Risotto with Scallops

Tonight's dinner was not what I would call a success, not by any means.  I had a tasty delicious lunch the other day of a creamy butternut squash risotto with perfectly seared scallops.  It was so good, that I wanted to attempt to make it at home.

The store just happened to have a good deal on some sea scallops, so I picked up a pound of those.

To make the risotto:

Saute 1/2 chopped onion with some butter, then throw in 1 cup of arborio rice, stir until brown.
Stir in 1 cup of dry white wine ( i used vermouth, because that's what I had on hand). This begins the labor intensive process: semi-constant stirring.  There really isn't any specific amount of time to cook the rice, just until it is al-dente.  I think it took about 20 minutes.

Stir in 1 cup of chicken stock when the vermouth has cooked down to 1/2.  Only add more liquid to the mix when the majority has been absorbed.  I added a total of 3 1/2 cups of chicken stock to the rice.  Near the end of its life cycle I threw in 1 cup of frozen peas & a handful of chopped roma tomatoes to add some nutrition value.  The best part of risotto is the cheese - I stirred in some fresh grated parmesan to give it a nice creamy flavor.

The risotto actually turned out ok - the scallops & steamed broccoli I tried to make - not so much.

In my attempt to "pan-sear" scallops, I essentially burned a nice thick layer of scallop gunk to the bottom of my beautiful pan.  In an attempt to fix the whole mess, I put a little chicken stock in the pan to try and free them from the burnt mess, and so ended up with chicken flavored boiled scallops.  They tasted ok, after being put on top of the risotto, but the end result was not as planned.

Thank goodness for having stainless steal cookware that cleans up pretty good, or I would have a pan in the trash.

The broccoli - oh my - well, lets just say it is possible to overcook broccoli.  After one bite - it was all in the trash unfortunately - if there was an award for the best mushy nearly pureed broccoli - I would win it.

The rice turned out pretty tasty and filling - thank goodness, but overall - the dinner was quite a learning experience.  There are just some meals that are best left to the professionals.

Chipotle Pulled-Pork Barbeque Sandwiches

Tonight's dinner was a bit labor intense & semi-time consuming, but had a good smoky flavor.

• Finely chop 1 chipotle chile from a can with adobo sauce (found in Mexican section of the grocery store, near the jalapenos). I used 3 chiles to give it an extra kick and to satiate David's crave for spice.  3 was 1 too many :)
• In a largish sauce pan, dump in the chiles, 1/4 bbq sauce, shake or two of garlic powder & cumin, a can of diced tomatoes (don't drain them)
• Put in 1 lb of cubed pork tenderloin (I used porkchops) and simmer for 45 minutes, covered.  Yes, 45 minutes - this is officially the lengthiest meal I've made on a work day.
• When the pork is almost done, saute up some thin sliced onions with olive oil & thyme (I had some leftover from the roast the other night)
• After 45 min is up, pull out the chunks of pork and pull apart, put back in sauce & stir around a bit to season up.
• Serve it the pork on a sliced kaiser bun (they are sturdy enough to soak up any sauce & helps hold it all together) with a slice of provolone & topped with onions.

With the 3 chiles, it was pretty hot for my taste, so I really couldn't focus much on the flavors that were happening, but David claimed it tasted good.  He devoured in 30 seconds or less, but maybe that's because dinner was so late?

Penne with Capers Olives and Tomatoes

Yes, David does cook occasionally! Tonight I made some delicious pasta, and here is how:

• Boil some water, throw the Penne in, cook for about 10-12 minutes for ALA DENTE

While that is going on:

• Toss some olive oil in a pan and heat at medium-high
• Add a couple shakes of crushed red pepper (lots of shakes if you're awesome like me), and finely chopped GARLIC (also lots if you want to be 2x awesome like me)
• Add a 2 tablespoons capers, about three cups of chopped tomatoes (I quartered grape-tomatoes), and about a cup of chopped olives (we chose kalameda because they are the best)
• Reduce heat and simmer all that for about 8 minutes
• Add pasta and stir her up a bit to get it all mixed. Let sit for about a minute.
• Top with Parmesan and fresh chopped basil

Very easy, very filling, full of flavor, I could go on and on and on about this pasta! But I won't.

Beef Roast with Taleggio Roasted Potatoes

Tonight's dinner was a special occasion: The Johnson's (Chris & Jenny) joined us for dinner.  I apologize for the blurry picture - we were all in a rush to get to the goodness.

The beef roast:

• I made a little rub of fresh thyme & garlic
• Cook in the 450 degree oven for 45 minutes to get a nice brown color, then turned downed the oven to 350 for another hour to bring the beef to a temperature of 145.  I had a 3 lb roast, and ended up overcooking it just a bit.  I forgot about the fact that it still keeps cooking on the inside as it rested after coming out of the oven. 
• I also have to fess that I chose a cheaper cut of meat than the called for rib roast.  I don't even know what cut of meat I ended up purchasing, but it was a roast of some sort. I have a bad habit of going to the store with the best intentions of buying the called for ingredient and substituting for a cheaper option.  Looking back, I should have bought the better cut of meat, as it was the main dish.

Taleggio Roasted Potatoes:
I hardly ever make recipes that I see in magazines because I usually become intimidated by the ingredients, but after flipping through my new Martha Stewart magazine, this recipe looked simple enough with one new ingredient: Taleggio Cheese.  I found this specialty cheese at Fred's.

• The recipe called for 2 pounds of fingerling potatoes, which I could not find, so I used half & half of small white & baby red potatoes, quartered.
• Started by roasting 8oz of baby portobello mushrooms with some fresh sage & garlic for about 10 minutes.
• I then cooked the potatoes on the rack above the roast for about 40 minutes.
• I have never cooked with Taleggio cheese before, but it upon initial inspection, it smelled like old socks. Not very appealing.  But it didn't taste as horrible as it smelled, it added a great gooey texture

One point to Martha for this one - it was well worth trying.

Aparagus:
With a big hunk of meat as the main dish, my first choice of vegetable pairing is asparagus.  We are big fans of asparagus. With asparagus, the thinner the better. Big thick asparagus are just too tough in my book. I try and buy the petite asparagus when they are available. I sauteed the asparagus with a touch of olive oil and lemon zest. Delicious!

Apple Cheesecake:
I received a cheesecake pan for Christmas, and this was my first adventure with making a cheesecake from scratch. There may be more simple cheesecake recipes out there, but I chose this one: Caramel Apple Cheesecake, but did not make the caramel portion of the recipe. I feared too much sugar. This cheesecake was pretty technically challenging and did not end up as well as I had hoped. The cheesecake pan achieved its objectives by releasing perfectly, but it was undercooked in the center and pretty gooey. I was a little disappointed with the way it turned out, but it tasted alright.  I figured that my first one wouldn't be the best.

These are a lot of dishes for one dinner - I know. But my key when we are entertaining, is to try and find recipes that I can prep ahead of time and take a lot of non-involved cook time.  I like to spend time with our friends, rather than slave away in the kitchen.  I think my total "in kitchen" time was 10-15 minutes.  Overall a great meal, but had that simple "meat & potatoes" feel.

Lasagna Night

As promised, tonight was lasagna night in the Vranizan household.  Lasagna is one of my favorite Italian foods.  If I remember correctly, I would frequently request my mom to make this for my birthday dinners.

Tonight's lasagna:

• Cook up some lasanga noodles per package directions (I used whole wheat noodles)
• Italian sausage cooked up with 8oz of sliced mushrooms
• Stir in a jar of your favorite flavor of pasta sauce (tonight we used sweet tomato basil)
• In another bowl, mix in a handful of chopped fresh basil (leftover from the pork tenderloin) with a container of ricotta cheese.
• Start with a thin layer of the meat sauce mixture in the bottom of baking pan, then place down noodles, layer of ricotta cheese mixture, mozzarella and repeat.

I have a lasagna pan specifically designed for lasagna, but it very large square-footage wise and not very deep, so I ran out of noodles for the top of the lasagna, so my layers ended up a little exposed.  Technical difficulties, but didn't change the taste.

Roasted Chicken, Potatoes & Vegetables

Tonight's dinner was not really the greatest.  Earlier in the day I had in my mind that I would treat David to a homemade lasagna, but after a long day - the motivation just wasn't there, and I didn't have the time to put it all together.  Disappointing - I know!.  So - I picked up a roasted chicken from the deli.  We had some instant mashed potatoes on hand and served with some veggies.  Not a glamorous meal by any means, and certainly not a substitute for lasagna, but there is always another day.

Schezhwan Shrimp wtth Rice

I know - our blog has been very slim this week.  This week has been pretty busy.  I was working past 9pm two nights this week, so David was left to fend for himself.  If it weren't for his brilliant soup, and the kindness of his family for having us over for dinner the other night - our nutrition may have been at stake. There were enough leftovers in the fridge to keep him alive throughout the week, but tonight - we really needed to sit & eat a meal together at our own table.

To make this scrumptious and filling meal:

• Start by putting some rice in the rice cooker - turn on (this is the most difficult step)
• Briefly marinade about 2 lbs of raw shrimp in a sesame ginger marinade & red pepper flakes.
• Right when the rice cooker is about done, throw the shrimp in a pan with some garlic and cook through.  
• Top with some green onions and crushed peanuts.  
• You could mix it up by making this with either chicken or thin slices of beef.

This made plenty with enough left over for lunches.  Waiting for the rice cooker to finish was the hardest & most time consuming portion of this meal.  Yum!

Italian Sausage Gnocchi Soup

Ah, doughy and delicious gnocchi. I don't exactly know what these dumplings are, or where they come from, but I can tell you this much: The name looks Italian, they are a-freakin-mazing, and you can find them shrink-wrapped near the pasta at the super market.

• Brown sausage in a pan - I used about 10 ounces, but I love Italian Sausage, you could probably go as low as 5.
• Add a package of gnocchi (16 ounces), 2 cups of water, one can of italian style stewed tomatoes, one can of beef broth
• Bring to a boil and simmer until the gnocchi float (it took mine about 5 minutes)
• Top with Parmesan if you like it

The soup was easy, filling, and savory. It was rainy and cold today so I was ready for something warm and comforting. This was perfect. Give it a shot, if I can make it, you can too!

Prosciutto and Cheese Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with Fennel and Apple Salad

Steph and I had a great evening with Liz, Chris, and Josh. One of the highlights of the evening was the dinner Steph put together for us!

A beautiful pork tenderloin stuffed with salty prosciutto and sharp provolone cheese. Topped with some basil and a Marsala based sauce. FANTASTIC.

• Prepared the pork by cutting a pocket into the tenderloin (about 2 inches deep)
• Season the cavity with salt and pepper (I love the salt! Mmmm)
• Stuff with prosciutto, cheese, and basil leaves
• Tie shut with twine
• Bake at 350 for about 1 hour or until the pork reaches 150 (for medium-rare)

Note: Instead of cutting into a tenderloin and stuffing it, you can buy two smaller tenderloins! This allows you to just put the stuffing in between the two and cinch it together with the twine. You can find packs of two tenderloins at the store!

As a side dish we prepared a simple fennel and apple baked salad thing.

• Cut up the fennel into edible chunks, cut up the apple into similar pieces (Steph's apple peeler worked PERFECT)
• Garnish with salt, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper
• Bake at 350 for 10 minutes
• Turn it all over a bunch
• Bake at 350 for 10 more minutes

During the summers you can do the same thing without the olive oil and baking! It makes a nice refreshing summer salad.

I LOVE FENNEL! The buttery smooth texture mixed with the licorice taste is unique and refreshing. If you've never had it before, give it a try.

On a side note: For every bit of love I have for Fennel, I have just as much bitter disappointment with the Chargers. How could you lose to the Jets?! How can you enable Sanchez another victory?! With him and Reggie having such great post seasons I can barely settle my stomach enough to enjoy the wonderful food we've been creating.

Cheese-crusted Potato Scones

We always post our dinner adventures, but this morning - I actually tried something post worthy for breakfast.

Weekend breakfasts are always the best - I like to linger at the breakfast table with a good cup of coffee.

Scones:

1 3/4 cup of flour
3 tbsp of wheat flour ( I didn't have any on hand so I just used more white flour)
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp of baking powder

• Sift together the dry ingredients and then cut in 1/4 stick of butter with a pastry blender
• In another small little bowl - stir in 5 tbsp milk with 1/4 cold mashed potatoes & pepper (I just make a super small batch of instant mashed potatoes and put them in the freezer to cool off rapidly)
• Add the potatoes to the dry ingredients and stir with a fork until all mixed in
• At this stage - I had to add WAY more milk than what the recipe called for - my dough was super dry.  I probably ended up adding another 1/4 cup of milk to get a good sticky dough
• Kneed out the dough until smooth and place on a cookie sheet and shape into a round ball.
• Score the dough with a knife into "scone-like" shapes.
• Brush top with a bit of milk and top with finely grated cheddar cheese.
• Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.

These scones turned out tasting just fine but ended up the same texture and consistency of a baking powder biscuit and you couldn't even taste any potato flavor at all. But the scone shape made it feel a little classier than a biscuit I suppose - and the recipe is a little simpler due to not having to cut out the biscuit shapes. Next time - I would probably try to make them with cinnamon or something to make it feel more breakfast like.

Chicken & Black Bean Enchiladas with Spanish Rice

This blog is technically 1 day late - we made this for dinner last night, but just didn't get around to posting because we had some friends over.  As discussed earlier - most of our meals are usually a one dish thing - but pulled out a couple extra pans for this one.

My typical version of enchiladas consists of some beef cooked in taco seasoning, rolled up in a tortilla with some sauce & cheese on top.  I decided to try out a new filling:

• Saute 1/2 onion with a teaspoon full of minced garlic in some olive oil in a skillet pan
• Add 1 1/2 lbs of cubed chicken breast - cook through.
• Stir in 1 can black beans, 1 small can of green chiles, and about 1/2 cup of salsa.
• Cook until the sauce has thickened.  
• Use mixture to fill corn tortillas and place into a baking pan that has 1/2 can of enchilada sauce in the bottom.
• Side note: I typically get frustrated trying to roll up the small corn tortillas into a roll because they aren't very pliable and they always break on me, so my enchiladas turn out to be a glorified casserole. I was determined to have semi-presentable enchiladas so I microwaved the tortillas for about 30 sec to get them soft, and they rolled like a dream after being filled.
• Top the rolled tortillas with the rest of the enchilada sauce, top with some monterey jack cheese and bake at 400 for 15 minutes.

These turned out really tasty and very filling - and of course you can spice it up to taste.

Spanish rice:

Typically I buy the Betty Crocker Spanish Rice in a bag and just add water.  My family used to have this as a side dish with our taco night.  But tonight I had the time and courage to attempt to make my own.

In a saucepan:

• The other half of the onion, touch of oil, spoon of garlic browned with 2 cups of rice (I used brown whole grain rice, because that's what I had in my pantry)
• Keep stirring around for a few minutes until the rice gets a bit crispy and the onion cooks up.
• Stir in a heaping teaspoon of tomato paste, a few shakes of dried oregano and a touch of salt.
• Use chicken stock as a substitute for the amount of water prescribed for the rice package directions. (For 2 cups of brown rice, I used 5 cups of chicken stock)
• At this stage I also added a few shakes of Tapatio because I knew it would need a bit more jazz.
• Cover and cook for however long the package of rice says (I think I ended up cooking it for about 40-45 minutes.

Overall the rice turned out "Ok" per review of David.  It was pretty moist, and perhaps needed to cook with a bit less liquid.  The flavors were decent, I should have added something more to make it a bit more "Spanish" rather than just tomato flavored moist rice.  But - there's always another day.

Peanut Chicken with Rice

This was one of my favorite meals when I lived in Eugene - I only had like one pan in my kitchen.  I haven't made this in a long while.  The motivation: some leftover chicken in the fridge from the paella the other night.  I just couldn't let the chicken go to waste now, could I?

I *love* this sauce - peanut sauce is pretty much the best flavor - in my opinion of course.

To make this meal:

• Small chunks of chicken, cooked in a pan
• Pour a little of the sauce in & thin it down with a bit of water or chicken stock (whatever you have handy)
• Top with some green onion, and serve over rice

Painstakingly simplistic, but I love this stuff!

Tomato Bisque Soup with Crab

Tonight David is off with his mom at a cooking class as our gift to her for Christmas. The menu of the class stated one of the featured recipes was crab cakes. I just happen to love crab cakes.  Making crab cakes seemed a little extensive for me tonight, so I decided to go with this alternative.

The deli at Fred's has a pretty good refrigerated tomato bisque soup. I "souped" it up a bit by cooking in some white onion, garlic and lump crab meat.  I bought about 4 oz worth of lump crab and stirred it in.

Not so glamorous of a meal - and not comparable to crab cakes in any way, but left me with plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow - yum!

Quick Paella

If you've been taking a glance at our nightly dinners, you may notice that most our meals are pretty simplistic - "one pot wonders" I like to call them.  We usually save slightly more complicated ones for when we have friends over.  Also, I loathe doing dishes - they are my least favorite cleaning task. It saves a lot of stress to plan out meals that I know will be simple to make when we're in a pinch to get to the table.

Tonight's dinner turned out to be a good one.  David ate it up and I had to steal some for lunch leftovers before he got to the remainder of the pan.

Paella ingredients:

1/2 lb chicken breast cutlets, cut into small little pieces
12 oz of medium shrimp (I buy the 26/30 kind, frozen or fresh - whatever is cheapest)
2 pouches of Uncle Ben's Ready Rice (Garden Veggie flavor)
1/2 cup frozen green peas

The recipe called for saffron to be mixed with the protein before cooking - however as I was standing in the spice aisle staring at 1 oz of saffron for the low low price of $20 - I found myself shying away from the ingredient. There is no substitute to saffron - there is a reason for the price.  I, however, used just a touch of tumeric & 1/3 cup of water for the coloring, and spiced up the mixture with about 2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper.

Cook the chicken, shrimp, tumeric, cayenne & water mixture in a pan until meat is cooked through.  Stir in package cooked rice & frozen peas, and cook only for about another minute until the peas defrost.

Traditional paella is a bit more complex and has a few more ingredients, but this recipe did the job.

Baked BBQ Chicken

Once again Stephanie puts me in charge, and once again I fail to approach her level of complexity and taste.

I was pretty excited for this, to tell you all the truth. We got a nice BBQ sauce from Wyoming, Montana, or Idaho... I am not sure which (it was in Yellowstone, so hey, that's ambiguous!). Unfortunately it failed to impress. So, when you're there, save the $10 and just buy something at the grocery store.

I baked the thighs with a bit of chicken broth and garlic. Painted some BBQ sauce on it. Baked at 375 for 45min. Standard baked BBQ! Not bad, but not great. Made me crave some good weather so I can cook outside again :)

I promise we'll have something better tomorrow!!!

Taco Salad with Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette

Tacos are usually a standby meal in our household, such a simple meal.  However, we decided to mix up our taco night just a bit by making taco salad.  We did have one minor crisis - we usually have plenty of taco seasoning on hand in the pantry - but tonight - gasp! none!  We had to improvise by making our own.

David whipped up the following mixture that made an equal substitute for taco seasoning:

Equal parts of:

• Minced onion
• Paprika
• Garlic Powder
• Salt
• Cayenne Pepper
• Chili Powder
• Cumin

Taco salad ingredients:

• Torn green leaf lettuce
• Seasoned ground beef
• 8oz box of sliced mushrooms seasoned in the same pan as the beef
• pinch of Mexican shredded cheese (leftover from a previous meal)
• spoonful of salsa (leftover from the chicken tortilla pie)

Cilantro Lime Dressing:

• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
• 1 teaspoon garlic
• touch of lime rind & juice

There really isn't anything too spectacular about a taco salad, but its a bit healthier than a straight up taco because we used far less cheese & meat in our meal and substituted some of the filling with mushrooms.

Italian BBQ Chicken and Polenta

RIP CITY!!!

Thanks to the Blazer's win tonight we have a fantastic end to a wonderful dinner! Tonight we expanded our boundaries into the wonderful world of Italian Polenta!

Polenta is essentially corn meal with the consistency of mashed potatoes. Yum! You can buy it in pretty much any supermarket. It can be found where all the other pasta's and Italian things are. There is the pre-made stuff (in a tube) and the grain stuff. The grain stuff takes a lot more preparation, but is super good! Give it a try, you will be impressed.

We put the Polenta under some chicken thighs. This is the first time in awhile that I have baked chicken with the "bone in," as I usually use skinless/boneless chicken cuts. It seemed to hold more flavor and possibly be more juicy. This may be my imagination.

I could put the recipe here, but I am way too giddy about the Blazer game (YEAHHH!!!!) so I will just link to the recipe, as I found it on FoodNetwork.com - I love you Rachel Ray!!!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/italian-barbecued-chicken-with-polenta-recipe/index.html

It was pretty good. We had trouble thickening the Polenta, so we had to add extra corn-meal. That thickened it right up!

For desert we had:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/grilled-pineapple-with-nutella-recipe/index.html

WOW!

Goodnight PDX, and RIP CITY!!!!!

Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs

Tonight's dinner was the standard spaghetti & meatballs. 

Standard Ingredients:

• Frozen turkey meatballs leftover from some soup recipe
• We always have some sort of pasta on hand
• Canned pasta sauce - we bought some Albertson's brand Puttaneca sauce. The sauce had capers & kalamata olives and paired very well with the meatballs.

We served with some of the frozen steam fresh veggies.  Overall a simple & classic tasty meal.

Thai Shrimp & Coconut Soup with Noodles

As mentioned in a previous post - I love Thai flavors - and so after a brief hunt on the internet, I came across this recipe that sounded like a deliciously easy meal.

I made a few simple modifications:

• Used lite coconut milk rather than regular coconut milk (found in the asian section of any regular grocery store)
• 1 lb of shrimp rather than the requested chicken
• 3/4 box of rice thai stirfry noodles (found in the same area as the coconut milk). Since I used the rice noodles, they cook a bit different. I soaked them in hot water per the box preparation instructions, but drained them while they were still a bit crisp.  I didn't want them to become too soggy when added to the additional liquid of the soup.
• And by accident I used 2 cans of coconut milk instead of 2 cups - probably just created a more soupy consistency - I never would have known that I messed up until re-reading the recipe just now - oops!

And on another shopping note - fish sauce is typically not a common household ingredient, but I tend to keep it on hand in the fridge to add a salty flavor to any thai flavored dish (especially homemade pad thai).  It's easy to find in any regular grocery store in the same area as the coconut milk and noodles - no need to go to a specialty store.

With the noodles, the soup was definitely filling enough to be our main course. Start to finish perhaps took us about 20 minutes - very speedy and could almost pass for the taste of take-out.

Roasted Vegetable Pasta

We begin the post with an honesty check: On a day where I've been counting the hours between dayquil doses (we've both come down with a head cold), and with the busy season upon me (aka many more working hours), my temptation to simply eat a bowl of cereal for dinner is incredibly high.  And I must admit, that the only reason for my cooking myself something for dinner tonight (David is visiting family, I'm at home due to sickness), is so that the blog will go on, and perhaps my health.

And so, tonight's fare: A heart healthy combo of vegetables with some hearty pasta.

Roasted Vegetables:

1 portobello mushroom (leftover from a package & used throughout the week)
4 roma tomaotes, sliced in chunks
1 red onion, sliced (cleared up my sinuses)
1 head of broccoli (not called for in the recipe, but we had it, so I threw it in)
toss with a bit of olive oil, season with salt & pepper
Roast in 475 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, stopping about halfway through to toss

Toss it all with some bowtie pasta, sprinkle with a little of freshly grated parmesan, and I managed to make myself the perfect alternative to a bowl of cereal.

Baked Chicken with Glazed Pineapple

Oh my, this was delicious! It may not look like much, but it might be my favorite of the week.

We had some leftover shredded chicken, and half a pineapple from last night. I used both to create this dish.

The Chicken was simply reheated in the microwave.

For the pineapple:

1. Cut into cubes and take about two cups (I just grabbed a couple handfulls).
2. Toss with two tablespoons of maple syrup, and a couple shakes of cumin powder.
3. Throw the tossed pineapple and cook in non-stick skillet for about 4 minutes, or until the pineapple gets richer in color or soft. I flipped them a couple times with my fingers to make sure they got cooked on all sides.
4. Take them off the heat and sprinkle with a bit of brown sugar if you're as much of a sweet tooth as I am.

Combine the pineapple and chicken and enjoy! The sweet pineapple with the juicy chicken is fantastic.

I forgot to throw it on the plate before the picture but I also had some green beans (frozen and heated in the microwave). Not great but a good addition with the chicken.

Vranizan Pizza Night!

Ahh... the succulent taste of Pizza! Those who know me well knew this post was coming soon, I suppose. The wait is over, the time is now, and the food is Pizza.

Sunday night is Pizza night at the Vranizan residence. A time when we can take all the leftovers from the previous week, pile them atop dough sauce and cheese, and enjoy. It is my favorite food, and a solid way to ease me back to work the next morning.

I will try and share the recipe the best I can, but I do not really measure when I make pizza dough. My father taught me to cook my pizza from the heart, and I am my father's son. Instead of sharing my exact recipe with you, I'll leave you with some helpful pointers I have learned over time:

• When using Olive Oil, don't use the "Extra Virgin" stuff! It burns when you bake it (Thanks Pops!).
• Punch it and kneed it throughout the day as it rises. Doing so gives you a springy dough that is easy to manipulate and tastes full! We don't want flaky pie dough!
• When orignially mixing it all together, don't skimp! The more time you spend kneeding it the better it will turn out. I use a Kitchen-Aid with the dough hook for at least 15min.
• Use Brown Sugar to feed the yeast! They love molasses as much as I do (Not really true but it tastes delicious)!

Also sauce. Mmmmmm this is what makes our house smell delicious for a couple hours before we finally get to feast on our days work. I just cook down some tomato sauce for a couple hours so it is thick enough to spread. I use tons of garlic, oregano, and red pepper flakes. It takes about 2-3 hours to get it simmered to a good consistency.

Toppings we used:

• Peppers (Left over from stir-fry)
• Black Olives (Found in pantry)
• Sundried Tomatoes (From some pasta we made)
• Jalapeno stuffed olives (Found in fridge)
• Pepperoni (Left over from something... don't remember. Still good!)
• Mushrooms (Left over from fried rice)
• Fresh Pineapple (Other half goes to the dinner tomorrow night! Stay tuned...)

Some other various tips:

• Cornmeal instead of flour under the pizza pie when baking. Learn it, love it, live it.
• Some will tell you the point of a pizza stone is to pre-heat it in the oven first. I have done it pre-heated and not pre-heated and never noticed a difference. It heats up fast in the oven regardless and gives the pizza a good solid bake.
• Tillamook Mozzarella cheese is not my favorite, but when it is on sale I buy it anyways to support the local flavor. I prefer Precious.
• Anything can go on a pizza. Anything.
• Chianti is almost always my favorite wine pairing, regardless of what ends up on the pizza.

Vegetable Fried Rice

Dinner tonight was simple, another meal with semi-Asian flair.  Fried rice is one of those meals that is pretty hard to mess up, because it takes no time at all and no skill required. (I am very much a fan of these)

Ingredients:

2 pouches of Uncle Ben' Ready Rice Brown Rice, cooked (can you tell I like these things)

1 bag of frozen stir-fry veggies

1 cup of frozen shelled edamame

2 eggs

touch of sesame oil

teaspoon or so of minced garlic (we always have a jar of this stuff in the fridge - saves time on chopping)

crushed red pepper

soy sauce

green onions

Defrost the veggies & edamame in the microwave.  Scramble the egg in a non-stick pan, then set aside. In the same pan, heat the oil with the garlic & red pepper (i only used a dash or two, but be liberal if you like the spicy) Stir in the veggies & rice, cook until heated (only about 2 minutes), stir in the egg & soy sauce to taste. Top with the green onions, and you've got a fried rice.  Not too glamorous, but a hearty meal with lots of heart healthy veggies.