there a single person on the planet that doesn’t love Alton Brown?  We didn’t think so.  Picking his shepherd’s pie recipe as the one we made really wasn’t that difficult.

Meredith
I will start by saying that Shepherd’s Pie tastes 10,000x better than it looks. This dish was absolutely delicious. I used one pound of lamb and a half a pound of lean ground beef and took liberties/heavy hand with the amounts of spices, etc but I was pretty on point with the recipe as written. I did add a splash of Guinness to the pan just before I added the chicken broth. It seemed the dish begged for it and it was on hand anyway. Whatever I did, it was right. As soon as I finished my first helping, I went for seconds. I ate it for a week. THAT is the sign of a truly great tasting meal!

Laura
Wait, now I'm cooking lamb??? It was very delicious.  I didn't even think I liked lamb.  Maybe I just didn't like the idea of lamb.  Well, whatever my misconceptions were, I'm over them.  I'd make this again.  When I do, please remind me to make a double batch so I can freeze some.  I really wish that I had some right now!

Wasabi Pea-Crusted Chicken

The Wasabi Pea Crusted Chicken* recipe

Laura
I originally ate wasabi pea crusted chicken at Second Street Bistro.  I loved it so much that when we went back there a year later, I was disappointed to find out it wasn’t available.  So, I asked if we could make it for our blog.  It was delicious.  So worth it!  If I’m being honest, using panko bread crumbs was what sealed the deal.  So Second Street, if you're reading this, don’t worry about bringing back that chicken.  I'll just order some other delicious dish when I get there.

Meredith
Wow I made a mess of my kitchen! I should spare you the graphic images, but I won’t.

I was highly ambitious on the side dishes (fried rice and roasted brussells sprouts) - otherwise this would have been a relatively easy meal. The chicken itself was really yummy. I enjoyed the sauce, the crunchiness of the chicken and the surprising mildness of the wasabi itself. I have some plans for next time, though. I definitely will just oven “fry” the chicken. I don’t think it needed or benefited from the extra grease from pan-frying. It was fun shopping in my Asian market and playing with wasabi powder though!

*On inspection of the recipe Laura posted above, I have realized that I actually used a recipe from Bon Appetit on epicurious.com.

Smothered Pork Chops

The show Big Daddy’s House on The Food Network gets kudos for introducing Meredith and me to Smothered Pork Chops.

Meredith
I got to use my cast iron skillet! That, I think, was my favorite part of this recipe. Not that the food wasn’t tasty. It was. And I’d been craving a pan fried pork chop for some time. The sauce turned out to be a sauce and I think I wanted a real gravy. I added mushrooms to the onion saute, but everything else was by recipe. I served mine with baby spinach sauteed with garlic, mashed Yukon Golds and this bread that Giada had made earlier that day on her show.

Laura
Truthfully, this might be my favorite thing we’ve cooked so far. I got a chance to use my cast iron skillet and made something that I don’t make very often. The pork chops were juicy and tender. The sauce was not the gravy that I was afraid it would be. (I’m going to strain the rest and use it as stock.) My sides of choice were red roasted potatoes with onion soup mix and a mushroom and zucchini saute.  All in all, a very yummy plateful of food.

Risotto

Risotto alla Primavera
 

 

Laura

Risotto . . . not something I’m planning on making again. The whole meal threw me off. I know we didn't cook the scallops correctly. Anyway, seeing as how this is about the risotto, I’ll just say that I love risotto, but I just hated making it. After cooking it for what seems like forever, it was still too undercooked. I would NOT make it for guests. We promised to blog about the good, the bad and the ugly . . . and this was definitely bad!

Meredith

Ok- the risotto was NOT as bad as Laura is making it out to be. Granted, it took forever and was still underdone, but the flavor was still there. In fact, the leftovers were much better (this recipe makes an ENORMOUS amount of risotto). I guess the nuking cooks the rice some more. For the broth, we used Culinary Creations vegetable and wine broth that was absolutely delicious. I will be using that again for sure. And you know what? I’m not giving up on risotto that easily. I’ll make it again.

Molasses Sleigh Cookies

Thanks, Sandra Lee, for the molasses sleigh cookies recipe!

Laura
I don’t know that I can even begin to explain the frustration I had making these cookies.  I don't bake. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that before. The dough was crumbly at first. Crumbly like I was attempting to make coffee cake topping instead of cookies. Meredith told me to add a little bit of milk. I’m sure it was my heavy hand that added the milk and turned it runny. So then, I added more flour. I had no idea how they turned out this way, but they were delicious.  I took them to a Super Bowl party and had two people ask me for the recipe plus lots of compliments on them. I couldn’t dare tell these people that the dough was ruined twice before the cookies got baked. The bottom line: Make these cookies! Just make sure you have extra milk and flour on hand!

 

Meredith

I’m so sorry Laura had such a fit with these cookies. Ahem- READ your recipes! Mine came together as a dough just as they should have. My only beef with the recipe as written is that it says to roll into 1 1/2 inch balls. There’s no WAY you can get 30-40 cookies out of balls that big. I think I eeked out 17. 

In any case, I thought they were absolutely delicious. At first I thought they weren't anything particularly different or spectacular - kind of like any spice cookie you might have around the holidays. But there was something in them that kept me grabbing one every time I went into the kitchen during a Super Bowl commercial break. They were both salty and sweet and a really good kind of chewy. I think the combination was just what I’d been craving. I’d definitely make them again.

Penne ala Vodka

Meredith
I realized about four bites in that I’d never actually had penne ala vodka before. That’s probably a good thing – I can see this adding a good three inches to my waistline if I made it regularly! The recipe itself ended up being much easier than I’d anticipated. Everything seemed to work out timing-wise and came together at the end just as the recipe said. I did have to keep asking Laura, though, what things should look like as I went along since I had no reference. “It should be a salmon color, right? Kinda thin - not like an alfredo?”

I’ll be making this recipe again – with a few tweaks. The whole time I was eating, I kept feeling like it was missing something - salt for sure and maybe another herb flavor. I think when I saute the mushrooms next time, I’ll add pancetta and possibly a little thyme. One more layer of flavor in an already delicious sauce works for me. In any case, I can’t wait to have leftovers tonight – this time I’ll remember the bread!

Laura
I’ve always been very intrigued by penne ala vodka. I want to order it each time I see it on menus, but I never do. Any time I eat it from a catering place, the pasta is overcooked. I think that’s the reason why I don’t order it. I’ve associated penne ala vodka with overcooked pasta.


When we decided to make this dish, I was thrilled. I’ve been looking for a signature dish and I thought this might be a contender. The truth is that this dish isn’t all that hard to make. You just have to be able to multitask. It’s by no means a one pot meal.

My changes: I made (approximately) two thirds of the recipe. I couldn’t see making a pound and a half of pasta for just myself. I also used light cream instead of heavy cream. The penne were whole wheat. The mushrooms came in 8 ounce containers so I used two of them instead of only 12 ounces.

Changes I’d make next time: I felt like the dish was missing something. I had considered using pancetta or prosciutto, but changed my mind at the end. Sometimes, we should stick with our gut feelings. The dish was also missing an herb flavor. Next time, rosemary or thyme might make it into the mushroom mixture.

Meredith always says that a good gauge for any dish is to ask yourself if you’d serve it to guests and if you’d make it again. I would make it again and I would serve it to company.

Is this my signature dish? No. Baked ziti has always been my signature dish. I guess I was thinking that it was too easy or too commonplace to qualify as a signature dish. Meredith reminded me that after making my own sauce, adding sausage and making the meatballs to go in it that I’ve personalized it to a point where it should be my go to dish. I agreed. However, if something else comes along, I’m open to the idea of having a first runner up. This, however, wasn’t that dish.

Here’s the recipe: Fabulous Penne a La Vodka
Thanks, Koren!