Chicken alla Patti

Che buono! This is the perfect satisfying comfort food.

Ingredients:

4 bone in chicken thighs, skin removed
coarse salt and pepper
olive oil
1 white onion, medium dice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 can diced tomatoes
6 carrots, peeled and cut into 2 inch chunks
2-3 C chicken broth (depending on how thick you want the sauce)
Italian Seasonings

1) Heat olive oil in an oven safe sauce pan with lid at medium high heat. (I use my 4 quart dutch oven). Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper on both sides, then brown for about 3 minutes on each side.

2) Remove the chicken from the pan and deglaze the pan with water or white wine. Wait until all the liquid has evaporated and add the onion. Lower the heat and make sure to keep stirring so they don't burn. Cook until translucent. Add garlic.

3) Add chicken broth, tomatoes and carrots. Season with desired amount of Italian Seasonings. Nestle the chicken into the vegetable/broth mix and cover. Bake in 325 degree oven for 2 and 1/2 hours.

4) Serve over homemade sour cream mashed potatoes. (For our family I use 6 large russet potatoes, 1/2 stick of butter, a dollop of low fat sour cream and whole milk when I've got it on hand, otherwise I use skim. Salt and pepper to taste)

Jim's Red Beans and Rice

This is a family favorite. Pressure Cooker Required.

Ingredients:

2 lb. bag of red beans - soaked overnight in 8 C water
Chicken Bouillon (enough for 6 C of water)
1/2 tsp salt
2 bay leaves
4 garlic cloves, pressed
1 onion, diced
3 T Worcestershire
28 oz can of whole tomatoes

Rinse and drain your soaked beans. Pick out any that didn't expand or that are wrinkly. Cover beans with 6 C fresh water in a pressure cooker. Add bouillon, salt, bay leaves, garlic, onion, worcestershire and tomatoes.

Cook beans according to pressure cooker directions. ( I do mine for 12-15 minutes on high pressure) Serve over jasmine rice with thinly sliced and seasoned flank steak. (I use Grillmates Montreal Steak Seasoning)

Dash a little Tabasco on top and you're in heaven.

Mandi's Baked Penne

You want to talk about a crowd pleaser? Children and adults love this dish at our house. I feel so hokey for typing that. But it's true!

Ingredients:

1 T olive oil
6 garlic cloves, minced (you may be tempted by this insane number of garlic cloves to think, "why not put in a whole head of garlic?". Don't do it! Keep it at 6. It's just right.)
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and ground black pepper
28 oz can crushed tomatoes
3 C water
12 oz penne pasta
1/2 C heavy cream
1/2 C freshly grated parmesan
1/4 minced fresh basil
1 C grated mozzarella cheese

Heat oven to 475 degrees.

Combine oil, garlic, pepper flakes and 1/2 tsp salt in a 12 inch ovensafe non-stick skillet. Saute over medium high heat until fragrant, about one minute.

(If, like me, you don't have an oven safe skillet, don't fret. Cook in a regular skillet and then transfer to a 9X13 pan when you're ready to bake.)

Add crushed tomatoes, water, penne, and 1/2 tsp salt. Cover and cook, stirring often and adjusting heat as needed to maintain a vigorous simmer. Cook until zitti is almost tender, 10-15 minutes.

Turn off heat. Add cream, parmesan and basil. Season with salt and pepper if necessary. (I don't usually find it necessary). Sprinkle mozzarella evenly over penne. Transfer skillet to oven and bake until cheese has melted and browned, about 10 minutes.

I usually adjust this recipe so that I'm using a 1 lb (or 16 oz) box of pasta, by adding an 8 oz can of tomato sauce and adjusting the rest of the ingredients accordingly. I'm too lazy to figure out all the measurements right here though, so you'll have to do your own math.

Giada's Baked Penne with Roasted Vegetables

When this came out of the oven this afternoon, I thought "I wish I could take a picture of the way it smells." Che Buono!

Ingredients

• 2 red peppers, cored and cut into 1-inch wide strips
• 2 zucchini, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 summer squash, quartered lengthwise and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 4 cremini mushrooms, halved
• 1 yellow onion, peeled and sliced into 1-inch strips
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt, divided
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
• 1 tablespoon dried Italian herb mix or herbs de Provence
• 1 pound penne pasta
• 3 cups marinara sauce (store bought or homemade, I used Giada's basic marinara recipe)
• 1 cup grated fontina cheese
• 1/2 cup grated smoked mozzarella
• 1 1/2 cups frozen peas, thawed
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus 1/3 cup for topping
• 2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces

Directions

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

On a baking sheet, toss the peppers, zucchini, squash, mushrooms, and onions with olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and dried herbs. Roast until tender, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook for about 6 minutes. Since you will be cooking the pasta a second time in the oven, you want to make sure the inside is still hard. Drain in a colander.

In a large bowl, toss the drained pasta with the roasted vegetables, marinara sauce, cheeses, peas, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper.

Using a wooden spoon, gently mix, until all the pasta is coated with the sauce and the ingredients are combined.

Pour the pasta into a greased 9 by 13-inch pan. Top with the remaining 1/3 cup Parmesan and butter pieces. Bake until top is golden and cheese melts, about 25 minutes.

I have made 7 of Giada's recipes in the last two weeks. 5 of them were DELISH. I think she deserves a spot on the sidebar. You're movin' on up Giada!

Giada's Basic Marinara

No, I don't have a personal relationship with Giada De Laurentiis from the Food Network. But I got two of her books at the library this week, I've tried two recipes, and been happy two times.

I've been frustrated with the lack of consistent success with my marinara sauce. (BTW Jim and Lisa, I really want both of your marinara recipes.) The main differences I see between her sauce and mine is that she uses a lot more olive oil, more onion, and bay leaves. I liked the sauce. The fam liked it, and it's freezable, easy to double, and doctor up into a ton of other sauces.

I don't know where our camera is right now, so no pictures.

Directions

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 small onions, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 (32-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes

2 dried bay leaves

In a large casserole pot, heat the oil over a medium-high flame. Add the onions and garlic and saute until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the celery, carrots, and 1/2 teaspoon of each salt and pepper. Saute until all the vegetables are soft, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes and bay leaves, and simmer uncovered over low heat until the sauce thickens, about 1 hour. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Season the sauce with more salt and pepper, to taste. (The sauce can be made 1 day ahead. Cool, then cover and refrigerate. Rewarm over medium heat before using.)

I copied and pasted that from her website, so that's why there are all the links. I hope that's not a copyright infringement. It's all about GIADA people. It's not MINE.

Mason Redd's Tomato and Basil Pizza

I first had this pizza when I was 12. I was in Utah for my brother's wedding and his future wife's father made it in a homemade brick oven. It converted me to tomatoes.

A pizza margarita is far more common now than it was then. But just in case YOU don't know about it. I thought I'd share, and preserve a happy family memory.



Using your favorite pizza crust as a base (no recipe suggestion here. I just use my kitchen aid recipe. so quick. so easy. but so not useful if you don't have a kitchen aid) do the following:

1. Drizzle olive oil on the dough. Spread evenly with your hand.
2. Sprinkle grated mozzarella cheese.
3. Layer sliced tomatoes (use A LOT, I wish I had used more on the above). I usually use Roma's, but I had a few beefsteak and marglobes left over from my garden. You don't want a super watery tomato, so that's why the Roma's are nice.
4. Sprinkle salt (not too much) and parmesan cheese over the top.
5. Cut fresh basil in a chiffonade and spread generously over pizza. (again, wish I had used more)
6. Bake pizza at the temperature and time recommended by your crust recipe. We like a thin crust, so I usually bake at 400 for 20 minutes. But that's just my quirky oven. Don't count on it.



Mmm. The happy result. I serve this with Spring Mix tossed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar (which I recently learned how to reduce thanks Audrey which makes it thicker, sweeter, and syrup-ier.) and salt.

Audrey's Sausage, Peppers and Potatoes

Are you catching a theme here? I did a dinner swap with Audrey last year and the relationship was SO not reciprocal. I'm sure she'll be blessed for her kindness.

Anyway, we had this tonight with a greek salad (tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions marinated in white vinegar with coarse salt and garlic pepper and served over baby spinach and iceberg lettuce with feta cheese and pine nuts and a red wine vinaigrette. I wanted more.)

Ingredients

6 potatoes (if you use Yukon Golds, you don't have to peel them before cutting, but I only had Russets)
2 Bell Peppers julienned
1 yellow onion small dice
4 Italian Sausage Links (I buy Costco's Premio Italian Sausage, cheaper and bigger than Johnsonville, and just as delicious)
Olive Oil
Coarse Salt and Pepper
Minced Garlic
Dried Basil
Red Pepper Flakes



Instructions

1. Peel (if necessary) and dice your potatoes, keeping them the same size. Add julienned peppers and diced onion and 1 tsp. minced garlic. Toss with Olive Oil. Salt and Pepper to taste and add a pinch each of basil and red pepper flakes.



2. Using scissors, cut sausage links into bite sized nuggets over the potato/vegetable mixture in a 9x13 glass pan.


3. Bake at 350 for 60-90 minutes, or until potatoes are fork tender and sausage is fully cooked and a little crispy.

Audrey's Ratatouille

This food is the combination of everything perfect. Tons of vegetables, chicken that's tender on the inside, crispy on the outside, served over couscous. I haven't yet learned to make it so it is consistently FABULOUS, but it is consistently pretty yummy. Audrey's is consistently fabulous. And I'm not bitter. Today.





Ingredients

4-5 Chicken Thighs (one per person), skin removed by hand (if you buy the skinless, it has almost no fat on it and you need the fat to make it mo' tasty and delicious) I buy mine at Costco.
1 zucchini sliced in half lengthwise, cut into small half circles. Make them the same width.
3 carrots peeled and sliced on the diagonal.
1 onion diced small.
2 bell peppers diced large.
1 ripe eggplant (the ripeness is important, if you cut it open and it is green close to the skin, cut of the green parts. They taste like cucumber and will ruin the flavor of the dish)
Olive OilBalsamic VinegarCoarse Salt and Pepper
Garlic Pepper
Minced Garlic
32 oz can whole tomatoes
Regular or whole wheat couscous prepared according to package directions, except I like to make mine in chicken broth instead of water.


Instructions

1. After removing the skin from the chicken thighs, grind salt and garlic pepper, flavoring both sides of the chicken.


2. Warm 1 T Olive oil in a pan on medium high heat. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, add chicken. Allow chicken to brown about 5 minutes on each side. It does not need to cook through, just get a nice crisp on both sides.


3. After chopping all your vegetables, toss them with olive oil, coarse salt and pepper, balsamic vinegar and about 1 T of minced garlic. I do not have measurements on the oil, salt and pepper and vinegar because I totally eyeball it. Maybe this explains my lack of consistent deliciousness . . .



4. Place the vegetables in a glass 9x13 pan and lay the chicken on top.


5. Drain your canned tomatoes and pour them on top of the chicken. Add some salt to the tomatoes.



6. Bake for 2 hours at 300 degrees, checking vegetables for tenderness. If, like me, you prepare your dish in the morning and refrigerate it during the day, you will need to add additional cooking time for the pan and the food to warm up. About a half hour.

7. Prepare couscous.

8. Enjoy your health conscious triumph!

Mushroom and Sweet Potato Risotto

I'm trying to cut back on our grocery bill so I've been inventing with whatever I have in the fridge. Last night I looked in and found onions, carrots, sweet potatoes and mushrooms and a cup of arborio rice in the pantry. This turned out fantastic. It is low fat, yet oh so creamy.


Ingredients

1 tsp. Canola Oil
1 small onion, diced
1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cubed
2 carrots, peeled and cut into same size chunks as sweet potato
6 white button mushrooms, sliced
Coarse salt
Freshly ground garlic pepper
Pinch of dried rosemary
1 C arborio rice
5 C chicken broth
Freshly grated parmesan

Instructions

Heat chicken broth in a pan and maintain a low simmer. Heat oil in large stockpot on medium heat. Add onion, sweet potato, carrots and mushrooms and salt and pepper to taste . Cook on medium heat until onions are translucent, stirring often and taking care not to burn the onions.

Add dry rice to vegetables and let brown, stirring often for 2 minutes. Add rosemary and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add 1/2 C of chicken broth to the stockpot and deglaze the pan, breaking up the frond (browned bits) from the bottom of the pot.

When the vegetables and rice have absorbed all the broth, add another cup of broth. Repeat this process, adding one cup of broth at a time, until all of the broth is gone and the rice and vegetables are soft. Stir often. You can leave the pot unattended for a minute or so, but much longer than that and you get scorching on the bottom. I usually set up shop in the kitchen with some task (usually loading the dishwasher and cleaning) while I'm stirring.

When rice is al dente, ladle into serving bowl. Sprinkle freshly grated parmesan cheese (I use the Pampered Chef rotary cheese grater) on top. Serve immediately.

4 out of 5 members of my family liked this dish. And the only naysayer didn't even try it!

ps I think I can use chicken broth in a vegetarian meal. But I just read that fancy chefs get annoyed when people call a meal vegetarian that has chicken broth in it. So Fancy Chef, I give you permission to substitute vegetable based broth.

Grandpa's Pizza Sauce

We love going out for pizza at Grandpa's. His sauce goes together so quick and tastes wonderful. We recently had it on a green tomato and sausage pizza (another invention of his). You slice the green tomatoes very thin and use both mozzarella and cheddar cheeses. I meant to get a picture of the finished product before we cut into it, but it were just too excited to wait.



Pizza Sauce Ingredients

1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 can tomato paste
1 1/2 tsp Oregano
1 1/2 tsp ground or whole fennel (I prefer whole, but my significant other prefers ground)
1/2 tsp dried rosemary
1/2 tsp dried basil

Stir ingredients together and spread on pizza. No cooking required!

Rigatoni Rustici

We had this dish at Macaroni Grill a few years back and I think this comes pretty close.


Ingredients

32 oz can Hunt's Tomato Sauce
Olive Oil
Salt
1/2 C Crumbled Feta Cheese
14 Fresh Basil, chiffonad-ed!
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 small white onion, cut into small strips
2 Italian Sausage Links

Put 1 T olive oil in a sauce pan. Heat through and add tomatoes and salt to taste. Check sauce for acidity, adding sugar if necessary. Add feta and basil.

Stir fry bell pepper and onion in a separate pan until al dente.

Cook sausage (with casing) in a sauce pan with a few inches of water until the water boils off and the sausage is browned.

Slice sausage into bites. Add sausage and vegetables to sauce. Serve over al dente Rigatoni.

Audrey's Shepherd's Pie

Okay, so first off, I have to say that these pictures do not do this Shepherd's Pie justice. I used (gulp!) INSTANT mashed potatoes and it lost a great deal of the delectableness, let me tell you! So, be forewarned. Homemade mashed potatoes make this dish out of this world!

Ingredients

1/2 lb ground beef
1/2 lb ground Italian sausage
1 onion, finely chopped
1-2 finely chopped carrots
1 can green beans, drained
1 large handful of frozen corn
1 jar marinara sauce

or
Homemade marinara sauce (1 can diced tomatoes, 2 cans tomato sauce, 1 can tomato paste, salt, basil,crushed pepper, garlic, sugar)

Sliced cheddar cheese (in spite of what the picture may suggest, I did NOT use processed cheese. Those are Tillamook Sharp Cheddar Slices from Costco)

6-8 servings mashed potatoes (we make our homemade with Yukon Golds, milk, butter, sour cream and salt. MMM BOY!)

In a sauce pan, brown meat, with onion, and carrots. Add green beans, corn, and marinara sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (Even when I use jarred marinara I add a little more salt, basil and crushed pepper).

Place meat mixture in 9x13 pan. Place enough slices of cheese over the top. Finish with the mashed potatoes spread evenly over the cheese. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes or until bubbly and toasted on top.

Beef Stroganoff

Audrey invited my family for dinner a few years ago promising to serve Beef Stroganoff. Instantly an image of egg noodles, cream of mushroom soup and ground beef popped into my mind. Yummy enough, but not DELECTABLE. Instead she served the following, and I still salivate whenever I think about it!

She changed my previous impression of Shepherd's Pie also, but I'll post that at a later date.

Audrey's Beef Stroganoff

1 Chuck Roast
1 Onion, diced
Salt
Pepper
Minced Garlic
1/3-1/4 C White Wine
1 large package White Mushrooms (I get mine from Costco)
Chicken Broth
1/4-1/2 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg (Audrey swears by freshly ground, but I haven't tried it yet)
Bayleaf
1/4 tsp. Salt
1/2 C White Flour
1/2-1 C Cream
1/2 Container Sour Cream

Instructions

Cut fat out of the roast. This is easier if the roast is at least partially frozen. Slice into fist sized portions, then cut into bite sized pieces, against the grain.

In a large dutch oven, soften diced onion in Canola oil. Add meat to onion and sear. Salt, pepper, and add minced garlic to taste. Add white wine and bring wine to a full boil.

Add washed mushrooms (stems removed and tops broken into 3-4 pieces).

Fill dutch oven with chicken broth (I usually use up using 3 quarts for my 5 quart dutch oven). Add cayenne, nutmeg, bay leaf and salt.

Bake at 300 degrees for 2-3 hours. Check meat at 2 hours for tenderness.

If needed, transfer meat and broth to a larger pot. Take 1 1/2 to 2 C of broth and whisk with 1/2 C of flour in a separate bowl. Look for a milkshake like consistency.

Bring meat barely to a boil and add slurry, cream, and sour cream. Taste. If it is too bland, add salt or cayenne pepper. If your sauce is not thick enough, remove broth again and mix with 2 T of Cornstarch. Add back to dish and allow to thicken over heat.

Serve over Butterfly Pasta.

This makes a large amount of stroganoff so I usually prepare at least 2 lb.s of pasta to go with it. Invite friends!