Hi, I have spent 5 hours cooking today! I am taking a break now then probably cleaning for another two. Anyhow I wanted to share this.
Did you guys know that Olive Garden's website has some of there long standing recipes listed?
Well this is their recipe for the Chicken Milanese sauce. It is very popular with my guy even though theres spinach in it!
I love this sauce, a couple tweeks I do though: all roasted garlic, no tomatoes (he wouldn't go for that), and twice the spinach. Try it it's delicious.
Sauce:
½ cup butter, unsalted
4 garlic cloves, minced (or 1 Tbsp)
1 cup white wine
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
¼ tsp black pepper, to taste
½ tsp salt
8 cherry tomatoes, halved
¼ cup spinach, chopped
8 roasted garlic cloves, minced (or 4 Tbsp)
MELT butter in sauce pan over medium heat.
ADD minced garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add flour and stir well until well-blended.
ADD white wine, chicken broth, heavy cream and cheese. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until mixture starts to thicken.
ADD roasted garlic, pepper and salt. Stir until well blended.
ADD tomatoes and spinach to sauce and allow to simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food. Show all posts
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Buggy Bites
I recently learned that many shiny American candies are coated in secretions from the Lac Beetle and dyed red by crushing the carcasses of yet another bug, the Dactylopius coccus, ice cream filler is sometimes made of human hair, ground beef has up to 15 percent pink slime* and my canned tomato sauce most likely has at least 3 maggots inside. All of this is legal by the FDA standards. Not only is this allowed, none of it has to be on the label because practices are classified as natural flavors, preparations, or unavoidable defects.
Now, in response to this I feel a little sick and a lot grateful to the people who gathered this knowledge and honestly reported it. I am also a little surprised by the other responses to this heresy. The majority of the comments to this reporter were indifferent to the food industry’s omissions and instead attacked the article’s author. They called the author a “germaphobe”**. Commenters stated that these practices were ok because these are the standards we’ve had for food for years in the USA, and the government continues to claim that this “food” is safe.
I began to comfort myself by saying I could change my own eating habits, and ignore these indifferent eaters. Then I thought about my job. I will soon graduate and start a career with Intel. I will work in one of their Fabs***. I will go in everyday and cover my street clothes with a clean-suit complete with hair and face mask, and booties. I will work in treated air so purified that no dust dare disturb the environment. We have spent and spent to build these facilities clean because we have accepted that a speck of dust can corrode and destroy a computer chip. We build technology in all this safety, but in the substance that sustains us we accept “Levels of Natural or Unavoidable Defects in Foods”. We accept this statement of no health hazard in the midst of a health epidemic and the proposal that these defects are unavoidable when we won’t let dust disturb our electronic parts. Why do we accept this conflicting information? Aren’t the things we eat more important than the things we work on and play with? How can we expect to produce at our greatest potential without fueling our brains and bodies with the highest quality of pure sustenance?
* See this article http://www.alternet.org/environment/144904/yummy!_ammonia-treated_pink_slime_now_in_most_u.s._ground_beef/?page=1 for the 4-1-1 on this microbe infested, ammonia treated mess.
**Mysophobic
***A fabrication plant for making silicon chips
Now, in response to this I feel a little sick and a lot grateful to the people who gathered this knowledge and honestly reported it. I am also a little surprised by the other responses to this heresy. The majority of the comments to this reporter were indifferent to the food industry’s omissions and instead attacked the article’s author. They called the author a “germaphobe”**. Commenters stated that these practices were ok because these are the standards we’ve had for food for years in the USA, and the government continues to claim that this “food” is safe.
I began to comfort myself by saying I could change my own eating habits, and ignore these indifferent eaters. Then I thought about my job. I will soon graduate and start a career with Intel. I will work in one of their Fabs***. I will go in everyday and cover my street clothes with a clean-suit complete with hair and face mask, and booties. I will work in treated air so purified that no dust dare disturb the environment. We have spent and spent to build these facilities clean because we have accepted that a speck of dust can corrode and destroy a computer chip. We build technology in all this safety, but in the substance that sustains us we accept “Levels of Natural or Unavoidable Defects in Foods”. We accept this statement of no health hazard in the midst of a health epidemic and the proposal that these defects are unavoidable when we won’t let dust disturb our electronic parts. Why do we accept this conflicting information? Aren’t the things we eat more important than the things we work on and play with? How can we expect to produce at our greatest potential without fueling our brains and bodies with the highest quality of pure sustenance?
* See this article http://www.alternet.org/environment/144904/yummy!_ammonia-treated_pink_slime_now_in_most_u.s._ground_beef/?page=1 for the 4-1-1 on this microbe infested, ammonia treated mess.
**Mysophobic
***A fabrication plant for making silicon chips
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Garlic
I have been doing a lot of cooking lately but today instead of a recipe I want to talk about garlic. Now I have always loved garlic and known it has health properties that match its wonderful taste. I have put garlic in most every savory dish I have prepared for years but until last month I had always just minced and added it to the dish as it cooked. So what this all is leading to is my discovery of the versatility and smooth, slightly more subtle, flavor of roasted garlic.
Roasted garlic works better blended in sauces, it is spreadable on bread, and its subtlety makes it easier to deal with because it’s not too strong to be eaten in larger pieces which can be easily tossed in to accent any meat. Also roasted garlic is already cooked so if you decide a dish is missing something you can toss it in without adding to cook time.
Best of all it’s easy and stays good for at least two weeks. (I bake 3 bulbs at a time, so they haven’t lasted long enough to go bad)
Process:
1. Peel off extra skin, you want the bulb to stay together but the extra papery outer layers of skin can lead to burning.
2. Cut off tips of each clove, again to avoid burning.
3. Rub bulbs with just enough olive oil to cover.
4. Wrap individual bulbs in foil.
5. Place on cookie sheet or in muffin tin and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes*.
*You should check the bulbs at 30 minutes. I use an older and slightly unreliable oven so cooking varies. After 30 minutes the bulbs are pretty well roasted but not quite tender enough for spreading on bread, especially the center cloves.
Roasted garlic works better blended in sauces, it is spreadable on bread, and its subtlety makes it easier to deal with because it’s not too strong to be eaten in larger pieces which can be easily tossed in to accent any meat. Also roasted garlic is already cooked so if you decide a dish is missing something you can toss it in without adding to cook time.
Best of all it’s easy and stays good for at least two weeks. (I bake 3 bulbs at a time, so they haven’t lasted long enough to go bad)
Process:
1. Peel off extra skin, you want the bulb to stay together but the extra papery outer layers of skin can lead to burning.
2. Cut off tips of each clove, again to avoid burning.
3. Rub bulbs with just enough olive oil to cover.
4. Wrap individual bulbs in foil.
5. Place on cookie sheet or in muffin tin and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes*.
*You should check the bulbs at 30 minutes. I use an older and slightly unreliable oven so cooking varies. After 30 minutes the bulbs are pretty well roasted but not quite tender enough for spreading on bread, especially the center cloves.
Friday, April 15, 2011
A Better Pot Pie?
Today I attempted a pot pie that still has all the comfort of what you buy in the store but with better flavor.
Ingredients:
• Stew meat (marinated in Worchester sauce over night to make more tender and juicy.)
• ½ onion
• 5 carrots
• 4 stalks celery
• 1 cup peas
• ½ cup broth
• ½ cup wine
• ½ cup cream
• Thyme
• Flour for thickening (about 1 ½ tablespoon)
• 2 pie crusts (9 inch)
• Butter
• Garlic Powder
Method:
Slice onions extra thin and throw in a pan on low with butter for a quick sweat.
In a pot boil carrots and celery in broth.
Heat a pan to med- high with just enough olive oil to cover bottom. Sprinkle meat with S/P, garlic powder and thyme, throw in pot and sear on all sides. Turn down to low and cover with wine, let it simmer. Once onions are cooked down throw them in with meat.
Drain broth from vegetables and save.
Mix vegetables (add peas now) with meat and pour into pie crust.
On low mix broth, wine drenched meat crispies and cream, thicken with flour, cook together and pour on pie. Cover with other crust and bake at 400 until crust is golden.
What really happened:
1. It took me 1 ½ hours to get everything in the pie, and 25 min to bake, but I tend to move slower than most people, and this was the first time I made anything like this.
2. Someone threw out my thyme so I used a little parsley and very little rosemary.
3. Only half the ingredients fit in the pie.
Results:
• I loved it. I have always picked around the unsavory bits of the store bought kind. Though, next time I will change one thing. The stew meat I bought had about 2 pounds of meat, next time I’ll change that for ¾ - 1 pound. This should allow everything to fit and be creamier by using the same amount of liquid.
• The boyfriend complained that if only there were more salt it would be perfect. The cream and wine (I used a Riesling*) do make it a bit sweet, if you don’t like that add a bit of S/P to the sauce when you mix it up. I just brought him the shakers and enjoyed as is.
I paid $7.22 for the pie (without the half the filling that went in the freezer and will make another pie, also I already had wine, frozen peas, butter, flour and seasonings) which made 4 servings at $1.805, exactly.
Now that I’m done writing this I am going back for seconds!
* I don’t know how red would taste as I don’t drink red so I never have it around.
Ingredients:
• Stew meat (marinated in Worchester sauce over night to make more tender and juicy.)
• ½ onion
• 5 carrots
• 4 stalks celery
• 1 cup peas
• ½ cup broth
• ½ cup wine
• ½ cup cream
• Thyme
• Flour for thickening (about 1 ½ tablespoon)
• 2 pie crusts (9 inch)
• Butter
• Garlic Powder
Method:
Slice onions extra thin and throw in a pan on low with butter for a quick sweat.
In a pot boil carrots and celery in broth.
Heat a pan to med- high with just enough olive oil to cover bottom. Sprinkle meat with S/P, garlic powder and thyme, throw in pot and sear on all sides. Turn down to low and cover with wine, let it simmer. Once onions are cooked down throw them in with meat.
Drain broth from vegetables and save.
Mix vegetables (add peas now) with meat and pour into pie crust.
On low mix broth, wine drenched meat crispies and cream, thicken with flour, cook together and pour on pie. Cover with other crust and bake at 400 until crust is golden.
What really happened:
1. It took me 1 ½ hours to get everything in the pie, and 25 min to bake, but I tend to move slower than most people, and this was the first time I made anything like this.
2. Someone threw out my thyme so I used a little parsley and very little rosemary.
3. Only half the ingredients fit in the pie.
Results:
• I loved it. I have always picked around the unsavory bits of the store bought kind. Though, next time I will change one thing. The stew meat I bought had about 2 pounds of meat, next time I’ll change that for ¾ - 1 pound. This should allow everything to fit and be creamier by using the same amount of liquid.
• The boyfriend complained that if only there were more salt it would be perfect. The cream and wine (I used a Riesling*) do make it a bit sweet, if you don’t like that add a bit of S/P to the sauce when you mix it up. I just brought him the shakers and enjoyed as is.
I paid $7.22 for the pie (without the half the filling that went in the freezer and will make another pie, also I already had wine, frozen peas, butter, flour and seasonings) which made 4 servings at $1.805, exactly.
Now that I’m done writing this I am going back for seconds!
* I don’t know how red would taste as I don’t drink red so I never have it around.
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