me make food

So we trying to make some new meals. Have had some failures, but nailed it Friday night. Some folks suggested some good sites to find recipes. Epicurious seems like a favorite, but after scanning a bunch of recipes I was getting frustrated and decided to try an recreate dishes we would get if we went out. It has worked for us before and usually comes out pretty good. Theresa likes the voodoo chicken from Lazlo’s and I decided to try something like that.

Voodoo Chicken
Boneless breast blackened with Cajun spices, topped with a three-cheese sauce.

When it comes to blackening chicken I usually stick to just cayenne, salt, black pepper, and maybe some garlic salt. I checked out Alton Brown’s blackening for salmon and added some celery seed, onion powder, sage, paprika, and mistys seasoning. Spread lightly over the flattened breasts and sauted in olive oil and clarified butter.

I did not get good pics of this meal cuz I was a bit flustered.

We roast chickens often and normally make chicken noodle soup, but I thought a soup with rice in it might be good. Used the pressure cooker to make a stock from the chicken leavings with onion, carrots, celery, garlic, peppercorns, bay leafs, and water. An hour cooking made it very flavorful. Made the rice with canned chicken broth and it turned out pretty decent. The rice just sinks to the bottom though.

^ Before pressure cooking ^ Did not get an after, but it pretty much obliterates everything. Strain, rince to get all the god stuff, and remove the fat with a separator.

I have picked up a baking stone and made my third batch of dough. For tonight I made some dinner rolls and they were really good, but a bit small. I did some other cool stuff with the dough and will let you know after lunch Monday if it all works out.

Was planning on making Chicken Scallopine from Pioneer woman with zucchini instead of mushrooms. Theresa took one bite and almost spit it out. It was not overly lemony, but just tasted strange. I forgot the wine too.

Theresa has been wanting this again for a while. Nice to use some fresh basil from the aerogarden again. Onion, garlic, basil, parsley, tomato sauce, and some cream. Nom

Mixed in some black pepper, garlic salt, and parsley when I made the noodles. Was darn good.

I do not make wings at home very often, but I learned a great way to make them. Some would say this is the same as a local wing staple of Lincoln. Hrmmm…

Yeah I have posted about roasting a chicken a few times, but whatevs.

Really nice to be able to roast the chicken in the oven now that the weather has gone cool. And putting the chicken on the veggies makes an insanely good flavor and gravy. We got a big box of chicken stock from Sams and did not notice that it was not the low sodium type so I added no salt to the broth or gravy, just on the chicken itself.

Been trying some new stuff and I love a simple stir fry and talked theresa into trying it. I went light on the vegetables and made them big so Theresa could pick them out. Carrots, zuchinni, red pepper, garlic, and some mushrooms prepared in a separate pan. just a touch of oil, butter, and a few dashes of sesame oil. Thickened the broth with corn starch and served over rice. Was delicious.

Trying to test out a few new dishes and looking to keep it on the lighter side. Saw some recipes for a chicken with tomatoes and other veg and decided to tweak it a bit. Theresa stopped at the store and I forgot to have her pick up a tomato so I put on the boots and headed out to the spooky garden. Fought through the weeds and found some tomatoes and a bunch of ready to go cayenne peppers. Awesome. Had to take a shower after though.

Asked on the forum for some ideas and got a lot of help.

We got a pressure cooker as a gift and had no clue what to do with it, but now we love the thing. Took about an hour to make a killer chicken noodle soup.

First we cooked all the leavings from a roasted chicken for 30 minutes to get a good broth. The carcass, skin, and meat leavings turned into a spent glop.