Happy New Year Everyone! To start off 2012 right, I made one of my favorite, go-to dishes. This Chicken with Tomatoes & Olives encompasses so many things that I love in a dish: tomatoes, olives and herbs de provence. It’s really easy to make (prep time is about 15 mins), makes the house smell great while cooking, and makes for an impressive dish when entertaining.
I had a delicious onion soup while in Paris and wanted to recreate it at home. I couldn’t recreate the beautiful backdrop, nor the pretentious service but the soup came pretty close. It also gave me an excuse to buy these cute footed bowls (only $4 at Crate & Barrel).
What are you doing on this cold and dreary Saturday? You are going to make this!!! Seriously this pasta bolognese is insanely delicious!! And while it takes about 3 hours to cook, I spent maybe a total of 40 mins actively cooking (true story: I went to the hair dresser while the meat sauce simmered for 2 hours - my mom was at the house and only had to occasionally stir it).
I grew up in a household where my mother used to doctor up some canned tomato sauce (Prego you hold a special place in my heart). Basically she would add some garlic, oregano, chopped onion and green pepper to the meat while it was browning and then add the tomato sauce and simmer for 30 mins or so. I loved how saucy the meat was mixed with the pasta.
This homemade bolognese sauce had the sauciness to it but is sooooo much better. It’s like crack meat sauce - you just can’t get enough.
This is where I’ve been for the past week. My husband and I decided to take a trip across the pond for his 40th birthday and it was wonderful. Beautiful sights and great food makes for a perfect trip. Promise to get a food post up soon.
There is just something about tomato soup that makes me so happy. Maybe I’m reminded of those cheesy campbell’s commercials I watched as a kid or maybe I just love love love tomato soup on a cold day. Either way it didn’t hurt that this soup was so easy to put together.
P.S. - This picture does not do it justice. I sprinkled gruyere cheese on the top and I have to say it just makes it look weird (but the cheese is sooo good in the soup).
What did I want this week after a delicious but rich Thanksgiving meal and a long travel day on Sunday - a quick and easy Asian dish! This Eggplant and Beef Stir Fry was just the ticket. With the fish sauce, mint, and jalapenos it had a nice Vietnamese flavor. It was delicious and light, not oily like some Asian dishes can be.
That’s right, this is a Cod in Parchment recipe. This recipe has so many things going for it. It is really simple to prepare, smells delicious while cooking, and makes for an impressive presentation. Totally would be fun for a dinner party. It has very thinly sliced potatoes at the bottom so it is an entire (light) meal in itself. I added some sautéed asparagus (that I cooked separately) to add a vegetable.
On a recent trip to Philadelphia*, I had the tastiest salad where the star ingredient was ricotta salata. It was so good, I wanted to attempt to recreate it. Ricotta Salata is a semi-hard, salty cheese. It has a crumble factor to it but is sold as a block. The salad also had basil which was a hidden gem. Sometimes a small addition of a fresh herb really makes all the flavors pop in a salad.
*Philadelphia is a great weekend getaway. It has fantastic restaurants and just enough culture and history to check out during a two day stay without feeling overwhelmed. While we opted to drive with some friends this time around, we usually love taking the quick train ride up to the “city of brotherly love”.
So I promised I was going to talk about the crust and here goes. If you have the time make the crust from scratch - you are going through all the trouble to make an incredible chicken stew, it should be covered by the best. But I understand, it’s another step in the process and it adds time to an already long recipe. My friend recently made chicken pot pie and could not find pastry dough at the supermarket. She ended up using inverted frozen pie shells and she said it worked. Moral of the story: it’s your choice how complex you want to make this and I can almost guarantee it will be pretty darn tasty no matter what.
But if you want to make from scratch….
Now that it’s getting cold outside and all I want to do is hibernate, I tend to spend the better part of the weekend indoors cooking. So when one of my besties, Marina, came down from NYC to visit, I thought I’d tackle one of her favorite dishes - Chicken Pot Pie.
I’ve never ordered pot pie at a restaurant. The idea of potentially mushy vegetables in a thick, heavy white sauce just does not appeal to me. But I figured if I was making this at home, I could try and avoid these two issues. So for this recipe, I went straight to the expert of rich but delicious food. Not Paula Deen!! Barefoot Contessa of course!!! So how was it???
