Monday, 9/20/2010

I picked up a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store this morning.  I shredded it as soon as I got home, so that we can use it for meals this week.  It is much easier to shred chicken when it is warm than when it is cold.  Tonight we used the chicken in a caesar salad.  We usually add freshly cracked black pepper and extra Parmesan cheese to a Fresh Express Caesar salad kit.  Unfortunately, I didn't notice that we were almost out of Parmesan. The rest of the ingredients were quite good, but the lack of Parmesan left the salad a little short on flavor tonight.

Once we got Katie down for the night, I started to make salsa for the first time! When I first met Ben, six years ago, I wouldn't even try salsa.  Now, I love the stuff enough that I bought tomato and pepper plants this year.  I sure wish the weather had cooperated with us more.  The tomatoes and peppers got a really late start and are just barely getting ripe.  I ended up choosing this Alton Brown salsa recipe off of www.foodnetwork.com.  The recipe called for six Roma tomatoes.  I used four tomatoes from the store and supplemented with four smaller tomatoes from my yard.  The recipe also called for a total of four jalapenos--two roasted, skinned and chopped and two seeded and minced.  Since a lot of the heat of a jalapeno comes from the seeds, I decided to use the Felicity peppers from my yard for the seeded, minced peppers.  I purchased a couple jalapenos at the store to roast.  

I've seen peppers roasted on the stove top, over a gas burner on the Food Network before.  When Ben walked into the kitchen, he said something like "Nice work Emeril."  That made me smile:)  Roasting peppers was harder than I expected it to be.  The peppers seemed to release some oils during the roasting process, which made them slippery.  They kept sliding off the burners and needed to be watched constantly.  Having never done it before, I ended up pulling them off of the grill too early.  After being roasted, the peppers went into a paper bag where the steam was supposed to help loosen the skins.  Well, the only parts that loosened were the parts that were crisped by the burners.  It took a little scraping with a knife to skin them.  I think that it would have been easier if I let them roast longer.  

Anyway, an hour later, I had chopped tomatoes, onions, dried peppers, roasted peppers, raw peppers, juiced a lime, and added in a few other ingredients to create a delicious salsa.  The recipe said to refrigerate the salsa for 12 hours for flavor infusion.  I couldn't wait and was happy to try it in its chunky, fresh consistency on a couple tortilla chips.  Ben is not a fan of chunky salsa, but was willing to give it a try.  I plan on serving this Wednesday with chicken quesadillas and will put some of the salsa in a blender so that Ben will enjoy it more.  I am definitely going to save this recipe, but will continue to try others.  I am so pleased to have grown some of the ingredients I used:)  

Monday, 4/26/2010

This afternoon I drafted my menu and grocery list for the coming week. It must have been the gloomy weather that lead me to plan comfort food for the week. Tonight we had penne pasta with Roasted Garlic sauce, and crumbled hot italian sausage topped with a little fresh Parmesan cheese.

For pasta sauce, my absolute favorite is Ben's family recipe. Since it takes several hours to make, we only have that a few times a year. For our everyday pasta sauce I choose the Classico brand. Every once in a while I branch away and try something else, but they are usually more expensive and don't taste that much better in my opinion. I usually stick with the Spicy Tomato & Basil flavor, but today tried the Roasted Garlic. It was good too, but both Ben and I preferred the spicy variety. In looking at the Classico product line just now, I see that there is a Spicy Tomato & Pesto sauce. I'll have to look for that one too. I LOVE PESTO!