Sunday, 12/12/2010

We had a caesar salad and made Buffalo Chicken "Fries" for dinner tonight.  We followed a new recipe that I found in a Cuisine at Home magazine.  Here's the recipe followed by a couple notes.

BUFFALO CHICKEN "FRIES"

Makes 4 servings (1 lb.)
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
1/3 cup hot sauce (such as Frank's)
1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
1 Tbsp. honey
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, sliced lengthwise into 1/2-inch-wide-strips, seasoned with salt and black pepper
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil, divided

Directions:
1.  Whisk together hot sauce, butter, and honey in a large bowl.
2.  Toss chicken strips with flour in a large resealable plastic bag until coated; shake off excess flour.
3.  Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a large saute pan over medium-high; add half the chicken strips, saute until browned, about 2 minutes per side, then transfer to hot sauce mixture and toss to coat.  Repeat with remaining oil and chicken strips.

Notes:

1.  I used chicken tenders instead of chicken breasts.  They truly seem to be more tender and it took less time to cut up the pound of chicken.

2.  I didn't let the chicken brown quite enough.  I was worried about overcooking the chicken since the recipe said it would probably take only 2 minutes per side to brown.  

3.  The sauce was tasty, but not nearly hot enough to be called "buffalo".  I used the regular Frank's hot sauce.  Next time, I'll try the really hot variety to see if that makes a difference.  Ben thought the sauce tasted too much like honey and wanted more punch from the hot sauce.  

4.  I ended up eating the leftovers for lunch one day and dipped them into McDonald's buffalo sauce...yum!  Now, that's the flavor we were hoping for with the recipe. 

Tuesday, 8/17/2010

I have to start out by quoting Ben.  He said "this is the best pizza you have ever made" about the pizza I made tonight!  I'm sorry that we ate it too fast to take a photo.  Here's what I used to make it.

Crust- I used Trader Joe's wheat pizza dough.  If you haven't tried this yet, and you live near a Trader Joe's, try it!  The dough it mixed up and ready to purchase in a plastic bag. For less than $2 you just have to turn the dough out onto a floured surface, wait 20 minutes, and then roll out into the pizza shape of your choice.  I chose to make four small, kind of round pizzas, instead of one large pizza.  

Sauce- I pulled sauce out of the freezer that I made probably a year ago.  It was still wonderful!  We started with a recipe that came from foodnetwork.com, but have made it our own with quite a few changes. 

ZESTY PIZZA SAUCE

Ingredients:
1 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup diced red onion
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
1- 11 ounce can tomato puree
8 ounces no sugar added tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flake

Directions:
In a saucepan over medium heat, heat olive oil and then sweat onions and garlic in oil, cooking just until softened and translucent.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer for about 2 minutes.

Toppings- I covered the dough with a generous helping of the pizza sauce, a layer of low-moisture mozzarella cheese, and hot Italian chicken sausage.  I bought the sausage from the meat counter at Fred Meyer.  It was raw link sausage that I browned in a frying pan while the dough rested.  Once browned, I let the sausage drain a bit on a paper-towel-covered plate.  I put just a little more cheese on top of the sausage; you can never get enough melted cheese in my opinion.

Baking-  I put a pizza stone in the oven while it preheated to 450 degrees.  Well, it got super hot, released a bunch of oils which burned, and caused a bit to much smoke in the house.  The fire alarm went off a couple times when I opened up the oven.  I am pleased to say that the alarm did not send Katie into a hysterical crying fit like it has in the past.  Good job dealing with the noise Katie!  Once the alarm stopped, thanks to Ben's nice manual fanning and the addition of a rotary fan in the kitchen with the window open, I cooked the pizzas for 10 minutes.  The crust had turned golden brown and the cheese was bubbling. 

Tip- When you watch pizza cooks in restaurants and on TV, they always slide completed pizzas into the oven using a pizza peel.  Pizza peels are those large wooden spatulas the cooks use with such skill.  Well, I've looked at them in the past and have never found one I liked for the price it was being sold for.  Instead, I use a large, rigid plastic cutting board that I sprinkle with corn meal.  The corn meal helps me to slide the pizza onto the heated pizza stone with all the toppings already on top.  It works just fine for how rarely I make pizza. 

Sunday, 6/20/2010

Today did not turn out as we expected it to. For his birthday, I gave Ben tickets to go see the U2 concert this evening. Unfortunately, Bono had to have emergency back surgery about a month ago and the concert was delayed. So, that was the first crack in our plans.

Our back up plan to the concert was to go out for brunch at Swinery Meats. We've been reading about the Swinery's Inner Sanctum, a courtyard in which they serve deliciously prepared brunch and lunch items, on the West Seattle Blog and Facebook for weeks now. Father's Day seemed like it would be the perfect day to visit the Inner Sanctum. But no, it rained all day. We weren't thrilled with eating outside in a courtyard in the rain. Plus, Katie fell asleep in the car between church and the Swinery. Second crack!

We decided to head home so that Katie could finish napping. Ben exercised, I did finances, and Katie did not sleep in her crib. She chatted away for an hour or more. Finally, we took off for Renton to have linner (lunch/dinner) at The Rock- Wood Fired Pizza. It was super tasty. Katie enjoyed blueberries, cheese, and animal crackers while Ben and I shared Inferno Chicken Strips--boneless chicken strips, seasoned, deep fried, and tossed in hot sauce. YUM! Then we each had personalized pizzas. Ben had the "My Generation" pizza--cream sauce, peppercorn ranch dressing, tender pieces of chicken, thick bacon slices, swiss and mozzarella cheeses sprinkled with fresh parsley. I chose the "Slow Ride"--chicken, hot sausage, dry-aged pepperoni, roasted peppers and crushed garlic in a cajun cream sauce, topped with mozzarella cheese. Thankfully, no more cracks:)

I made ghirardelli dark chocolate brownies for dessert. Ben nuked them a bit, right before serving, and topped them with dark chocolate mint and vanilla ice cream.

The day didn't end up playing out the way we planned it to, but it still ended up being a good Father's Day.