May 21 NO RECIPE NIGHT!

May 21
NO RECIPE NIGHT!

So, insane week of work, no time, no chance to even think about what to prepare... I just pretty much winged it.

Wedge salad w/ buttermilk, citrus dressing, egg and bacon. Simple as it sounds, was delicious!


Main course was rolled, stuff chicken breast with glazed carrot side.
I attempted to make bread TWICE, but it was just not meant to be... both times the bread failed to rise, im certain the issue was my yeast and I WILL try again. (was really looking fwd to serving fresh bread with the meal - ended up settling for Albertsons Fresh)

The chicken was your standard grocery store breast filet's pounded flat and stuffed with a mixture of fresh broccoli, garlic, onions and fontina, I rolled these and seasoned them, baked them in the oven and served with a variation of Maggies famous cheese sauce (took two tries... i didnt listen)

As a veg side i served glazed carrots that i cooked in a reduction of maple syrup, orange juice, allspice and cinnamon (these were IMHO just AMAZINGLY GOOD)

The chicken came out a bit dry (again, no recipe's) as i think i overcooked it a bit trying to make sure the inside was hot, melty and delicious... ended up being just "MEAH". As a whole, if you were to get a good mix of the chicken and the stuffing and the sauce, it made for a great bite, but the chicken by its lonesome was well... overcooked chicken...

For desert, i served vanilla yogurt over fresh fruit, topped with granola.
It was again "meah"

The whole meal was sub-par for me and not one of my better efforts.

The cooking with no recipe's thing is harder than it seems, I mean - you get an idea and think "wow that will be awesome" then somewhere between the idea and putting it on the table, things change.

Anyway, we've decided to bump chef night back to bi-monthly instead of every week for the summer/near future as we all have lots of engagements and "other" things.

Heres to hoping i hit it out of the park next time!

Slider...Slider...Slider

For dinner this week I made 3 different types of sliders with recipes I found at Foodnetwork.com. The first was a simple ground chuck seasoned with salt and pepper. Then I added cheddar cheese, red onions, pickles, and chipolte sauce.

Next, I made a pulled chicken slider topped with cabbage.


Finally, a seafood slider made from chopped sea scallops and seasoning and bread crumbs. I made homemade bread with a very simple recipe and served the sliders with a simple green salad with oil and vinegar.


The sliders turned out ok. The chipolte sauce made the ground chuck way too hot. The seafood slider was my least favorite. It just did not have the flavor I was hoping for. The chicken was my favorite. I liked it a lot with the cabbage. Both were seasoned just right.

For an appetizer I made potato bites with sour cream and bacon. What a pain. The were good just not worth the trouble.

And finally dessert was blueberry turnovers sprinkled with sugar. I deep fried them and that was tricky. They did turn out very good though.

Another ok meal. I still haven't created a masterpiece yet.

Simple French

At the beginning of the day, I didn't have the slightest clue what to make. So... I browsed on the internet and decided on Chicken Cordon Bleu and an "Americanized" French menu. The French food is coming, but Julia Child and I have some work to do before we dive into the real thing. Big menu tonight, with a large portion of things I've never made before. As usual, I made a big mess of the kitchen.

I started the day making bread. I used the bread machine to mix the dough, but then did the rest old school. Rise, pound down, shape, rise, cook. Looked pretty good. Tasted better.

For the starter, I made French Onion Soup. Can't say it turned out that well. It was just okay. I cooked the onions until tender and then added them to a beef broth with a little salt and pepper. ...and then added more salt... and some more... and some more... Still seemed too sweet. The best (and worst) that you can say about it was that it tasted like onion soup out a can. Thanks Gail for that. ;)

Next course was the salad. The recipe called for oranges with the arugula, fennel, and olives, but I went with tangerines instead. The dressing was lemon juice, honey, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The salad alone was okay. Can't say I cared for the arugula and the fennel is something that doesn't taste well alone. Black olives... are just black olives. The dressing I tasted as well and it was sort of hideous. Oily sticky sweet and peppery. Put together though, the salad and the dressing was surprisingly good. Best surprise of the night. Worth doing again.

Main course was Chicken Cordon Bleu. Never made this before, and it was less effort than I imagined. It was good. Not spectacular. I think it needed more salt. If/when I do this again, I think I might go with prosciutto instead of ham. Served with some steamed asparagus that I added at the last moment simply because I wanted to have a vegetable with the protein. Probably could have left that off. I've made better asparagus before. The veg was cooked just about five minutes too soon and I let it warm in the microwave. Mistake.

Lastly, I made crepes with warm berries, and bananas, and vanilla ice cream. It tasted like the after thought that it was.

Oh... have to say. Maggie and Brian stopped by BevMo for me yesterday. I asked for a couple of bottles of Sauvignon Blanc. Gotta say... the 2010 Vigilance was TASTY! Also had a bottle of 2007 Starmont and it was good, but not memorably so.

Big menu. Big mess.

Menu:

Chicken Cordon Bleu

French Onion Soup

Arugula Fennel and Tangerine Salad

Bread

Crepes

Brazilian influenced.

So, I was back in the barrel as the chef du-jour for this week and decided to take inspiration from a Churascuria (brazilian steak house) that i had visited in Beverly Hills a couple weeks ago during the LA Poker Classic - Fogo de Chao.

The concept at this place is simple, you eat until you cant walk! What better idea to model a chef night on?

Well, ok so i DID decide to take it down a notch and just go with some dishes inspired by what i found there as opposed to their "stuff ya to the gills" method.

I started off with a rather simple salad, arugula and baby spinach tossed with a very good balsamic vinaigrette I garnished the salad with tomato and orange slices and served it over red kale and let the crew work on that while i finished dialing in my entree and main sides. (keep em busy so they dont see you sweat!)


I should interrupt here and throw in a little note about Sandy and his uncanny ability to finish a dish faster than any human ive ever met, by the time i got my own salad to the table Sandy's plate consisted of nothing more than an empty orange rind so im fairly certain he enjoyed it, although i have to assume anyone that can eat that fast cant be able to actually taste what he devours. ( i'll take his word that it was good! ;) )


Next up was the combined main course which consisted of a hearty soup/stew of potato's spicy sausage, green onions, sour cream, portabella mushrooms, fontina and cheddar cheeses garnished with fresh chives. I dont have a recipe for this as it was largely made up on the spot and based loosely on a creamy baked potato soup i found online. I thought i came out fantastic
and worked nicely for a chef night as i put it together around noon and let it slow cook in the crock pot most of the day adding the cream and cheeses about 20 mins prior to serving. Maggie seemed to really enjoy the soup and hopefully the remains will provide her with a tasty lunch for the rest of the week.

Along with soup i served bacon wrapped filet mignon and marinated chicken medallions on skewers, personally the chicken marinade i used, i didnt really like but the filet was literally to die for. literally - if it was me and you and the last filet... well... Gladiator comes to mind.












These were served with Pao de Queijo (brazlian cheese puffs) that are made using yucca starch / manioc root. (yah... lets just say the ingredients arent exactly easy to find in Ridgecrest)

These are just a very simple yet delicious parmesan cheese puff. mine came out fairly heavy and i think too dense, having never made them before im fairly certain i made them too big and they were unable to cook and rise thoroughly into the light airy concoctions i enjoyed previously, the flavor however was spot on, so i think my guests were able to get the idea i was shooting for.

For desert, we enjoyed a cupcake TV dinner that Maggie and Olivia made, this was really pretty creative (see the pic) they made some tasty banana cupcakes and decorated them to look like the components of an old fashioned TV Dinner, chicken leg, mashed potatoes w butter and gravy, and the good old diced carrots and peas everyone remembers... they used colored icing and a myriad of candy and caramel to pull off the illusion.

To grade this meal, i guess id give myself a 7 or a 7.5. everything came out pretty close to what i was shooting for, while there were a few shortcomings, its kind of expected when you make something you've never cooked before and your frame of reference for a flavor profile is in your head. But i will let my fellow diners and bloggers do the actual grading.

Thanks for reading!

Brian

We begin anew...

For over a year, Brian & Maggie, and Gail & I have got together each week to share a meal. Unfortunately, as we look back, there's been so many good meals (and a few flops) that it's difficult to remember what we ate.

Last night, we decided that we needed a blog as a record. Here, we'll share comments, recipes, photos, etc.

Oh... and here are the ground rules that we agreed upon. Cooking duty rotates every week. Next week, I'm up. Following that, it'll be Brian, then Gail, and finally Maggie. We thought about spending limits, but when we started there was typically spices to buy and those will blow your budget in a hurry.

No real rules, other than we try to do this every week, typically on Saturday, promptly at 7PM. Oh... and the non-cooking spouse gets to choose the entertainment. Could be a board game, a movie, Wii, whatever.