Vacation Chicken!

Since I am busy wrangling small children who were born in 2003 (!!!) and Mr. Lawyer is on his "staycation" guess who was in charge of dinner? Not me! I was greeted by the yummy smell of chicken in the oven. It smelled so delicious and tasted so amazing that I forgot to take a picture until we were halfway through! So please excuse the chicken bones. As I was not responsible for making this there are no proportions but since there are only three ingredients it is easy to eyeball and adapt to one or six pieces of chicken. This is a recipe from Mr. Lawyer's family ("It's one of my favorites. It's pretty popular.") and the rest of the entry has been dictated by him.

Grandmom Tuliszewki's Chicken

Ingredients:
Chicken Thighs
French Dressing
Breadcrumbs
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Coat the chicken in french dressing and then the breadcrumbs.
3. Bake for 1 hour.

Shrooms!

I decided to have a mushroomfest yesterday. I made a Tasty Thai dish with mushrooms and peppers and for an appetizer I made mushroom bites with aioli. Spoiler alert and included especially for Mrs. T: I failed miserably at the aioli and the picture is not pretty. While it tasted nice and garlicky, it looked nothing like aioli. I'm not even going to include the recipe because it was no fun (and over simplified I think). After my aioli disaster I did whip up some Old Bay Mayo which was an excellent condiment. The mushrooms were perfectly fine but didn't wow me. I'd look for other recipes but keep this on hand for emergencies (because we all have emergencies involving an overabundance of mushrooms and impromptu dinner parties). It was quick, easy and simple....except for that aioli. Ew gross.

Mushroom Bites with Aioli

(from Make It Yourself: Snacks)

Ingredients:

4 oz fresh white bread (I used potato because that's what we had)

2 tablespoons parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon paprika

2 egg whites

8 oz white mushrooms

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. Grate breadcrumbs and mix them with paprika and cheese.

3. Dip each mushroom into lightly whisked egg whites, cover in bread crumbs and place on baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.

Squash Me!

I've been a horrible slacker. There has been summer camp, concerts, birthdays, 9:30 bedtimes and not a whole lot of legit cooking (although I did eat a whole box of Wegmans mac and cheese spirals under extenuating circumstances. WIN.) Next week I will be all planned out and on top of things. On Monday I did make this squashy pasta sauce experiment that was inspired by a dish I made last summer.

Farmer's Market Squash Saute

(Kraft Food and Family Magazine)

Ingredients:
2 zucchini, sliced
2 yellow squash, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
Directions:
1. Cook zucchini and squash in hot oil in large skillet on medium heat for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic, cook 3 minutes or until veggies are tender crisp.
2. Remove from heat, stir in mozzarella and basil. Sprinkle with parmesan.

It was simple and delicious. It's quite the little summer time dish too, all sorts of nice in season veggies. So Monday this recipe became my inspiration for dinner. I followed the recipe up until the cheese part. Instead of adding the cheese I added some left over sauce that we had, then threw it on some pasta, put on the parm and ta-da! Veggie Pasta Dinner!

Macadamias, I love you

Yesterday we had Brad and Christine over for dinner. I promise I'll take a break from cooking my wonderful turkey burgers. It's just like my tortellini, I find something I like and then make it a bunch!

I saw these cookies in my magazine last month and had been wanting to try them but Mr. Lawyer banned me from baking yummy treats because "you're making me fat!" psh. Portion control baby. Don't eat 1/3 of the rum cake for breakfast. Yeah. That totally happened.
Not only did these cookies look good but I just wanted an excuse to have macadamia nuts in the apartment. I developed a love-hate relationship with these cookies. First off, Martha dipped half of each cookie in chocolate. I don't have a good track record with dipping cookies in chocolate (please reference my cookie massacre) so I took the Jackson Pollock approach and just splattered chocolate all over them and it looked pretty awesome. While I was chilling batter and cutting them I swore up and down that I would not be making these again. But then I ate one and I can't quite put my finger on it. And now I might make them again because I keep eating them. It's a weird lemony shortbread sorta macadamia cookie. If you didn't know it contained macadamias I'm not sure you would realize it right away.

Chocolate-Dipped Macadamia Cookies

(Martha Stewart, Everyday Food)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest and 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon course salt
1/2 macadamia nuts, toasted and finely ground
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
Directions:
1. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, 2 minutes.
2. Add egg yolk, lemon zest and juice, and salt and beat until combined. Beat in buts. Add flour and beat until combined.
3. Form dough into a 4.5 inch log, wrap in plastic, and freeze until firm, 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350. Cut dough into 1/4 inch slices, bake until golden at edges about 14 minutes. Cool completely.
5. Melt chocolate (microwave at 30 second intervals), dip half of cookie into chocolate, set on parchment paper to set. Or drizzle all over the place.

The Other White Meat

Quick, easy and delicious! Mr. Lawyer even said: "this is one of the best pork chops I have ever had". And he swore up and down it wasn't a boyfriend lie. We used fresh rosemary from Rivet, my rosemary plant  (A friend of Weggy!). This recipe has a nice flavor, but it wasn't overly rosemary-ish. On the down side, there wasn't a lot of sauce (and I'm a sauce girl!). Definitely a keeper recipe. It was served up with some garlic linguine.

Modenese Pork Chops

(allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons butter
4 (1 inch thick) pork chops
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried rosemary (or fresh!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
Directions:
1. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Cook chops in butter, turning once to brown evenly.

2. Pour in wine, and season with salt, pepper, rosemary, and garlic. Simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes, or until chops are tender. 

3. Transfer pork chops to serving plates, and spoon sauce over the meat.

Burgers and Buns

Mr. Lawyer makes some amazing burgers. My favorite is when he caramelizes the onions in the same pan as the burgers. Once, he even did mushrooms and onions. Delicious. He always has a great toppings board too. We pick up these great brioche buns from Reading Terminal Market and they make for an amazing burger.

A Tangy Dinner

My lawyer is a keeper. I've been super busy with work and studying so Mr. Lawyer had dinner ready when I came home. I did make the marinade in the morning but he picked out the recipe and did all the cooking. It was good but tangy. I really liked it but if you're not a fan of tang I wouldn't recommend it. It did make a ton of marinade, you could probably get away with using 1/3 cup of everything. And it might be yummy to add some fresh chopped garlic instead of powder. He also made this yummy salad he has made before but this time he but some fresh basil from Weggy in it and it was more delicious than the other times he made it! The salad is also tangy so it was a doubly tangy and delicious dinner!

Tangy Chicken Breasts

(allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
Directions:
1. Place chicken in a single layer in a bowl or pan. Mix together Worcestershire sauce, oil, lemon juice, and garlic; pour over chicken. Cover. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours.
2. Take chicken out of marinade, and place on broiler pan or grill. Broil until done, approximately 7 minutes on each side.

Mr. Lawyer's Cucumber and Tomato Salad

(Adapted from his mother's kitchen)

Ingredients:
1 container cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 cucumber, seeded and chopped up
Fresh basil, to taste and chopped
Olive oil, to coat
White balsamic, to coat
Salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
1. Cut up the tomatoes, cucumber, and basil.
2. Add enough olive oil and balsamic to coat the veggies. Salt and pepper to taste.

Pepper Break!

Last summer I was over run by peppers. One night for dinner all I ate was stuffed peppers. This recipe was quick and easy. I used my Hungarian Inferno peppers. This recipe helped mellow out the spiciness. I also ended up canning some of them and boy were they zippy!

Stuffed Hot Peppers

(allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
1/3 cup ground Italian sausage
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
3/4 tablespoon garlic salt
3 tablespoons grated Romano cheese
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/3 cup Italian-style dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 Hungarian hot peppers, cored and seeded
Directions:
1. Place sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3. In a medium bowl, mix together the sausage, cream cheese, garlic salt, Romano cheese, oregano, basil, bread crumbs and olive oil.
4. Stuff the peppers with the sausage mixture. Place on a baking sheet, and bake in the preheated oven 20 to 25 minutes, until the stuffing is lightly brown and bubbly.

I grew these!

Mac and Baseball

Last night I continued my unhealthy quest to eat through all of baseball food offered at the Phillies games. It was another Dollar Dog night and I performed poorly consuming only 1.5 dogs. Tragic. But I did devour this sugary beauty.

I have been studying like crazy for a certification exam and have been largely absent from the kitchen and subsiding on wonderful little gems like Wegman's boxed mac and cheese and microwave kettle corn. You should not despair because Wegman's Mac and Cheese is the best box mac and cheese ever. But only the spirals. I refuse to buy anything else. I think the pretty swirly shapes just suck up more cheesy goodness and taste better. Plus it makes you feel like a little kid again because being a big kid is laaaame. The Dork and I had many dinners consisting of mac and cheese. I miss those high school nights sitting across from each at the dinner table. It was epic.

Heaven.

Herbs and Things

I had quite the little windowsill herb collection back in Syracuse. And an extensive veggie collection that took over both the back and front porch (5 types of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, lettuce, plus some strawberries and sunflowers). I am currently working on building it up again which is tricky with the lack of space.

Holy Weggy! I transplanted and moved him to the balcony. Clearly he's enjoying it, he use to be so little. 

As you can see I have a TON of basil. But what to do with all of it? Which brings us back to the multitude of edible things grown in Syracuse. Freeze it! A quarter of the freezer at the house was full of frozen herbs but no one ever complained because who doesn't like fresh herbs that are free for the taking?! I followed this method found at Better Homes and Gardens. I had every little freezer bag labeled and dated. Some things were chopped, some things weren't. I never made the paste (maybe this year) but I do currently have frozen pesto (leftover from the other day)! And in cute little christmas tree shapes because I don't have a normal ice cube tray. I should probably get some...

I'm a fan of freezing lots of things in little portions: broth, sauce, coffee for iced coffee (doesn't water it down!). Why waste the little left over bits and it makes it easy for future cooking when you only need a little bit and don't want to open a new container!

Empanaaaadas!

I had a craving for emapandas but sadly, while these were acceptable, I would not make them again. This may or may not be due to my traumatic childhood incident involving tacos and a stomach bug/food poisoning from my dad. They were glorified tacos in puff pastry. Mr. Lawyer loved them but he is a boy and therefore inhales everything edible (and sometimes inedible). He even wants to eat one for breakfast. Gross. However the black bean dipping sauce was pretty awesome and I would make it again for a mexican themed night. It was also a pretty purplish color. It doesn't help that the empandas I had in mind were wonderfully delicious ones from the Good Dog Bar that contained thinly sliced ribeye steak, truffled cheddar cheese and had a bourbon infused rogue chocolate stout dipping sauce. In case you don't understand what all of that means (truffled (!?) cheese?!), it means awesomeness. Granted all of this was consumed after Flipadelphia so take it with a shot grain of salt. I also had some of the best lo mien of my life that night at Charles Plaza in China Town.

Beef Empanadas with Black Bean Dipping Sauce

(from Bon Appetit) 

Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 pound ground beef
3 large garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne (red) pepper
1/3 cup fresh cilantro (Which I totally omitted)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 package puff pastry
3 egg yolks, beaten (for glazed)
I added cheese to each one, whatever kind you would like.
Dipping Sauce:
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup sour cream
2 roma tomatoes, seeded, chopped and divided
2 large scallions, chopped, divided
Directions:
1. Heat oil over medium-high heat and brown beef with garlic, approximately 3 minutes.
2. Add tomato paste, cumin and cayenne to beef, stirring often for 4ish minutes.
3. Add cilantro, salt and pepper (to taste) and let beef come to room temperature.
4. Preheat oven to 375 and cut puff pastry sheets in to 4.5 inch squares.
5. Lightly brush edges with egg glaze, put in a spoonful of filling (meat and cheese!) and fold pastry over. Crimp edges with a fork and coat with egg glaze. Bake until golden and puffy, approximately 20 minutes.
Dipping Sauce Directions:
1. Puree beans and sour cream in the blender. Transfer to bowl. Add half of the tomatoes and scallions, stir. Top sauce with the remaining half of tomatoes and scallions.

Obviously I suck at math and did not make triangles.