Category Archives: Recipes

Crab and Spinach Ravioli

Posted on February 16, 2010 | 4 comments

This dish has to be the BEST thing we have ever made. I don’t think I can give it the title of the best thing I have ever eaten in general, but that’s only because I can’t remember everything I have eaten and that’s a hell of a title. Seriously though, this dish was sooooo amazing!

We envisioned making our own ravioli from scratch but realized we don’t have a pasta maker or a rolling pin so there would be no way to get the pasta as thin as we needed. Luckily Whole Foods carried some fresh pasta sheets and we were able to cheat a little bit- or as I would like to say, make our dream a reality with a little help. One day I will actually make the dough for this and roll out the pasta, but for now this worked beautifully.

Here is one sheet rolled out.

For the filling we used crab meat. Harris Teeter had a ridiculous in store special/sale on crab meat- this one pounder was cheaper than a 1/2 pound. That is quite, um, special.

We mixed it with some other goodies- including ricotta cheese, spinach, and seasonings.

The real stars of this dish are the cheeses we used: parmesano reggiano and pecorino romano. We had a Whole Foods gift card and purchased some really good and expensive cheeses (thanks Pops and Donna!). It was so worth it! These cheeses played a major role in this dish and made it so flavorful and rich.

The parmesano reggiano

The pecorino romano

Had to add a little to the filling.

Then it was time to start making the ravioli.

To make the ravioli, we placed a sheet of pasta on top of this one. We used an egg wash to help the top sheet stick to this one.

Once the top was on, we just sliced the dough with a pizza cutter and pressed the edges together.

We actually made these ahead of time and kept them in the fridge for a few hours before we were ready to eat. Once we were ready, we brought up a pot of water to a boil and cooked these for about 3-5 minutes, or until they were floating.

While that was going on, we made the sauce. Oh, the sauce. This sauce is sinfully good… it’s made with butter, cream and cheese and the parmesano reggiano is the real superstar.

The black pepper made such a difference here. It really brought out the flavors of the sauce even more so and complimented it nicely. This meal was such a lesson in how fine ingredients make such a difference. Even after dinner, every time we would walk in the kitchen we could smell the intense flavors of this sauce. It doesn’t re-heat that well, so just eat it all in one sitting! haha… you will want to though 🙂

Recipe for Crab and Spinach Ravioli

Recipe for Parmesano Reggiano/Pecorino Romano Alfredo Cream Sauce

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4 Comments

Posted in Seafood

Tagged cheese, crab, dinner ideas, fresh, garlic, homemade, pasta

Top Scallop?

Posted on February 16, 2010 | 2 comments

Scallops are one of our favorite foods to eat, but making them at home can be a little tricky. We have made many attempts at cooking them though and I think we got one step closer this time.We picked up some really nice looking scallops at Giant.

We prefer the bigger sea scallops rather than the smaller bay scallops.

They have an almost “meaty” texture. We seasoned these with salt and pepper.

We definitely have not yet mastered the searing technique for scallops! But here we go…

Notice we used the all-clad pan, which is not teflon, and no oil…

We wanted some stickage in order to get the rough seared exterior, but this did not quite work out the way we wanted…

Rest assured, the pan was just fine (after a wine de-glazing) and the scallops still tasted great, they just were not the right texture. We don’t know why we can’t sear scallops! Should we have added oil to the pan? Did we not flip them soon enough? Was the pan too hot? So many questions…

Anyway- as I said, they still tasted really good. I sauteed some spinach and placed this on the plate (er, small bowl) for the base.

Then placed the scallops on top— kinda seared actually!

The sauce we made was a white wine butter sauce with lemon and garlic and red pepper flakes, of course.

We topped it with green onion.

All in all, they came out tasting pretty good. It’s tough to really infuse scallops with much flavor, which is why I like to serve them atop the spinach, which tends to absorb some of the sauce so you can get some really tasty bites!

Recipe for Seared Scallops in White Wine Sauce

2 Comments

Posted in Seafood

Tagged dinner ideas, garlic, homemade, low carb, seafood, wine

Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas

Posted on February 12, 2010 | 1 comment

I have been making this dish for several years now and it’s always been a big hit. I have made it with different fillings, different sauces, different tortillas- but all in all, I am almost always happy with the way it turns out. For this go-round, I decided to stick with the basics, chicken and cheese with easy, store-bought sauce and lots of cheddar cheese. I did experiment with one thing though- the tortillas. I made half of the enchiladas with whole wheat, low-carb tortillas (5 grams of carbs per tortilla) and half with regular tortillas. I was really happy with the low-carb tortillas and did not feel that the dish suffered at all with them and whole wheat is always a good alternative!

I started off by poaching the chicken in water and chipotle seasoning. I boiled the whole package of chicken breasts (one of those large packages from Giant) and saved about half of them for tomorrow’s dinner. I shredded the remaining chicken for the filling. You could also chop them, but shredding is more palatable for this dish and is not that much more labor intensive than chopping.

I filled a 13×9 dish with shredded chicken.

Also, I cut up some fresh jalapeno for the filling as well. I considered sauteing the jalapeno first to soften the texture and pull out some of the heat- but didn’t end up doing it.

When making enchiladas, I find it a good practice to be prepared and ready to make them all at once. It’s messy and you will probably need a helping hand if one is available. There really is no other way to do this other than rolling them by hand. You want the dish to be saucy so don’t be hesitant to get down and dirty for this! It will be worth it, trust me!

“Line” the baking dish with a 1/8 inch thick layer of sauce.

You also want to put a layer of sauce down on a plate. You will be dipping each tortilla into the sauce first, before filling and rolling. This is to prevent the tortilla from cracking and it will keep them moist when they cook. You don’t want to soak up too much sauce, but just a little dunk on each side is all you need.

Then you just fill each one with the amount of filling you like. I try to really stuff them as full as possible.

Roll ’em tightly and place in the baking dish. One after the next, until the baking dish is full.

Cover with the remaining sauce and cheese.

Ok now it’s time to bake! It needs about 20 minutes in the oven and then another 5 under the broiler.

Let it sit for 5 minutes (or longer- I have no patience when it comes to this!) before you cut it.

Top with some green onion and serve with sour cream.

Try this dish- it is SO good and everyone always likes it!

Recipe for Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas

1 Comment

Posted in Chicken

Tagged cheesy, chicken, dinner ideas, homemade, low carb, Mexican

Quick Shrimp Pasta

Posted on February 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

This was a quick lunch Greg threw together the other day… I can’t even remember what day it is since the blizzard(s) hit. Anyway- it was a good, simple recipe with several ethnic influences.

Green pepper, red onion, roasted garlic, olive oil.

Scrimps.

PASTA.

Lunch.

Recipe for Quick Shrimp Pasta

Tiramisu: attempt # 1

Posted on February 11, 2010 | 1 comment

I rarely make desserts, but I wanted to give tiramisu a try. As I began the research process I was already a bit overwhelmed because there are literally hundreds of variations and recipes out there. I looked through A LOT of recipes and decided to go with two recipes that were fairly similar. One was from Giada De Laurentiis and the other one I found somewhere else on the internet (?). I integrated the second recipe because it was very similar to Giada’s (which I already had all the ingredients for and there was 30 inches of snow on the ground) and because it directed me to cook the egg yolks, which Giada did not. I was bringing this tiramisu to a Superbowl party and I did not want to make anyone sick, so I decided to combine the recipes to make sure I cooked the eggs properly.

It all started off ok…

I first separated the egg yolks from the whites.

Next I added the sugar.

Then it was time to beat. According to Giada I could have just mixed this for five minutes and then integrated the marscapone. As I mentioned though, I had some reservations about serving uncooked eggs to the masses so I mixed for five minutes and then continued to beat the mixture over a double boiler (as suggested in many recipes I read).

Since this process heated (cooked?) the egg/sugar mixture, I placed it in the fridge to cool before I beat in the marscapone cheese. I took this time to set up the other ingredients. In all of my recipe digging, I learned that it was very important to use authentic ingredients, including savoiardi lady fingers, marscapone, and Italian espresso.I never used marscapone before and it’s American equivalent is supposedly cream cheese. I found the texture to be way more gooey than cream cheese, but many recipes say you can substitute for it.

Once the eggs were cooled, I mixed in the marscapone cheese.

This mixture was not only the filling, but also the topping. It tasted really good, but as you can see the texture is not right. It’s not fluffy enough. Many other recipes integrated whipped cream at this point and now I know why. I didn’t have any whipping cream so I just went with what I had (and what the recipes I had told me to do). I poured it over a layer of espresso/rum soaked lady fingers with hopes that maybe the cheese filling would fluff up in the fridge.

Repeat.

I refrigerated it for a couple of hours, but it didn’t fluff up at all 😦 I was pretty dismayed because it doesn’t look like tiramisu, or at least what I am used to seeing. I went ahead and added the chocolate powder (and later added shavings) anyway and continued to refrigerate it, hoping, hoping, hoping, but to no avail. This is what it ended up looking like.

It ended up tasting ok, but the texture was off and obviously it didn’t look right either. I learned a lot from this initial effort though and next time I make it I will definitely work off of a recipe that includes whipped cream or egg whites, or something to fluff it up! I bought too many lady fingers, so the next attempt may be sooner than later. I will keep you posted!

1 Comment

Posted in Desserts

Tagged dessert, espresso, homemade, Italian, rum

Wings- 2 ways

Posted on February 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Wahoo! Super Bowl Sunday has finally arrived! This is one of my favorite days of the year. It’s really a holiday to me, complete with it’s own traditions, foods, and drinking privileges. For the past few years we have made homemade chicken wings in the classic buffalo style with homemade blue cheese dressing for dipping. This year we did the same, but added a second variety of wings to the mix- garlic parmesan.

The first question is whether to use fresh or frozen wings. There are arguments for both of course, but we have found that either will be just fine and to get whatever is on sale or the cheaper one. With the frozen ones the most important thing is to make sure the wings are completely thawed. With the fresh wings, you may have to cut off the wing tips, which is not for the faint of heart. Either way you go, the first step is to rinse the wings well and make sure they are dry. If there is any moisture on them, it will pop in the oil and splatter.

The next step is heating the oil. Heat to 350 degrees.

(or 351.5 degrees, who’s counting)

We would have much preferred to have done this deep frying outside but were unable due to the massive amounts of snow. Things get pretty rowdy once the wings go in.

Once the wings are fried, set them aside.

For the classic buffalo sauce, it couldn’t get much easier (or fattening). Hot sauce and butter.

for transport and to keep them warm, we put the cooked and sauced up wings into a crock pot

For the garlic parmesan it’s essentially the same process, just with a different sauce.

Add now for the blue cheese dressing… because I mean what’s eating a chicken wing that’s been deep fried and soaked in a butter based sauce without some seriously creamy, cheesy sauce to dip it in? We are American. It’s our right.

Well, some good food for a good game! The Saints ended up winning, which I am really happy about. Greg picked Indy on the spread and the over and I took the opposite of his picks because that was my only chance in our playoff pool, as I was down by 2. We ended up in a tie and I won the tiebreaker! Kind of shady because I took the opposites and didn’t make my own picks. Anyway, at some point when we don’t need a snow mobile to get around, we will go to our celebratory dinner to Black Market Bistro. Can’t wait!

Recipe for Classic Buffalo Wings

Recipe for Garlic Parmesan Wings

Recipe for Blue Cheese Dressing

Check out Garlic Parmesan Wing Dip

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‘dillas

Posted on February 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

There was a point in time when we would fantasize about opening a quesadilla fast food chain ala Chipotle where the consumer would come in and order their preferred filler and it would be made on the spot (”dillas’ would be the name of it, of course). Quesadillas are one of those simple, but always good things you can eat. Mostly because they are filled with copious amounts of cheese. On the morning of the Superbowl we had such a treat for brunch.

Shrimp and banana pepper quesadillas, in fact.

Even in it’s absence, it’s beautiful.. haha… well these were quiet tasty! I had mine with low-carb tortillas which were as to be expected, weird. Still, this meal was highly enjoyable!

Pork Chops Marsala

Posted on February 9, 2010 | 1 comment

SnOMG, Snowmeggedon, Snowpacolypse, SuperStorm ’10, etc etc etc! Whatever you want to call it, it came, it conquered, and it’s little brother is on it’s way tonight to provide another 10-15 inches. Just what the region needs! I am a little behind on posts so here we go with the first since the onset of the mega snowstorm.

These pictures were from 4pm on Friday.

So for dinner we decided to make pork chops Marsala (a play on veal Marsala). This complimented the weather nicely, as the sauce came out thick and rich. Also, this recipe is relatively easy and doesn’t take too long to make.

First, we dredged the pork chops in flour, a step that can be omitted if trying to go low-carb. I like to use bone-in pork chops for the extra flavor the bone provides. Don’t be scurred of the bones!

Next, we sauteed the pork chops…

…and put them aside to make the sauce.

The sauce ingredients include mushrooms, onions, garlic, and Marsala wine to name a few. They actually sell Marsala wine at the grocery store, so no special trip to the wine store is needed (although if you are on your way there already they probably have it there as well!). We also had some leftover thyme so we threw that in and it worked really well too.

We used “baby bellas” (pre-sliced) for this dish. Any mushrooms on hand will do.

We were happy with the way it turned out, although an afterthought was to add lemon juice to the sauce. This would have been a great way to break down the sauce a little and add some acidity to it. Next time, we will definitely add lemon juice!

Even though having cabin fever would be physically impossible at this juncture because we just got home hours earlier, maybe the thought of being stuck in the house for the next several days was the catalyst for this bout.

Recipe for Pork Chops Marsala

Bogie lost this match, but many more will likely be fought… keep your head up buddy!

1 Comment

Posted in Pork

Tagged dinner ideas, garlic, low carb, marsala, Meat, mushrooms, pork, wine

Snow Crab Legs (how fitting!)

Posted on February 5, 2010 | 1 comment

It’s begun! The Mid Atlantic is supposed to get hammered this weekend by a serious snow storm. It is possible we will get up to 30 inches of snow, which should shut down the state for at least a week. Fittingly, the other night we ate one of our favorite things: snow crab legs. Giant had these on sale for $4.99 a pound, which is pretty awesome and a tad disrespectful to the crabs! Anyway, we steamed them with old bay and served them with butter in the mini-crock pot, AKA “the little dipper”. No sides or anything, the snow crab is the star of the show.

Gettin’ their steam on for about 6-8 minutes.

Unfortunately, we decided to take a picture after a few rounds and this guy has seen better days. Despite it’s amputee-status it still tasted good, and that’s what matters. It was a nice mid-week treat.

Now bring on the snow!

1 Comment

Posted in Seafood

Tagged crabs, low carb, old bay, seafood

Meatloaf! The All-American Dinner

Posted on February 3, 2010 | 1 comment

Whether it’s 1950 or 2010 you cannot go wrong with this dinner. A classic diner institution, I am pretty sure my meatloaf can match up with anything you see on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. Ok, maybe I’m getting a little carried away here, but as Greg said, my meatloaf is good because I make it with love. I really do LOVE making (and eating) this meatloaf and the combination of eating it with mashed potatoes and peas (thanks to my Grandma J) is the ultimate combo. In our house though there is a division over ketchup. I simply cannot eat meatloaf without it and Greg rarely uses it all and prefers his meatloaf with the classic beef gravy, which coincidentally I do not like so much. So, what to do? Make two meatloaves- one with ketchup and one with gravy.

The ingredients for the all-American dinner include, meatloaf “mix” (ground beef, pork, and veal), peas, mashed potatoes (cheating, ya caught me-not from scratch), ketchup (reduced sugar), onion soup mix (hiding in the background), beef gravy, eggs, and bread crumbs.

Meatloaf #1 was my meatloaf- Ketchup Style.

From left to right, bread crumbs (I try to use as little as possible), onion soup mix, ketchup, and an egg atop a package of ground meat. I mix my meatloaf by hand to get all the ingredients incorporated together.

Meatloaf #2 was Greg’s meatloaf- Gravy Style

From left to right, onion soup mix, gravy (a little too much poured out than I wanted), egg, and breadcrumbs (I had to use more to balance out the excess gravy) atop a package of ground meat. Due to my pouring error I had to add more breadcrumbs to get the consistency right. This nearly doubled Greg’s meatloaf in size from mine.

Each loaf went into it’s own dish and got covered in preferred sauce- mine ketchup, Greg’s gravy.

These guys have to cook for a while, at least 45 minutes. In the meantime, I prepared the sides- mashed potatoes and peas. It’s tough to know when the meatloaf is done. I used a meat thermometer and also just went on looks. Below: this meatloaf is not quite done but it’s getting close.