Sausage and Broccoli Raab

Here's another, no explanation needed meal. It's one of my favorites for a last minute throw-together.

Whole Wheat Pasta + Broccoli Raab + Trader Joe's Chicken Sausage + Parmesan Cheese

BBQ Chicken

I'm sorry, there isn't much needed to say about this meal.

Chicken drums + BBQ Sauce + Crockpot
easy and pretty dang good.

Served with Mashed Sweet Potatoes (with Cinnamon and Cayenne) and Sugar Snap Peas.

A party, a pizza party...

I wanted to title this post something yeast-centric, but I couldn't figure out a non-gross way of doing so.

During my last trip to the grocery, I picked up yeast. I have never used yeast before, but have always wanted to. It seems like such an accomplishment, baking bread from scratch, and yeast is sort of alive, so that's cool and weird. I dying to try the New York Times No Knead Bread recipe, but that still seems a bit above my skill set, so I thought I'd try something a bit easier. Pizza!

Start by dissolving one packet of yeast in one cup of warm water.

When that is creamy, add it to a large bowl with 2 cups of flour, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp salt and 2 tsp sugar.

Start forming it into a big tight ball, I had to add a lot more flour as I went to keep it get it unsticky (yes, that is the technical term).

Cover it with a dishtowel, and let it sit for 30 minutes.


Roll it out into a nice pizza shape, or an abstract, wonky rectangle, as I did.

My pizza expert cousin tells me I didn't add enough flour, and it was still too sticky, but what the hell does he know.


Top it with your favorite sauce, cheese and toppings. I used tomatoes, onions, broccoli and what I wrongfully assumed were cubanelle peppers, but were surprisingly spicy little fuckers.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until it smells ready.

Voila!

It wasn't "oh my god this is the best thing I've ever eaten", but it didn't suck. And for my first go-round with dough, I'm quite proud.


Max approves.

Veggie Haven

We're lucky enough to live near some really great restaurants. Cuban, Mexican, Thai, Japanese, Italian...we have pretty much everything. One that we really should get to more often is Veggie Haven. The food--all vegan Chinese dishes--is really amazing. The vegan shrimp taste (and feel)like real shrimp. The vegan pork chops, lets just leave it at that, vegan pork chops! It is pretty inexpensive, you'll spend much less than if you ate at an Applebee's, and trust me, you'll feel much better afterwords.

Tofu and Vegatable Curry.
Very tasty, but a bit lacking in heat.

Fried "Lamb" and Rice

Zucchini Fettuccine

Now this takes a bit more patience then I'm usually willing to afford to cooking, but I think it's totally worth it. It's simple, but time consuming.

Take a veggie peeler, and go nuts with your zucchini. You're going to end up with a big pile of what looks like fettuccine. (You do not want to know how many times I had to look up "fettuccine" to spell it correctly. Noodles. You end up with noodles).

Saute in butter and herbs, and voila! Done.

I made them as a side dish to broiled tillapia. I also cooked up brown rice, because I'm a carb-junkie and veggie noodles weren't going to cut it, but its probably not necessary.

This would be a pretty awesome light Summer meal.

Balsamic Chicken

After much gentle persuasion (definitely not screaming "just tell me what you want to eat") Dan picked out a recipe for dinner.


Chicken Breasts with Balsamic Vinegar and Garlic


I looove balsamic vinegar, so I was happy to oblige. This was super easy, and really farken good! Yay!

As listed, the recipe is as follows:

4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
salt and pepper to taste
3/4 pound fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 cloves garlic
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon butter


Directions
1. Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Rinse the mushrooms and pat dry. Season the flour with salt and pepper and dredge the chicken breasts in the flour mixture. Heat oil in a skillet over medium high heat and saute the chicken until it is nicely browned on one side (about 3 minutes).
2. Add the garlic. Turn the chicken breasts and scatter the mushrooms over them. Continue frying, shaking the skillet and stirring the mushrooms. Cook for about 3 minutes, then add the vinegar, broth, bay leaf and thyme. Cover tightly and simmer over medium low heat for 10 minutes, turning occasionally.
3. Transfer the chicken to a warm serving platter and cover with foil. Set aside. Continue simmering the sauce, uncovered, over medium high heat for about 7 minutes. Swirl in the butter or margarine and discard the bay leaf. Pour this mushroom sauce mixture over the chicken and serve.


I of course left out the vile fungus, but followed the recipe otherwise. Once the chicken was cooked was removed, I added leftover cooked pasta and heated it through in the balsamic sauce.

And now for something completely different.

Patiently waiting for my guest blogger....

Crappy photos of awesome grub.

Dan and I used to have the perfect hang-out bar. It was casual, had an awesome beer selection, free popcorn, was close to Port Authority, and, this one is very important, had a single stall bathroom. So of course it closed down, leaving us to navigate the overpriced bars, the trendy bars, and, the god help me Greys Anatomy crowd bars.

So, imagine our surprise to learn that Shorty's is an AWESOME bar, basically steps from Port Authority! And, they serve Cheesesteaks!

CheeseFries

Chicken Cheesesteak with Broccoli Rabe

Please excuse my crappy cell pics. The downside to Shortys is that it is a Philly bar, and I didn't want to call any more attention to myself (beyond the Reyes jersey), by risking a flash.