food

Chicken Parmesan is a weakness of mine — one of those unfortunate weaknesses that makes my ass look big. So I was thrilled to find a healthy-ish version of this usually deadly recipe in the cookbook Ben got me for Christmas, The Best of Cooking Light.

The book is really great about making “normal” dishes a bit better for you rather than just having really weirdo stuff that involves a lot of bean curd and twigs and things — and they list all the nutritional information after each dish. It’s fancy without requiring special skills or ingredients and it has pictures for most of the recipes — and I get to make a few new, awesome things every week from it. You can buy it here

Below is what I made last night, which involves Cooking Light’s ingenious recipe (with a few of my little changes).

The chicken:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/3 cup flour
• 2 large egg whites, lightly beaten
• 2 teaspoons olive oil (I needed a bit more than that)

The tomato sauce and noodles

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 small can of tomato paste
• 1 big can of stewed whole plum tomatoes
• some oregano and parsley and black pepper
• lots of fresh basil
• 10 ounces dried spaghetti (we use whole wheat)
• 1 cup fresh shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese (the fresh part makes a big difference

1. Place each chicken breast between two sheets of plastic wrap and flatted to 1/4-inch thickness with a meat mallet or rolling pin (we use a whiskey bottle).

2. Combine breadcrumbs, Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning, and pepper in a dish. Dredge each breast in flour, then dip them in the egg whites, then the bread crumbs.

3. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook 3 minutes on each side (or until done).

4. For the sauce, heat the oil and garlic in a large saucepan. add the onions and cook until clear, about five minutes. Add everything else (except the basil), bring to a boil, and then let simmer while you prepare the chicken and cook the pasta. Right before you’re done, take the sauce off the heat and add the fresh basil.

5. Cook the spaghetti and place it in the bottom of a 9 X 7 inch glass baking dish (or similar). Pour half of the sauce over the spaghetti. Place the chicken breasts on top of that, and then cover the breasts with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Broil for about three minutes, or until the cheese melts.

We served ours with whole-wheat garlic bread and green beans.

It’s mid-February here in New York City, and we still haven’t had a measurable amount of snowfall or any sort of cold weather. I haven’t even had to find my other glove, which has been been lost since last spring.

While this has been great as far as commuting, seasonal depression, and walking to the gym is concerned, the mild weather has really hurt my warm, hearty, comfort food output.

So being hit by a cold front yesterday had one perk — I got to break out one of my favorite dead-of-winter recipes, a mix of my mom’s and my aunt’s chicken pot pie recipe. It isn’t exactly healthy for you - it’s full of tons of lean chicken and veggies, but it’s also covered in gravy and pastry — but it will restore your will to live when the wind chill drops below zero.

•  2-3 pounds of chicken (I use boneless, skinless breasts, but you can use anything, even a whole fryer)
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of pepper
  
• a couple stalks of celery (chopped)
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 medium onion (chopped)
• Enough water to cover the chicken
  
• 2 potatoes, cubed (and peeled if you’d like)
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1.5 teaspoons of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of thyme
• 1 9-inch pie crust (I buy mine at the store because I’m bad at these things, but you can make your own if you want to show off)
• 1 16-ounce package of frozen veggies (or any combination of fresh or frozen veggies that you feel like  - I do broccoli, peas,  corn, and carrots)
• 1 1/4 teaspoon of pepper
• 1 cup of milk
• 2 hard boiled eggs, sliced
• 1/2 cup of butter

Combine the ingredients in italics in a large dutch over or soup pot. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce to a simmer and cook for an hour (or until chicken is tender). Remove the chicken, let it cool, and then cut into bite-sized pieces. discard the bay leaf but reserve the broth and veggies in the pot.

With a large spoon, skim the fat off the surface of the broth (if you used chicken breasts, there pretty much won’t be any) and bring the broth back up to a boil. Add the remaining veggies of your choice along with the cubed potatoes. Simmer until everything is cooked and tender (about 10 minutes).

Remove veggies from the broth and put aside. Measure three cups of broth and set aside. Reserve the remaining broth to make a delicious soup with later.

In the now-empty dutch over, melt the butter over low heat. Add the flour and whisk until smooth, stirring constantly. Gradually add the broth and the milk while continually stirring over medium heat — it should get thick and bubbly. Stir in the remaining salt, pepper, and thyme. Stir in the chicken, veggies, and eggs gently until everything is mixed. Spoon mixture into a 13 X 9 X 2 inch cooking dish.

Take your pie crust and roll it out on a lightly-floured surface so that it’s roughly a 15 X 10 inch rectangle. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Place it over your cooking dish, crimping the edges and cutting a few slits in the middle.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until crust is golden-brown.

Especially now that I have more time and energy to cook, I’ve been working on eating less processed foods and making more stuff from scratch.

Recently I read an article (which I can now no longer locate) about how MSG is often not listed on labels and appears in many surprising and popular foods — even stuff like Campbell’s Soup. This led me to look at the label of a can of Campbell’s tomato soup that I had in my kitchen — turns out they throw some high fructose corn syrup in there for good measure. It’s like nothing is safe from that stuff.

This led me on a mission to learn more about making my own soup. What did I learn? That making soup is as easy as throwing a bunch of fresh junk into some broth. It doesn’t take a genius or a soup scientist.
And while heating up a can of soup only takes a few minutes, making your own doesn’t take that many more. For example, today I made a show-stopping beans ‘n’ greens soup in 20 minutes. Not only was it cheap to make, but I can eat it all week and freeze the other half for later. Even better, I don’t get the MSG or sugar and I can add or leave out any ingredients that I don’t like or don’t happen to have.

In a large soup pot, throw in

• one cup of chopped onions
• a half cup of food processed celery (I like the taste of celery but hate the texture, so I food process the hell of out it)
• four chopped slices of bacon
• two chopped carrots
• diced garlic to your liking (I like a lot)

Cook these things for about ten minutes, or until the bacon is cooked through and the onions are see-through. Then add:

• A 15-ounce can of white beans
• Six cups of chicken broth
• A cup of uncooked whole wheat pasta (I like the spirals)
• Whichever spices your into (rosemary, thyme, and red pepper for me)

Let this stuff simmer for about ten minutes, or until the pasta is al dente. Then turn off the heat and add in about 10 ounces of spinach (or your green of choice) until it wilts and turns bright green.

And for my veggie friends, this one is easy to turn vegan — just ditch the bacon and replace the chicken broth with vegetable broth.

Growing up, my favorite thing in the world was my mom’s chicken and dumplings. Notice I didn’t say my favorite food was chicken and dumplings, I said that my favorite thing in the whole wide world was chicken and dumplings.

I can still remember my anticipation for dinner on the nights when it was on the stove. And, to this day, a big pot of it awaits me every time I go home for a visit. It’s just simply that good.

Due to my well-documented fear of preparing dough and basically anything that involves cutting things into flour, I had never made the dish myself. It was almost like a mental block — how could I create something so delicious when I wasn’t my mom?

Once, a few years back, I attempted one of those short-cut recipes for chicken and dumplings that I found online — one of those cheater dishes that uses canned biscuit dough and condensed soup. The result was such a horrible travesty that I didn’t eat more than a bite. I learned my lesson well: you don’t cut corners with this dish unless you want to cut the quality as well.

Over this past Christmas, my mom walked me through the recipe, and it was surprisingly simple and straightforward. It was as if I assumed it was difficult because it tasted so good and perhaps because when I was little it seemed to take about five hours to be ready to eat.

I made it solo today, in time to eat for the Patriots game kickoff. It tasted just as it should — exactly like mom’s.

Mom’s Chicken and Dumplings

For broth:

• Use 4 or 5 boneless chicken breasts, or whole breasts with skin and bones (skin adds more fat and flavor - but I use skinless and it works fine)
• 2 t. salt
• 1/2 t. pepper
• 2 or 3 carrots, sliced
• 1 bay leaf
• Several stalks of celery, cut into pieces (I put mine in a food processor)
• 1 medium white onion, chopped
• Enough water to cover chicken
• 3 cups of milk

1. Add all ingredients except milk to a heavy-bottomed large pot; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer. Cover pot and cook for at least one hour.
2. Remove chicken; cool. Remove bones and skin, if necessary, and cut into bite-size pieces. Set aside.
3. Add 3 cups of milk. Bring to boil and add dumplings (see below) one at a time, keeping the broth at a boil.
4. Cover pot and simmer for10 or 15 minutes or until dumplings are done. Do not lift cover so that the steaming of dumplings occurs.
5. Add chicken pieces, continuing to boil gently.
6. Blend 4 T. flour and 1/2 cold water. Add to broth, gently blending in.
7. Cook and stir until slightly thickened. Simmer (very faint boil) for about 1 hour.
Turn off heat and let stand for another hour.

Dumplings:

2 1/4 c. flour
3 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
5 T. shortening (I use non-transfat Crisco)
1 egg + enough water to equal 3/4 cup

1. Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in large mixing bowl.
2. Cut in shortening with pastry blender or fork.
3. Beat egg and water with fork until blended (about 30 seconds).
4. Add egg mixture gradually into flour mixture while blending with a fork.
5. Use hands to form into a ball.
6. Roll dough out on well-floured surface until 1/8-inch thick using a rolling pin.
7. Cut into rectangles about 2×4 inches in size using a pizza cutter or sharp knife.
8. Let dry at least 30 minutes, uncovered.

Note: You can add additional milk to this dish if the broth is totally absorbed or to achieve the consistency you like.

There are a few mistakes in life that I have trouble learning from. One of those mistakes is buying things that are on clearance in the grocery store. Sure, you might be able to get away with clearance clothing or clearance houseware without a problem, but food that is on clearance… there’s just something off about that.

Of course, when I was at the grocery store this weekend, looking to buy extra virgin olive oil, I put my fears aside and purchased Italica Extra Virgin Olive Oil with added Omega-3. So what if it was suspiciously half-off — olive oil is probably the most expensive grocery item that we buy and this olive oil has been enriched with Omega-3 fatty acids! What could possibly go wrong?

Fast-forward to last night as Ben and I are cooking dinner. He’s in charge of the turkey burgers and I’m putting together a couple of sides — a salad and some whole wheat pasta tossed with cheese and olive oil.

As soon as the oil hits the pan, the kitchen started smelling like a fish market. I wonder momentarily if the last time I used the pan seafood was involved before the real culprit was discovered. Apparently, when they say “enriched with Omega-3,” they really mean “we just added some fish juices. It’s kind of gross.”

I continued with the pasta and we sat down to dinner. Perhaps, I thought, there was just a hint of fishiness that wouldn’t show through the pasta and cheese.  I asked Ben if he smelled fish, and he claimed that everything was normal. Then he bit into the pasta and put down his fork.

“Yep,” he said. “Ugh.” 

Since I don’t believe that any food could possibly be so bad as to be inedible, I went ahead and tried to take a few more bites. My mouth felt like the dumpster behind Red Lobster, if that dumpster had been sprinkled with cheese.

Let this be a cautionary tale: there is good reason that NEW! product is half-off. You just might not know why until it’s far too late and your apartment smells like low tide.

I felt like making something a little fancy tonight — you know, one of those French recipes that calls for a 1/2 cup of white wine, giving you the excuse to drink excessively from the rest of the bottle while you cook?

So I looked through the new Best of Cooking Light book that Ben got me for Christmas and found some great pictures of pan-roasted pork loin with leeks and decided to try it out. I wrote down the ingredient and headed to my grocery store, totally forgetting what a ghetto wreck my grocery store is.

My ghetto wreck of a grocery store was only offering  12-pound pork loins when I needed a two-pound pork loin.  And after asking the butcher who in the world buys 12-pound pork loins other than the owners of orphanages, I also found that although I needed six leeks, the store was only currently carrying one bunch of three sad looking ones.

In other words, due to my very Queens food market, I was left making something pretty different from the original idea. The good news is, though, that it tasted delicious and was much faster than the original - it takes about 30 minutes instead of two hours. I got four pork chops instead of a huge pork loin and did things a bit differently with the sauce. Here we go:

• Three leeks
• four boneless pork chops
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 tablespoon of butter
• 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 cup white wine
• salt, pepper, and fresh parsley to taste

Cut off the roots and tops of the leeks, leaving only the light-green and white middle. Chop and rinse while drinking a glass of white wine, which you absolutely needed to open because the recipe calls for it later. Put the leeks, butter, and water into a large, deep saucepan or wok. Cook on medium heat for 15 minutes, or until the leeks are tender. Put aside in a food processor.

In the pan the leeks were just in, heat the oil on high. Salt and pepper the pork chops and place in the pan. Brown each side for one minute then add the wine and turn down the heat to low. Cook each side on low for three minutes or so. Drink another glass of white wine while it’s out.

Give the food processor a few quick on-and-offs, just to thicken the leeks and chop them up a bit more. Add the leeks to the pan, scrapping the bottom to mix in the pork juices and drippings.  Simmer for a few more minutes and add some fresh chopped parsley on top.

We ate ours with some green beens and a couple of twice-baked potatoes. And a few glasses of white wine.  Although this dish seems initially bland or leek-y, it’s really very elegant and tasty - I could see making this for a dinner party, if I ever had one.

Yesterday was a fresh-baked bread kind of day. Unfortunately, I’m pretty dumb at baking. There’s something about the exactness and lack of improvisation that comes with breads that doesn’t really fly with my cooking skills, which include forgetting things and adding other things on whims.

However, my mom’s focaccia recipe seems to be an exception to the rule. It’s easy to make (that is, you can mess up a little without the world ending) and you can improvise both what you put on the top and what you dip it in. The other easy focaccia recipes I’ve tried don’t have the authentic consistency that you find in Italian restaurants.

Focaccia (my mom makes 1 1/2 recipes and place in a 9 X 13 pan — those numbers are in parentheses)

• 3/4 cup warm water (1 1/8 c. water)
• 1 teaspoon pure cane granulated sugar (1 1/2 t. sugar)
• 1 packet active dry yeast (1 packet dry yeast)
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (1 1/2 T extra virgin olive oil)
• 2 cups flour (3 c. flour)
• 1teaspoon coarse sea salt (1 1/2 t. coarse sea salt)

Place warm water (105 to 115F) into a medium bowl. Mix in sugar; sprinkle yeast over surface. Stir to combine and allow to sit for about 5 minutes or until yeast foams; add olive oil; combine. Add flour and salt, mix well, scraping bowl edges.

Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead until smooth and soft, about 5 minutes. Grease a large bowl; form a dough ball, place into bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a tea towel or light cloth; place in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400F, Brush a 5 x 7 inch (brownie pan) baking dish (or 9 x 13 if making 1 1/2 recipes) with olive oil. Gently press risen dough into pan, smoothing the top and creating small dimples with your fingers.

Lightly brush with olive oil and sprinkle with a little rosemary or Italian seasonings and coarse salt. This is also where you can get creative with whatever you have in the fridge — add finely chopped onions, olives, thinly sliced tomatoes, cheese, fresh sage, or garlic, in any combination you are feeling.

Cook for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. About 5 minutes before it’s done remove from the oven, brush with more olive oil and sprinkle with fresh rosemary and sage leaves. Put it back in the oven for another 5 minutes or until done

Artichokes and Olives Spread for Focaccia, if you’d like

• 1 bay leaf
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 4 peppercorns
• 1 cup lemon juice
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 8 artichoke bottoms, trimmed
• 1 cup pitted green olives (Sicilian)
• extra-virgin olive oil

Place the bay leaf, thyme, peppercorns, lemon juice, and salt into a saucepan with 2 cups of cold water and bring to a boil. Cook, covered, 15 minutes. Add the trimmed artichoke bottoms and cook until they are tender when pierced with a knife (about 5 minutes). Drain and cool. Chop the artichokes and olives together very finely with a chef’s knife; stir in enough olive oil to make a soft paste. Adjust the salt if necessary. Slice the focaccia into sixteen 2″ squares and top with the artichoke paste. Serve within 15 minutes.

If you don’t have time or the ingredients to make the paste, you can also serve your bread with a shallow dish of extra virgin olive oil — just mix in some red pepper flakes, Italian seasoning, and garlic.