Panettone French Toast

Panettone bread is a sweet Italian bread.  It is yellow and color and has bits of fruit throughout.  It is one of my favorite Italian foods.  You can order it off line, Bunon Italia, an Italian market in Chelsea Market ships anywhere and they sell it or you can keep an eye out for it during the holiday season.  I actually found this loaf at TJ Maxx.

Panettone French Toast:

Ingredients:

1/2 loaf of Panettone bread, cut into 1 inch slices
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups of half and half
1 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
2 Tbsp butter

Whisk together all ingredients, except bread slices.  Soak bread slices in egg mixture.  Heat a skillet, griddle pan on medium heat.  Melt butter and add toast slices.  Cook for about 4 mins on each side until they are golden brown.  You can either sprinkle powdered sugar on top or serve with warm syrup.  If you are feeling frisky that day, just do both.

Lazy Kebabs

One the menu I had planned Chicken Kebabs for Tuesday night.  Well, I ended up not having enough gumption to cut all the veggies and chicken up and then string them along on kebab skewers.  So, I just made lazy kebabs!

Lazy Kebabs:

Ingredients:
1 pound chicken breasts, cubed
2 sweet bell peppers
8 oz of shiitake mushrooms, sliced or whole which ever you prefer
1 large onion, quartered
1 fresh pineapple, rind removed and sliced into 1/4 to 1/2 slices
salt and pepper

Glaze:
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp honey
garlic powder
1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
juice of one lime
1 Tbsp butter

Directions:

Preheat grill to 350 degrees.  Prepare all veggies, pineapple and chicken.  Season everything with salt and pepper. Grease a grill pan and combine everything in the pan.  BBQ for 25-30 mins, until the veggies are tender and the chicken juices run clear.  Meanwhile, to make the glaze, combine all ingredients in a small saucepan.  Bring to a rolling boil and then remove the pan from heat.  The glaze with thicken as it cools.  Once food is done drizzle the glaze over the chicken and veggies.

January Grocery List

Creamy Pasta with Truffle Butter

Creamy Pasta with Truffle Butter
Serving Size: 2 adult portions

This dish is a very fulfilling dish that I only serve on a special occasion.  This year it I made it on New Year's Eve.  I keep truffle oil on hand, but due to the price, I don't use it very often.  Truffles are mushrooms that originate from Italy and grow in the wild.  

Ingredients:

* 1/2 pound of linguine
* 2 cups of heavy cream
* 4 ounces of white truffle oil
*  3 cloves of garlic, grated
* 1 tsp butter
* salt
* pepper
* fresh parsley, chopped

Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil.  Add pasta and salt the water.  (If you add the salt before the water boils, it can tear up the bottom of your pan) Cook pasta to an al dente state, according to the package.  In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium -high heat.  When the butter foams grate in garlic.  I use just a regular zester, making a garlic paste.  Cook just until the garlic is fragrant.  Add heavy cream, turn the burner up to high, and bring to a boil.  Once the cream boils, add in the truffle oil and turn the burner down to medium.  Drain the pasta, put pasta back in the pan you cooked it in and add the sauce.  Keep heated over low heat until steaks are finished.  Season with black pepper.  Right before serving top with freshly chopped parsley.

Pan Seared Fillet Mignon

Pan Seared Fillet Mignon
Serving Size: 2 adult portions

I have had many steaks, cooked many different ways, but let me tell you that if you are looking for restaurant quality taste, pan seared is the way to go.  

Ingredients:
*2 6oz fillets 
*Olive oil, enough to just coat the bottom of a skillet
*1 Tbsp butter
*salt and pepper

There are two different versions of this recipe depending on how rare you like your meat. If you like it rare or medium rare then skip the first step.  If you like it medium, medium well or well done then start from the beginning.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  I used a stainless steel skillet that was oven safe also to reduce the amount of dishes.  Heat olive oil and butter in a skillet over medium-high heat.  Season steaks generously on both sides with salt and pepper.  The seasoning is what will create a crust on the meat, so please be more generous than usual.  Once the butter starts to foam add steaks. For a medium-rare steak you will cook each side for about 12 minutes.  Don't forget to brown the sides of the steak also.  Once all sides are cooked, for a steak that is more done, transfer the skillet to the oven and cook until the center is the desired color.  I like my steak medium-well, so I left my steak in the oven for another 20 minutes.
  

What's new for 2013!

One of the items on my Christmas list this year was "My Year in Meals" by Rachael Ray, it is a personal food diary for 365 days. In the book she includes pictures that she and her husband, Jon, took themselves and of course the recipes to the meals they ate.  

I have been so intrigued by this book that it motivated me to do a spin on the whole idea.  But I wanted something different, not just a food journal.  I couldn't really pin point what exactly I wanted to do, then over lunch with two girlfriends the suggestion arose that I should do a meal planning blog. 

So my spin on the book will be just that, I will bring you along my food journey for the next 365 days  but with the recipes and pictures, I will include grocery lists and menu ideas.

The menu ideas will come at the end of every month and it will be broken down into weeks.  Because of the fact that I plan each weekly menu the weekend before, there would be no way for me to publish menus for the month ahead of time.  You can rearrange the meals as you please.  They will just be broken down the way that we ate them.

My cooking style is kind of hard to define really.  I am not afraid of the most difficult recipes, but love a recipe I can create myself.  I work hard to come up with new ideas and rarely place the same meal on my kitchen table, with the expectation of things like tacos.  We both enjoy authentic Italian food and I cook a lot of it.  So, if your a pasta girl or a bread girl or a cheese girl, you will love this idea!  We are from the south, so I cook southern food also, but at the same time my family is from New England, so I have a northern spin on things a lot of times also.  Until my mid-twenties I was a fairly picky eater.  Mainly just a poultry person with lots of vegetables, but over the last few years and the more I have experimented with food the broader my horizons have become and the more foods I enjoy.  Thankfully, I married the furthest thing from a picky eater.  Seriously, the only thing the man doesn't like is beets and really fishy seafood.  Pretty much other than that if I put it in front of him, he eats it.  I have to say, that over the past couple of years, he has been pushed out of his comfort zone and made to try things he probably would have never tried if there wasn't that little bit of push from me.  

All I ask is that you keep an open mind and an open mouth!  Come along with us on our 2013 food journey.  I hope you enjoy the recipes and find some new favorites for your household.  

Pinterest Cooking, Week 2

I know I am a few days late getting my reviews to you all, but this week was a little crazy.  My mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer the end of last week and so I have been busy going to different doctor's appointments with her this week.  On a good note, she did get good news that it is at its earliest stage (stage zero), she has a 98% survival rate and as of now she won't need any chemotherapy, just radiation.  So here is what I experimented with this week.....

I attempted these taco cups.  They are figure friendly with 93 calories per wrapper and only .5 gram of fat.  I topped them with sour cream and veggies.  They are something that you can do really quick.  You could even prepare the meat ahead of time and just bake them for 10 mins.  One thing that I did to make sure the meat didn't dry out was I added somewhere between 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup of taco sauce to the taco seasoned meat.  

These were delish.  I made the cinnamon crisps myself and I didn't veer from the directions at all.  A healthy dessert and I will be making these again!  You can find the recipe HERE!

 

This was also a very good recipe.  I added streamed broccoli and grilled chicken.  Another quick and easy recipe and if you are a pasta/Italian cuisine lover, like myself and the hubs, you will enjoy this dish.  Find it HERE!

We are finishing our basement and my parents have been staying each weekend with us because my Dad is doing the drywall work along with a LONG laundry list of other things.  With that said, he loves Outback's Chocolate Lava Cake.  I baked mine in the oven and everyone was very pleased with it.  I served it with vanilla ice cream, whip cream and chocolate fudge sauce. Here is the recipe : Use chocolate cake mix that requires oil, make cake mix, pour into pampered Chef deep dish covered baker, 1 can chocolate frosting - split into 6 dollops, cook in microwave for 15 mins uncovered. = molten lava cake! 

This past week I was all about being easy.  These were easy.  Very delectable and easy!  Get the recipe HERE!