Category Archives: dinner

Stuffed Mushrooms for Last Minute Appetizer

Posted on October 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

Stuffed Mushrooms are the kind of appetizer that takes no time to make, you’re likely to have all of the ingredients in your refrigerator and pantry, and they are delightful bite full of flavor.

Stuffed Mushrooms Ingredients:
15 medium Baby Bella Mushrooms (a whole container)
2 tbsps of Olive Oil
1/3 cup of Italian Bread Crumbs
1 tbsp of Skim Ricotta Cheese
2 tbsps grated parmesean
2 tsps of italian seasoning
Dash of Red Pepper Flakes
Salt and Pepper to taste
Add chopped basil, or parsley, chopped garlic
First rinse and rub all of the mushrooms and let them dry.  Remove all of the stems and reserve.  Take the stems and chop them to a small chop.  

In a small bowl add all of the seasonings, cheese, bread crumbs and olive oil.  Add to that the chopped mushrooms.

With a fork mix all of the ingredients.  This recipe is sort of the exact opposite of baking; you can swap out other ingredients, you can change the seasoning, want more spice, less spice, no cheese, more veggies, this is a great clean out the pantry in a flash recipe.


Prepare the oven to 400 degrees and put parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Turn the mushrooms cavity down and lightly oil the outside of the mushrooms, and sprinkle to taste with salt and pepper.  With a small spoon, or of course your fingers, stuff the mushrooms to the top.


Bake for twenty minutes.  Allow to cool, just long enough so that when you pop an entire mushroom in your mouth and it’s not so hot that you have to do that “it’s too hot” dance.  Enjoy!

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Posted in Appetizer, Baking, Christmas, dinner, entertaining, Her Kitchen, Holiday Food, New Year's Eve, Snacks

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Roasted Vegetable Sauce for an Easy Weeknight

Posted on October 14, 2010 | 1 comment

Weeknight dinners are always a little bit tricky; I want something healthy, good tasting, fairly quick and comforting.  So last night was an opportunity for some easy, hearty and full of vegetables sauce.


Roasted Vegetable Sauce
Ingredients:
2 cups Chopped Cherry Tomatoes
2 medium Zucchini
1 medium Eggplant
Salt and Pepper
Dash of Olive Oil
Splash of Balsamic Vinegar
Garlic
Basil
Pepperoncino
1 tbsp Skim Ricotta Cheee

**I really like zucchini and eggplant and so we nearly always have some variety on hand.  If you are not a fan of one you could always do without or swap in a different vegetable.  If you don’t like either you’ll just be eating tomatoes and cheese, which come to think of it isn’t so bad either.

 Chop the zucchini and eggplant into rounds about a centimeter thick.  Cut the zucchini in half lengthwise, and then cut the eggplant into smaller chunks.  Combine the chopped zucchini and eggplant with the chopped tomatoes in a large bowl.  Add to the bowl a drizzle of olive oil, a splash of vinegar, salt, pepper, and some diced garlic.  Mix all of this up, so that flecks of oil and vinegar touch everything.

On a cookie sheet lay out a piece of parchment paper and pour out all of the vegetables.  Place the sheet in a 400 degree oven for 35 minutes.  If by chance the OnDemand Yoga video, or self applied manicure is taking longer, you can let these roast for up to 45 minutes – you just don’t want the vegetables to be burned.

On the stove top set up a large sauce pan with some olive oil, chopped onion, garlic and basil over low heat.  At the same time start boiling water for your pasta. 

Now, I need to share a secret with you.  I rarely keep fresh garlic on hand at home.  This is probably shocking but in our old apartment we’d have heads of garlic and we’d lose them, and then they’d dry out and it was a waste.  Then we discovered the frozen crushed garlic and basil at Trader Joe’s.  They are perfect in a pinch, and hopefully there is a Trader Joe’s somewhere within reach.  To my Florida readers; perhaps I’ll bring you some on the next visit!


When the onions are translucent add the roasted vegetables to the saucepan.  Pour in two ladles of pasta water, and stir vigorously.  

You can keep it chunky, and stop here.  I wanted a more saucy sauce so I used my immersion blender for a few quick pulses and then added a spoonful of ricotta cheese for an smoother taste.  I paired this with a favorite pasta in the pantry, but I think I would also love this on crusty, warm bread as a bruschetta topping, or as a dip with pita.  The whole prep from beginning to end took about 45 minutes; and the bulk of that was inactive cooking time while the vegetables were roasting.  Not too bad for a healthy, well balanced dinner, ever better for a weeknight!

Buon Appetito!

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Posted in Comfort Food, dinner, healthy, Her Kitchen, Seasonal, summer

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Pizza Party

Posted on August 6, 2010 | 1 comment

The weekend is usually a great time for a pizza party, this week in our house a Tuesday was also a great time for such an event.  Our friends were coming over and we wanted to have a dinner that was fun to put together, easy to prepare in advance and a favorite for everyone.  Pizza was the winner.

I have made pizza with my mother-in-law, but mainly the sauce and into the oven stage, never the dough stage.  She is currently in Italy, had she been in town I would have used her recipe, but I made to with what was called the “Best Pizza Dough Ever” Recipe by Peter Reinhardt.

Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
1 3/4 cups water, ice cold
Semolina flour OR cornmeal for dusting 
The ingredients are simple, and what is easy more simple is how to do it.

Mix all the dry ingredients (flour, salt, yeast) in one bowl and then add the olive oil and water, and get to mixing with a large chilled metal spoon.

I could have used my stand mixer for this recipe, and so can you, but I figured for the first time I wanted to know what it felt like.  After about 5-7 minutes of turning the bowl and working the dough it should be “tacky” not “sticky” and able to peeled from the sides of the bowl, but not so much the bottom.  If it’s too dry, add a teaspoon of water, if it’s too sticky add a little more flour – but this is something you can just judge by your eye.

Pour some flour out onto the counter top and just gently work the dough is a soft, smooth ball, and then divide into six just about even chunks.

Mist the dough balls with olive oil, or like me put oil on your hands and then drizzle onto the dough.  The original recipe calls for putting the dough on parchment paper, which I don’t have, misting the parchment paper, and then wrapping it with a food safe bag. I put some semolina flour on the pan and covered it with a tea towel – I think our results were the same.

Two days later…

Time to get cooking on a Tuesday night!  The dough has grown and now the question is how to top it.
I have a pizza stone in the oven preheating to 450 degrees for 45 minutes.

Our toppings included:
Grilled peppers
Grilled chicken sausage
Sauteed mushrooms
Oven dried tomatoes
Homemade Tomato Sauce
Truffle Salt
Fresh Basil
Parmigiano Reggiano
Mozzarella


I rolled out the dough to about 1/4 of an inch in an uneven pattern – no need to strive for perfection here.
And then I kept the toppings simple, the thin dough doesn’t really want to be weighted down with a lot of heavy toppings.  And then, we ate – and it was delicious!

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Posted in Comfort Food, dinner, entertaining, Her Home, Her Kitchen

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What a peach!

Posted on July 9, 2010 | 1 comment

Last Sunday we went to the Farmer’s Market in our new neighborhood – ahh! yes, we have a farmer’s market!!! – and picked up a variety of fresh produce, some zucchini flowers, blueberries, eggs, lettuce greens, gelato (that somehow never made it beyond noon on Sunday) and peaches.

Peaches were not a fruit I grew up loving, I was more of a basic kind of girl, apple, banana, orange, grapes, but after visiting enough Farmer’s Market and seeing and smelling the ripe little fruits they were hard to resist. Sometimes I’ll cut up the peaches with oatmeal for breakfast, or grill them with yogurt for dessert but this week I made them the main event for a dinner I am calling, “What Spices do I have in my new Kitchen Peaches and Chicken?”

Bon appetito!

Ingredients:
Two bone-in chicken breasts, with the skin on
Peaches (3)
1 large onion
1/2 lemon
Garlic
Butter for the pan and chicken
Olive oil for the pan and chicken
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Old Bay seasoning
A sprinkle of brown sugar
**You might notice there is a jar of jam (apricot) I never used it. Also the bag of slivered almonds was used for the spinach – yum!
 
I don’t like to clean up a lot of pots and pans so I did everything in an oven-safe pan. Okay butter in the pan, and I rubbed a bit of butter on the skin and sprinkled on a generous amount of Kosher salt, fresh pepper and Old Bay.While this is lightly browning on the stove, it’s time to get chopping…


I chop my onions to be a pretty decent size, so that they are a part of the dish, not just for flavoring. Next everything goes right in the chicken pan and into the oven. I also put a bit of chopped garlic under the skin of the chicken just for flavoring.On a whim I decided to throw in a splash of balsamic vinegar for color and a little more tart rich flavor. This baked at 400 with the top on for about 30 minutes. (My oven is a little finicky right now, so I kept checking, and I wouldn’t swear by that time or temperature.) With about 10 minutes left in the baking, I sprinkled on a teeny bit of brown sugar on the skin- for an extra sweet surprise.

While this was baking away and making a sweet, and hearty sauce I prepared the spinach. So simple and satisfying. I heated up a little butter and slivered almonds for a light golden color and then replaced the almonds in the pan with sliced garlic. When the garlic was also nice and golden I added frozen spinach (I know, frozen!). When everything was nice and combined I added the almonds again and prepared to serve.
Bon appetito!

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Posted in dinner, healthy, summer

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