The Good Plate

Archive for the ‘Savories’ Category

Recipes in this Post

• Chicken Cordon Bleu Poached in Beer

Chicken Cordon Bleu is one of my favorite dishes. Usually, it is flattened chicken breast rolled around ham with cheese, breaded, and fried. An American dish, it has its roots in the Schnitzel from Switzerland and Chicken Kiev from Russia. Cordon Bleu means Blue Ribbon, not to be confused with the famous cooking school of the same name.

Beer Can Chicken has wonderful flavor, but does not lend itself to small pieces of chicken.

I try to not deep fry things too often, and I don’t like breading that much. I had chicken tenders, black forest ham, Swiss cheese, and a can of beer. I thought I could combine them and make Gussied Up Beer Can Chicken. Perfect!

My small 4 quart Nesco Roaster oven was the best appliance to use for this, just simply fill the well with some of the beer, and let it cook. Beer Can Chicken all gussied up.

This is a really simple dish to make. If you don’t have a Nesco, then you can use a baking dish, a cake rack, some foil and your oven. It might not turn out quite the same, but it will still be good.

This recipe calls for Lavender mustard – if you can get it, wonderful, if not, use Dijon.

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Recipes in this Post

Fresh Basil and Pine Nut Pesto

• Fresh Basil and Pine Nut Pesto

I think all of us have been tempted to buy the pesto sauce in the refrigerated sauce section at the supermarket. The one at the supermarket has things in it you will never find in fresh pesto, whey, milk, canola oil, water and 2% or less of garlic puree. Some brands do have pine nuts, others use walnuts. But, there is nothing like the real thing.

Pesto is one of the easiest sauces to make, and can be used on a variety of foods. Heck, it’s good just on a spoon!

When you make pesto, it’s important to have fresh ingredients. If you can find pine nuts in the refrigerated section, those are best. If not, look for nuts that are of a uniform pale cream color, with no spots. Pine nuts are the edible seeds of, yes, pine trees. Please use good Parmesan cheese as well, you don’t have to get Parmigiano-Reggiano, but at least get the cheese in the refrigerated section.

If you’re angry at someone and want to take your aggression out on something, you can use a mortar and pestle, and grind away for a very long time. Or, if you don’t have any aggression, then please use a food processor.

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The past few days have been full of left overs. That’s a good thing, and a good way to save money, but you have to get creative.

When I made the Veal Marsala Meatballs, I made enough to freeze some for another time. Spane and I were at the market on Thursday, and I was thinking of making enchiladas, but Spane didn’t seem to enthusiastic about it, so I asked him if he wanted spaghetti and meatballs, and he said yes.

I had everything I needed to make it, the veal meatballs, a large can of diced tomatoes, basil and garlic. The only thing I needed to make a good meal was a baguette of French bread to make garlic bread to go with our pasta, so I bought a long baguette. It was large enough that I cut it in half and made my garlic butter, intending to make another half on Friday. I bought some large frozen shrimp to have on Friday.

I served the meatballs separately from the pasta, and we ate all of those, and the garlic bread. There was still spaghetti and sauce left over. I had made enough garlic butter for both halves of the bread, and had left the left over in the refrigerator.

I took some of the garlic butter, put it in a pan, and heated the shrimp in that garlic butter. By doing that, I didn’t have quite enough garlic butter for the other half of the baguette, so I added a little olive oil and balsamic butter, whirred it around, spread that on the bread, topped it with a little Parmesan cheese, and threw it in the oven for a few minutes.

We ate all the shrimp Scampi, and all the spaghetti and sauce, and were a little to stuffed to finish the garlic bread.

So, now I had left over balsamic garlic bread. Today, Saturday, was cold and rainy, so soup sounded like the perfect meal. Originally, I was going to make macaroni and cheese as an excuse to turn on Bertha, but grilled cheese sandwiches sounded like a better idea.

What kind of soup could I make and use up the left over garlic bread? Why French Onion, of course. That is such a simple soup to make, and is really fool-proof.

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I graduated from Immaculate Heart High School in 1975. Okay, so now you know how old I am! I have not gone to any of the reunions, and had not heard from any of my former classmates until I found a bunch of them on Facebook.

When I was in high school, one of my best friends was Libby. She lives in another state, and we have been corresponding on Facebook for a while. She said she was coming into Glendale to visit her mother and suggested we get together. Her mother lives a block from Spane’s school. What a coincidence! I haven’t seen her in 36 years, and today, we are going to the park and have a reunion picnic. I am so excited!

Libby has been liking my recipes on Facebook for a while, and even asked me if I remembered making a lemon pie that she liked so much. I decided that she deserved to have a special lunch, so these are thing things I have made:

• Rosemary Garlic Chicken Cream Cheese Purses with Lavender Mustard Dipping Sauce
• Ham and Spinach Quiche with Goose Fat Crust
• Dulce De Leche Lemon Meringue Pie

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Ham, spinach and cheese Quiche with a goose fat crust

Recipes in this Post

• Goose Fat Pie Crust
• Ham and Spinach Quiche

When I made the Roast Goose for Christmas dinner, I had a lot of goose fat. I didn’t want to waste it, so I rendered it, and have used it here and there. It’s wonderful stuff. I thought I could make a pie crust out of for the Quiche I was making for the picnic today.

Most of the time, I buy a ready-made crust in the refrigerated cookie dough section. The reason I do this is because my crusts don’t usually turn out that well. Today, whist visiting The Smitten Kitchen’s Pie Crust 102, I found out why – I have been using the wrong tool for the job – I’ve been using a food processor. So, if you’re using a food processor and your crust isn’t turning out flaky, that’s why.

Making a crust by hand is not that difficult. You just need a pastry dough blender, and a little elbow grease. My pastry dough blender died a couple of years ago, so I used a heavy fork. It worked just fine.

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Veal Marsala Meatballs atop Tomato Basil Cream Sauce with Mushrooms

Recipes in this Post

• Veal Marsala Meatballs
• Tomato Basil Cream Sauce with Mushrooms

I love to find things on sale, especially things that would usually be expensive, like ground veal.

I love cream. Why do I love cream? I love cream because you only need a little, and it stays fresh in the refrigerator for quite a long time. I also like it for those occasions when I have run out of milk for my coffee. I prefer milk.

That’s what happened to me this morning, I ran out of milk last night, and not wanting to the store unwashed, I used a little cream in my coffee. I’ve had that cream in my house for quite a while, and I knew today was the very last day to use it.

When we were at the supermarket today, someone was buying red sauce for spaghetti. That almost sounded good, but I wanted to use up what I had in my refrigerator. No problem, I thought, I can make spaghetti and meatballs, but use the veal, and make the sauce with the cream.

Veal has very little fat, so these meatballs are a good choice for those watching their weight. Omitting the cream makes the sauce another good low calorie choice. If you have vegetarian friends, serve the meatballs separately.

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