This recipe ought to look familiar. Its essentially the same as the Margherita Pizza, with the obvious changes with the toppings and the use of bread flour instead of all purpose flour. The flour change wasn't special to this pizza, I just happened to be out of flour and decided I'd give the bread flour a shot since its higher gluten content is supposed to create a chewier crust.

Chicken, Pesto, Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza:

Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead by hand for 2 minutes. Stretch or roll your dough into a 12" or 14" circle on a flour, parchment or corn meal covered surface. Brush the top surface of the dough with olive oil.

Remove your preheated pizza stone or baking sheet from the oven.Transfer your dough to the baking sheet/pizza stone, and quickly spread your pesto. Add your 1-2 cups of mozzarella cheese and top with the chicken and sun-dried tomatoes.

• Sprinkle feta and/or parmesan cheese (optional).
• Bake at 500 for 8-10 minutes. Let cool 2-5 minutes. Enjoy.

This recipe (plus a little extra mozzarella) is enough to make two 12" pizzas. We will typically make both pizzas, eat one and save the other for lunch or leftovers.

This weekend was pretty busy for me. Friday night Lauren had a going away party for some friends which made for a late night. Then Saturday we helped them move their stuff on to a truck, which is always longer and more tedious than you mentally prepare for. Saturday night we were scheduled to babysit an infant but that got scrapped at the last minute. Not that I'm doubting the story we were told by the parents, but I get the feeling that fate stepped in and said "Ba is not ready for that just yet. Sure it seems like a good idea to him now, but he's not going to know what do after 25 minutes".

First off, a quick note: I have jury duty this week, which despite what you might hear from other people, is fascinating stuff. So thats 5-8 hours every day, plus I need to at least tread water at my regular job, which doesn't leave me a whole lot of time to cook or write about cooking. So there is a pretty good chance I'll be making pasta and sandwich staples that you can find on this blog throughout the rest of the week and weekend. Thats too bad.

Last night we decided to take something old and make it new. I like to use Mondays and Tuesdays to survey the available refrigerator space and grocery situation and then make a meal plan so that I can have dinner + leftovers for lunch throughout the week, and I like to do it so that I'm not racing to eat the same thing twice a day before it spoils. 

• 4 cups diced cooked chicken
  
• 1 rib minced celery
  
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
  
• 1/4 cup slivered almonds
  
• 1/2 cup sour cream
  
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

In a medium bowl, combine chicken, celery, basil and almonds. In a small bowl, combine sour cream, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Add to chicken mixture, tossing gently to coat. Cover and chill.

We used dried basil rather than fresh. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup and the fresh basil packages at the grocery store were $2 each and didn't seem like they'd produce that much. So rather than spend $6 on fresh basil I just took the dried basil I already had and used about 2-3 tbsp. Other than that I stuck to the recipe. 

We grilled and diced 2 lbs of chicken breast to get our 4 cups, and as a result the chicken salad was a bit warm when we ate it last night. I'll be curious to see if the overnight refrigeration married the flavors a little more and alters the taste.  This recipe will probably stick around as our change of pace chicken salad recipe.

Along with our chicken salad we also tried out a new recipe for corn. When summer rolls around the only vegetables I have interest in are the ones that get cheaper and veggies I can roast. So at least twice a week we end up eating sweet corn or asparagus. Last night was a corn night:

Roasted Corn w/ Cilantro-Lime Butter

• 6 ears corn, shucked
  
• Cilantro Lime Butter, recipe follows
  

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Coat each ear of corn in 2 tablespoons of the cilantro lime butter and wrap individually in foil. Roast until hot and steaming, about 25 minutes. Serve with extra butter on the side.

Cilantro Lime Butter:

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
  
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro leaves
  
• 1 lime, zested and juiced
  
• 2 teaspoons salt
  
• 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Put the butter in a mixing bowl and, using a rubber spatula, mix in the cilantro, lime zest, lime juice, salt and cayenne. Use immediately or refrigerate.

Once again Food Network went a little overboard with their condiments. Two sticks of butter is ridiculous. Thats like 1/3 stick per ear of corn. I don't know if you've ever tried to put 1/3 of stick of butter on one ear of corn, but it just isn't possible. Not even by accident.

To make just two ears of corn last night, I used about 3 tbsp of butter total. I divided everything else by 3 and mixed it together. Rather than roast the corn for 25 minutes I first boiled the corn for 3-4 minutes, then slathered it with the cilantro lime butter, wrapped it in foil and finished it on the grill next to my chicken for another 5-10 minutes.

It was very good. I realize there are only so many ways to prepare corn and this isn't all that exotic, but it was appreciated nonetheless.

Neither of these pictures are mine. They are both from Food Network. I didn't have my camera out last night. My chicken salad didn't look quite so stupid. The corn is a pretty accurate representation though.

The credit for this meal goes entirely to Lauren. She was walking by the meat counter at Meijer, saw some kebabs in the display case and thought "I bet we could make those better and cheaper" (I think they were selling for $2.99 per skewer). I'll admit I was initially skeptical, because meat skewers do not look very filling. When I see a plate like ours my first thought is always "awesome, but what is everyone else going to eat?". 

Its sickening the way Good Eats seems to influence what I crave. Tuesday night I saw an episode about casseroles, so of course all day Wednesday I sat around thinking about what kind of casserole I should make. So I decided on a corn flake chicken casserole, but sort of made it up as I went along.

• 3 stalks of celery (diced)
• 1 medium onion (diced)
• 1 can (14.5 oz) cream of chicken soup
• 1/2 cup chicken broth (low sodium)
• 1 package (10 oz) frozen corn
• 1 package (10 oz) frozen peas
• 2 medium potatoes, your choice (I used Yukon Gold, peeled & diced)
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1.5 lbs cooked chicken (3 cups?)
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tbps flour
• pinch of salt
• 3 cups crushed corn flakes

This turned out to be a hodgepodge of recipes and cooking methods that I found this weekend after Lauren mentioned taking a second run at gyros. The first time I found the meat to be a little bland and the meal to be very lacking compared to what you can buy at your local Middle Eastern deli. Not only that, but we forgot to take the feta out of the fridge and put it on our gyros.

The base recipe was Alton Brown's Gyro Meat with Tzatziki Sauce. Be sure to start the sauce first because it takes the longest. I know what you're thinking because we skipped it the first time, but you definitely want to drain the yogurt (even one hour would do wonders) or you will end up with a really thin sauce of a consistency closer to milk than yogurt. If you're wondering what a tea towel is, it is basically a linen napkin.

Tzatziki Sauce

• 16 ounces plain yogurt
• 1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped (or pulsed in a food processor)
  
• Pinch kosher salt
• 4 cloves garlic, finely minced (I used just two)
  
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
• 5 to 6 mint leaves, finely minced

• 1 medium onion, finely chopped or shredded
• 2 pounds ground lamb
• 1 tablespoon finely minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon dried marjoram
• 1 tablespoon dried ground rosemary
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Process the onion in a food processor for 10 to 15 seconds and turn out into the center of a tea towel. Gather up the ends of the towel and squeeze until almost all of the juice is removed. Discard juice.

Return the onion to the food processor and add the lamb, garlic, marjoram, rosemary, salt, and pepper and process until it is a fine paste, approximately 1 minute. Stop the processor as needed to scrape down sides of bowl.

To cook in the oven as a meatloaf, proceed as follows:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano (if using chopped fresh oregano, use 2 tablespoons)
• 1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary (if using chopped fresh rosemary, use 1 tablespoon)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

• 2 teaspoons paprika (sweet or regular)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• dash cayenne pepper

This was very simple:

Preheat the oven to 350.

Make a simple egg wash from 3 tbsp Italian dressing + 1 beaten egg.

Dip your boneless, skinless chicken in the egg wash, the roll in Italian seasoned bread crumbs. For good measure I added some extra basil, oregano and rosemary to my crumbs.

Take a large skillet, add 2 tbsp olive oil and slowly heat on medium-high (4.5 out of 6 on our burner's dial) until the oil is very lightly (almost imperceptibly) smoking.

Add your chicken and cook for 4 minutes per side.

When the chicken is finished on both sides, stick it in the oven at 350 for 15 minutes.

Take a small sauce pan, and heat (to a simmer) 1/4 cup of your favorite tomato sauce.

Take your favorite artisan bread (we were hoping to use rosemary focaccia, but the grocery store was all out) and "freshen" in the oven for 5 minutes. If you time it right the chicken and the bread should finish at the same time.

Turn your oven to broil. Split the bread, spoon the tomato sauce (not all of it, I was making two sandwiches) on one half, then top with mozzarella cheese. On the other half place your chicken breast, topped with mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

Broil approximately 5 minutes, or until the chese starts to brown.

Enjoy.

The only issue I had with this was that the sandwich was too big to fit in my mouth. What I had to do was cut it into sandwich strips and eat it that way. Ideally I would have liked to pound the chicken breast to thin it out, but I couldn't find a meat mallet. Of course if you decide to make this with thinner chicken breasts you're going to have to adjust your cooking times. Like maybe 3 minutes per side in the skillet and 10-12 minutes in the oven.

Last night we made a chicken stir-fry with the wok set Lauren got for Christmas. It was our second or third time using it. The first attempt was unspectacular and the second was fairly encouraging. This third attempt was extremely encouraging but we seem to be unable to achieve the desired stir-fry glaze. We usually end up with thin liquid that pools at the bottom of the wok in an attempt to avoid coming into contact with the rest of the food. This time around we were on track to avoid that, but the "classic stir-fry" glaze we chose had a very heavy soy sauce flavor. So we had to thin it out with some orange juice and zest, lemon juice and brown sugar to sweeten it. As for the rest of the meal this is what we did:

• Saute onions and bell peppers in olive oil until slightly caramelized (6-7 mins)
• Cut 1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breast into strips.
• Add chopped asparagus and mushrooms (5-6 mins)
• Prepare one package of Wel Pac Chow Mein stir-fry noodles per instructions
• Saute chicken in stir-fry sauce in a separate pan (8-10 mins)
• Add cooked noodles to stir-fry.
• Add chicken to stir-fry.
• Heat thoroughly.

Friday night we took the easy way out and ordered a pizza. Lauren was sick, we received a couple of dvds in the mail and decided that was enough. Saturday was a little different. After running a few errands we happened to catch the chicken pot pie episode of Throwdown with Bobby Flay. Knowing that its getting warmer by the day, we decided to take one last run at winter comfort food with chicken pot pie. However, Bobby Flay's chicken pot pie recipe from Throwdown is not available on the Food Network website, because its a recipe he serves at one of his restaurants. So we got online to research what Good Eats had on the topic, which is how we came to the Curry Chicken Pot Pie:

• 4 cups frozen vegetable mix, peas, carrots
• 1 to 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken
• 1 package puff pastry

Toss frozen vegetables with canola oil and spread evenly onto a sheet pan. Place into oven and cook until golden brown.

In a saute pan heat 1 tablespoon of butter and sweat the onion and celery. In another saucepan, heat the broth and milk. Add 2 more tablespoons of butter to the celery mix and cook out the water. Add the flour and curry and cook for 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the hot milk mixture and cook until thickened. Add the parsley, salt and pepper. Toss the browned vegetables and the chicken. Pour into a shallow baking pan, or a large terra cotta pot base, lined with foil, and top with 6 to 8 circles of puff pastry. Place into the oven and cook until puff pastry has browned and the mixture is hot and bubbly, about 25 minutes.

We made two changes to the recipe. First, we didn't roast the vegetables. We used frozen peas and canned corn, fresh carrots and potatoes (blanched, about 1.5 cups of each) and mushrooms. If you're going to do this though, you'll probably really want to consider adding at least 50% more liquid (milk/cream or chicken stock) than the recipe is calling for. Our potatoes sucked up all the extra moisture immediately and made the filling less of a thick soup and more of an actual pie filling. The filling made enough to fill a 13 x 9 pan, so plan on that. For the chicken we just picked up rotisserie chicken from the deli section at Meijer, then shredded it by hand.

Our second alteration was that we didn't use puff pastry because of our experience with the last pot pie. We instead made some sweet potato biscuits from scratch, an idea stolen from Bobby Flay but again not listed on the Food Network website (which makes us think he serves this at one of his restaurants). Luckily Paula Deen bailed us out with a recipe for her own sweet potato biscuits:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 heaping tablespoons sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) softened butter
• 2 to 4 tablespoons milk (depending on the moisture of the potatoes)

Saturday night for dinner Lauren and I made an attempt to recreate her favorite sandwich from a local restaurant, Marie Catrib's. The chicken cranberry sandwich on challah bread. Traditional challah bread is a three piece braid eaten mostly as a breakfast bread. Marie Catrib takes that same challah dough and makes it into a loaf.

We basically cheated by using a bread machine. So I won't pretend like I know what I am talking about and tell you exactly how to make it. Here are the basic ingredients. I am drawing a blank on the actual recipe we used because I had to adjust for what I thought the bread machine could handle. Almost everything I found on the internet was for making it by hand:

1/2 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees F)
1 package active dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/4 cups wheat flour
1/4 cup olive oil
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
1 1/4 teaspoons salt

Here is a complete recipe that I have not tried. I am not sure what would make this challah bread since we weren't braiding it, because the ingredients are pretty common to wheat bread. But thats what they call it at Marie Catrib. Oh well.

Two and a half hours later we had bread with no mess which I later determined to be dumb luck. I don't know if it was the eggs or the olive oil, but Sunday I tried making a loaf of wheat bread with the same amount of flour, 3 less eggs, honey instead of olive oil and butter instead of sugar, and the loaf blew up on me. It totally overflowed the bread machine and there was a faint smell of smoke because the dough was touching very hot metal. Back to the sandwich.

Next we took a thin cut chicken breast, marinated it in balsamic vinaigrette and sauteed it for 4 minutes per side over medium-high heat in a non-stick skillet. For the cranberry part of the sandwich we took a can of whole berry cranberry sauce, heated in a sauce pan and added a splash of white wine, two tablespoons of brown sugar and the juice of one orange. Once everything was warm and mixed well we poured it into a bowl and stuck it in the freezer so it would thicken.

We then sliced our challah bread, grilled both sides of both pieces in a buttered skillet, added provolone cheese to the top slice and cream cheese to the bottom half. On top of the cream cheese we spread our cranberry sauce, and then laid down our chicken. On top of the provolone we added some baby spinach, then pressed the two sides together and we were done.

The sandwich was easy to make and turned out great. Again, I don't know that what we were calling challah bread made a great deal of difference in how it compares to the real sandwich, because I've never had it. I think the simple fact that we made fresh bread probably made as much a difference as it being this kind of bread instead of that kind.

So if you wanted to make this sandwich with some of your favorite wheat bread I think it would probably turn out fine.

Twice this week and once about three weeks ago I saw an episode of Good Eats about how to make chicken wings. Tonight Lauren and I decided to make it happen. The picture you see here is the finished product. The rest are a photo blog of how the chicken wings came to be. At the bottom of this entry is the chicken wings episode of Good Eats, which we followed pretty much step for step.

With some scissors, we made holes in the outer edges of the screens to give them some height and make them stackable.This allowed us to place two trays of wings inside the 5 gallon stock pot I normally use to brew beer. If you aren't in to building anything, you could also use a stainless steel colander provided that the bottom half, where you'd lay the chicken, fits inside of your pot and you're able to cover the top sufficiently. Though as you'll see later the entire process is kind of lengthy, and doing it in small stages will only make you wait longer.
As for the wings, we bought a 5 lb family pack of chicken wings at Meijer. On Good Eats Alton Brown mentions that due to high demand for breast meat in the US, the chicken wing has remained relatively cheap. This is true. Our package of wings cost $8.95 for approximately 15 whole wings, which I "butchered" (a normal person might say cut) into the 30 "wings" you'd be charged for in any bar or restaurant. Here is a quick how-to on that:
Cut off the tip and throw it in the trash. Then squeeze the remaining wing like a pair of pliers. This will reveal the softest point (the joint) between the flat and drummette. Cut through it. There, you're done.5 lbs of chicken wings cut up and ready to go.
Arrange the wings on your steamer tray, bring a couple inches of water to a boil and set the tray inside your steaming pot for 10 minutes. If you're wondering why you have to steam them, the episode explains that it helps remove some of the fats and oil that would otherwise cause major smoke issues in the oven.When 10 minutes is up, remove your steamed chicken wings (the skin will be slightly tacky) from your tray and set them (uncovered) on cooking/drying racks atop a paper towel lined baking sheet. Preferably one with a lip.Place your baking sheets on the bottom shelf of a cold refrigerator (30-35 degrees). Both of these details will help prevent any salmonella issues both with your chicken and anything else in the fridge. As it turned out, our nifty steaming rack also served as a shelf so we could stack our chicken wings in the fridge. Leave the chicken in the refrigerator for 1 hour.The rest is easy. After your hour is up, remove the paper towel from beneath the racks, replace it with parchment paper and bake your chicken wings for 40 minutes at 425 degrees in the center of the oven. At the 20 minute mark flip your wings. If you are cooking two trays at once make sure to rotate the trays at this time.

Once 40 minutes is up grab the biggest bowl you can find and toss your wings (while they're hot!) in your favorite sauce. 1/2 cup of sauce per dozen is a pretty good ratio to use. We used Sweet Baby Ray's Buffalo Wing Sauce on one half and Sweet Baby Ray's Honey BBQ Sauce (+1 tbsp Honey, +1 tbsp brown sugar) on the other.

They were so awesome. A little time consuming, but well worth the effort. Its pretty easy to see that they're quite a bit meatier than what you'd normally get at restaurant, but for what its worth we had 30 wings between us and only finished about 18.

Until tonight, I've always been mildly annoyed that I can't fully enjoy bone-in wings at a restaurant because I'm afraid of making a mess of myself. This took care of that. And I didn't have to mess around with the hazards of in-home frying.

Last night I made a Garlic Chicken Alfredo Lasagna, my first lasagna ever. It seemed straight forward enough but there were some rookie mistakes. First, I tried to make it convenient by purchasing oven-ready lasagna noodles. You buy them in the regular pasta section. The dry noodles are scored in such a way that they manage to absorb liquid from the lasagna ingredients. They seem easy enough, because you just lay them down like a brick mason, layering ingredients and sauce in between. However its a little unclear how much liquid is enough to get them to cook all the way through. So you might build your lasagna in 15 minutes, but you spend 45 minutes wondering if its going to be crunchy. Unfortunately that is exactly what happened to the top layer of noodles. They didn't quite cook all the way through. I don't know if that was because of the cheese on top or because liquid drained toward the bottom, but I have an idea of what it was.

My second mistake was in layering the lasagna. It had occurred to me that I should probably stack the noodles perpendicularly by layer but abandoned the idea quickly when I saw the size of the noodles. My pan was 13 x 9, but the noodles were about 10 inches long. So the noodles wouldn't fit across the pan without cutting them first, and when you cut dry pasta it cracks like glass. Yet another reason to take the time to get regular lasagna noodles and boil them before you lay them down. Much easier to manage odd lengths at that point. So I stacked the lasagna in the same fashion in all three layers. In retrospect I think what may have happened was that the liquid that should have remained at the top layer probably drained straight down the seam to the bottom. Or perhaps it was the order that I chose to layer my ingredients. Just for the sake of safety, I'm going to recommend that you use regular lasagna noodles if you attempt to follow this recipe just because I can't pinpoint exactly what I did wrong.

On to the recipe:

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (approx. 2 lbs) diced, cooked
1 box no boil lasagna noodles (or regular lasagna noodles)
2 15 oz containers ricotta cheese
1 box frozen chopped spinach (defrosted, squeezed dry)
4 roma tomatoes, chopped fine
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 cup sliced mushrooms
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 jars alfredo sauce
1 cup milk
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cloves garlic

Preheat the oven to 400. Mix ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese and spinach in a large mixing bowl and set aside. As far as the garlic goes you can either add it to the chicken or add it to the sauce. Whisk milk and alfredo sauce together until smooth. Spoon a thin layer of the alfredo mixture on to the bottom of your pan. Put your first layer of lasagna noodles on top of it. Then spread your ricotta cheese mixture on top of the noodles, followed by your tomatoes and pepper. Cover with alfredo sauce. Add second layer of noodles. Repeat ricotta cheese, followed by chicken and mushrooms, covered with alfredo. Add third layer of noodles, cover with remaining ricotta and alfredo, top with mozzarella cheese. Bake at 400 for 45 minutes.

Last night I took the fresh pasta that we didn't give away and made some chicken fettuccine alfredo. Unfortunately we had some issues with the sun dried tomato fettuccine. It refused to unravel from the coils we rolled for freezer storage. I think it was because ours were at the bottom of a bag full of noodles, and they simply got packed a little more tightly than we intended. I hope the bags we gave away didn't have the same problems. If they did, I apologize.

Anyhow, fettuccine alfredo isn't exactly the type of thing you post a recipe for (all we did was add sauteed mushrooms, onion and broccoli to the jar of sauce) but it looked to good to just ignore, so instead I'll tell you what I did with the chicken:

• two fresh/thawed boneless skinless chicken breasts
• rub with salt & pepper
• roll in flour (shaking off any excess)
• dip them in egg wash
• roll in 1/4 cup bread crumbs

Yesterday I decided to again test the abilities of the KitchenAid pasta set by making my own ravioli. I don't have the ravioli maker attachment so I prepared for a fairly long and tedious process in order to have ravioli with chicken on the inside instead of the outside. As far as recipes go, everything was very simple. I used a basic pasta dough recipe, ricotta cheese, spinach and chicken. To top it we used some store-bought alfredo sauce with sauteed bell peppers.

The first mistake I made was in buying fresh spinach instead of frozen. On Wednesday when we made spinach pasta we used frozen spinach, but even after being thawed and squeezed it still retained enough moisture to make the dough very sticky. In hopes of avoiding that a second time I bought one 10oz bag of fresh spinach. Of course in order to use it for filling I had to trim all the stems, pulse it in a food processor and cook it in a skillet, all of which yielded exactly the same 10 oz of spinach as the frozen package with just as much moisture.

Once I dried the spinach, I mixed it with the ricotta cheese and some diced cooked chicken I had also pulsed in the food processor.
At this point Lauren joined the process and we rolled out some dough. Some very sticky and stretchy dough. But with some patience (and frustrated bickering) we managed to put together about 25 finished ravioli.

We had a ton of leftover filling, but by that point we were both so annoyed with process that we decided to refrigerate it and figure something else out. In my estimation there was enough extra filling to make another 30-40 ravioli.

Once we cooked the ravioli, we ended up losing about four ravioli to leaks and holes in the dough.

So to review, we started this process around 3:30pm. We finished at almost 6pm. And we netted 21 cooked ravioli.

This was so not worth it, regardless of the actual taste of the finished product. I blame the dough. It was too stretchy, which was probably my fault. This dough might have worked for cut noodles, but it was never going to work for ravioli.

In summary, with some refinement (and possibly the ravioli maker) in the assembly process homemade ravioli would be a worthwhile process if your plans were to eat a small portion (25 or less) and freeze the rest (50+) for easy meals later in the week. But at the moment for me it just isn't worth the effort.

Saturday morning I woke up at 8:45am, drove down to the YMCA and took part in my very first spin class. It was tough, sometimes annoying and definitely challenging but overall it was a good experience. Chances are I'll go again next Saturday. The only problem I found with going to spin class (I can, and will, refer to this way as though its something I've been doing for years) is that it gives me a false sense of accomplishment. So I spend the rest of the day going *stretch* "I need to go to the grocery store, but boy am I sore from spin class. I'll just finish watching this show and then I'll go."

Well "this show" turned into the Michigan game, a small nap and then about 3 hours of Food Network. After all of that I helped Lauren get some laundry done and made plans for dinner. We've gotten in to the idea of making at least one new dinner or lunch each week or so and slowly increasing the degree of difficulty. The last new one we did was chicken salad, which was followed by a really good egg salad. This time around we settled on homemade chicken pot pie. We used Paula Dean's "Lady & Sons Chicken Pot Pie" recipe as the base and then improvised from there (changes in bold):

Did I mention we started about 9:45pm? Thanks alot spin class.

Chicken Pot Pie (Degree of Difficulty: 6)

4 sheets frozen puff pastry
2-3 cups diced chicken (cooked)
1 egg, beaten
Seasoned salt and pepper
1/3 cup butter
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups milk
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 small yellow onion, minced
1 cup frozen green peas, cooked
1 cup chopped cooked carrots
1 can (15 oz) corn
1 cup sliced mushrooms

The first step for this recipe is to take the puff pastry out of the freezer and let it sit at room temperature. For the chicken we used four thighs and one breast skinned, boned and cubed. I did a quick Italian dressing marinade before sauteing the chicken and onions in a skillet.

While I was doing that Lauren started the pie filling by melting the butter and then slowly adding flour until the mixture reached the consistency of peanut butter. When she dropped off to chop mushrooms and carrots I added the cream and milk to the butter/flour mixture. We've basically watched way too much Iron Chef America. I think secretly we both think that is what this is all building to even though we don't really have the necessary training. You'll notice later (the crust) that our timing kind of sucks.

The original recipe called for four cups of heavy cream, but we had some reservations about that amount making things too creamy. So we used half the amount and made up the difference with milk.

At this point Lauren steamed the carrots and then sauteed them in chicken stock with the mushroom and garlic for about five minutes, adding the peas and corn for the final two.

When that was finished we added the chicken and vegetables to the sauce, brought it to a high simmer and then moved on to crust. For the crust what you need to do is roll out the puff pastry, brush it with egg and butter and set it inside a pie plate or casserole dish. Place the bottom crust in your baking dish and bake it at 350 for at least 10-12 minutes (or until golden brown or flaky). The bottom crust will NOT cook substantially once you've added the filling. Add the top layer of puff pastry to cover your pie and cook for 15-20 minutes (or until golden brown).

This recipe makes enough filling for two 9 inch pies. We used an 8x8 baking dish. Any unused pie filling freezes easily, so you can store it for a future meal.

We finally finished around 10:45pm, but it was worth the wait. Overall this recipe cost us almost $40, but that includes a number of questionable and "bad luck" purchases of things we should have had but happened to be out of. Flour, $2.50 organic peas, $5 organic butter, $9 of puff pastry when we could have used two $1.50 frozen pie shells or made our own dough with the flour we just bought.

In case you were wondering, this was the highlight of my weekend. Doubly so since it started snowing last night, because that means I'm going to make the backup pie tonight or tomorrow while I lament the arrival of winter.

With some encouragement from Rachel (The Sheldons), I have decided to return to maintaining a blog. Since I last did this I've added a few new hobbies. So this time around the blog is going to center primarily on beer, cooking and baking, television and movies. Technology is probably going to come up as well.

On to the chicken salad. I've wanted to make it for quite a while now. I don't really know why. One part is because it seems healthy. Who knows, it might actually be healthy, but either way I can walk around the house thinking "I could have eaten pizza, but I made something healthy". The other part is that I hate paying $5+/lb at the grocery store for chicken salad because usually it kind of sucks. At best I find most deli salads to be way too hit or miss to take the gamble. So I waited for chicken breasts to go on sale and then made my move. Here is what I used:

• 1.5-2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breast, cubed and marinated in Italian salad dressing.
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup real mayonnaise
• 1 cup (2 stalks) diced celery
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 cup - sliced red grapes
• 1/3 cup - crushed pecans
• Juice from 1/2 lemon