Friday, February 25, 2005

Quick shrimp and pasta

I know, I know, I said I was going to cook tonight. Friday's are just kinda hectic, and I'm usually pretty tired, so I just threw some stuff together.
I started some penne cooking, then in my big pan, I heated up some olive oil (oh, about 3 Tablespoons or so) and threw in 4 or 5 large minced garlic cloves, about half of a roasted red pepper (cut up) and a couple of choped up roma tomatoes. I had a pound of peeled shrimp tossed with half a teaspoon each of oregano and basil which went into the pan. I tossed it all around 'til the shrimp were done, then dropped the drained pasta in and shook that all about. Served it with a tossed salad and Ken's Creamy parmesan peppercorn dressing. Not too bad for a throw together.

Lunch was that leftover tarragon-rosemary chicken. I also had some greens with cabbage and ginger honey glazed carrots from the cafeteria. The greens were great (they're always great - the cafeteria has the best greens in town!) and worked well as an accompaniment to the chicken, but the carrots were way too sweet and didn't really go with the chicken at all.

I'm not sure what's up for tomorrow. Maybe some salmon on Sunday, though.
----Lorence

Thursday, February 24, 2005

BBQ Ribs and cabbage tonight...

Tonight I just did some quick bbq ribs. They were country style ribs, bone-in. I just gave them a good rub all over with some granulated garlic and Old Bay (I love Old Bay!) and stuck them under the broiler. I kept turning them until they were cooked through, then smothered them in Kraft brown suger BBQ sauce, popped them back under the broiler again, turned them and smothered them again. They had real good flavor but were a bit too fatty. I served them with some Glory Foods Country Cabbage that I just heated straight from the can. Glory is a Columbus, OH company that makes some of the best southern style foods available to those of us north of the Mason-Dixon line, even better than Sylvia's Soul Foods (which are pretty good, too.). Not a bad quick meal, but I need to really cook something. Soon.

Lunch was tasty - not healthy, but tasty. The caferteria had wing bar today and I can't ever resist the hot wings. I had 7 or 8 drummie pieces and plenty of napkins. Now that was yummy! I'll be eating the leftover tarragon-rosemary chicken tomorrow...

----Lorence

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Welcome to the Kitchen!

Hi, and welcome to my kitchen!
I hope to use this "space" to record my kitchen adventures, post my recipes, receive comments about them and maybe even some new recipes, if you'd like to share. I've never kept a journal before, but since blogging is all rage these days, I figured I'd give it a try. So let's get started!

This first post actually has nothing to do with MY kitchen, since we went to PF Chang's tonight. Karen and I had the Spring Roll appetizer (I'm not a fan of the lettuce wraps), then the Beef a la Sichuan and Garlic Noodles for Matthew. He insists on eating with his "Hold Stix" kiddie chopsticks, and does a pretty darn good job with them, too! I have a great photo of him when he first tried them - I'll dig it up and post it soon.

I can't start this out without a recipe, so here's what I made last night:

Tarragon-Dijon Chicken
2 Tablespoons Course Ground Dijon Mustard
2 teaspoons Olive Oil
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon tobasco
vegetable oil spray
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, about 6 oz each

Heat oven to 350.
Combine the first 5 ingredients in a box.
Spray the bottom of a 13x9x2 glass baking dish with vegetable spray
Place the chicken in the dish in a single layer
Spoon the Mustard mixture evenly over the chicken
Bake the chicken for 35-40 minutes

The original recipe called for baking 40-45 minutes, but I think this came out a bit dry at the length of time, so try adjusting it down a bit. Just make sure the chicken is cook all the way through. I'll probably try this dish again - flavor was great - but I'll probly try covering the dish with foil for a while in the oven so it retains more of it's moisture.

Try it and use the comments here to
tell me what you think!

That's all for tonight. Tomorrow we cook again!

----Lorence