Chicken Parmigiana

Parmigiana usually describes a classic Southern Italian dish consisting of sliced Eggplant layered with cheese and tomato sauce. Breaded meat variations (veal or chicken) are common here in the U.S., probably a result of immigration as with most Americanized dishes. While the world parmigiana directly translates to "from Parma" which is a city in Northern Italy, the dish does not derive from Parma cuisine. Eggplants were brought to Italy from Sicily though the south. The Sicilian word "parmiciana" means shutter or shingle and originally the dish was constructed in a shingled manner, so it is thought that the "c" was changed to a "g". In the United States and Canada this is usually served on top of or with a side of pasta. The recipe I use is pretty straight forward, you will need:
4 Skinless Chicken Breasts
2 cups milk
Italian Bread Crumbs
Mozzarella Cheese about 8 ounces
You can use your favorite Spaghetti Sauce or make your own, I have a recipe you can use just minus the Ground Beef, here is a link.
Rinse and pat dry the Breasts, then wrap them in plastic wrap. Use the smooth side of a meat tenderizer or a rolling pin to flatten the breasts in to an even thickness, this helps the meat cook evenly. Next dredge the chicken through the milk and then coat with the bread crumbs. Pan fry the breasts until the crumbs get a nice brown color. Lay the chicken in a greased baking dish, then cover with the tomato sauce. Next add slices of the cheese on top of the Chicken Breasts. I use a fresh Mozzarella cheese, not the hard bricks, but the soft cheese. I think this type of cheese melts better and has a better taste. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

Serve on top of Spaghetti noodles. Garnish with your favorite Garlic Bread. Well that's all for now, let me now what you all think about this recipe and the new way I am trying to do the blog with a little information about the history of the dishes I am making.

Chicken Fried Steak with Gravy

One of my favorite ways to have have steak is to have it cubed and battered, then fried up and covered in gravy. There are a couple different stories on how this dish was first brought to America, but generally it is believed to be from German and Austrian Immigrants in the early 1800's settling in Texas. They brought a recipe for Wiener Schnitzel, which I always thought was a hot dog, but it is a battered fried steak. One interesting note is that in the late 1930's the name was changed from Wiener Schnitzel to Chicken Fried Steak or Country Fried Steak depending on what part of America you live in, probably because of war with Germany, kind of like Freedom Fries, but more successful. Well any way history class is over, time for a recipe.

1/2 cup vegetable oil
6 (4-ounces each) cube steaks
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups whole milk
Chopped parsley leaves, for garnish

Heat a medium-high skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil. Cook's Note: Oil is heated when you drop a little flour in and the oil spits.

Pound out the cube steaks with a meat mallet until they are 1/4 to 1/2-inches thick. Salt and pepper both sides. Mix the flour, cayenne and paprika together in a bowl. Beat the eggs in another bowl. Dredge the steaks through the flour, then egg mixture, then through the flour again.

Place the steak carefully in the pan as the oil will splatter. Cook until golden brown, about 4 to 6 minutes on each side. When finished, place on a sheet tray lined with paper towels, hold in a warm oven and repeat the procedure with the other pieces of steak.

When all steaks have been cooked off, pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the cooking oil and lower heat. Add 3 tablespoons of the leftover flour mixture to the oil and whisk to create a paste. Cook until golden, about 1 minute. Gradually add the milk to the flour and oil mixture while whisking together. Season the gravy with salt and pepper, to taste. Let cook until thickened; about 10 minutes.Pour gravy over the steak to finish and garnish with parsley.
Well that is all for tonight, hope you all enjoy.

Dinner Out With The Wife Tonight

So not much to write about cooking tonight, Tanya and I decided to go out to dinner. We ended up at El Tenampa, because as many of you know I have a tremendous weakness for burritos.
I had the Macho Burrito priced at 9.95, not much here but a regular shredded beef burrito, but all in all not a bad burrito. Tanya had the Shredded Beef Fluatas. These looked good, and both were served with a generous helping of Rice and Beans.
I have ate here many times before and keep coming back, I am not sure if it is the really friendly waitstaff or the 5 dollar Margarita's.
Let's just say it may be a little of both, and yes that is not an optical illusion, that thing is as big as my head and filled with Strawberry and Tequila goodness. How many times do I have to say this, don't judge me, at least it was not an appletini.

Grilled Ribeyes

I am working on a new marinade recipe, and my wife tells me you can't get it right the first time. I have to agree, thank goodness for pre-bottled KC Masterpiece. But now that I have some of the ingredients in that marinade I will be trying to reproduce that flavor. Not much of a story to write about these, but you may have noticed a pat of butter on the steak, I first saw this on a Food Network Bar-B-Que challenge. The lady who served her steak seasoned with only salt and pepper, then a pat of butter finished in the top ten in the Texas State Steak Cook Off. So I figured why not try it, and I must say I will be adding butter to all my steaks now. Well I will keep you all updated on my next marinade attempt, success or failure.

Lemon Dill Salmon

After all the cookies I think a nice light piece of fish is in order. I prepared this similar to the shrimp I did a little while back. I used my bamboo steamer and some dill weed and lemon slices. I also steamed some fresh Green Beans, and flavored them with a little butter and lemon pepper seasoning. Not much of a recipe here, just steam away and enjoy. I just took a couple of Rib-Eyes out for dinner tomorrow night so check back to see what i did.

Winner, Winner, Cornish Game Hen Dinner

The wife and I were doing our monthly grocery shopping, when we ran across a section of frozen Cornish Game Hens. I had not eaten one of those for many, many years. I think I was in Junior High. Anyway, the price seemed reasonable, they were 1 pound birds for 1.97 a piece. Quick math check and we decided that we could do a nice family dinner for around 15 dollars, and with a family as large as ours that is great. So we pick up six of them, bring them home and toss them in the freezer. I decided to cook these similar to how I do the Thanksgiving Turkey. So the day before I took them out of the freezer and put them in the refrigerator to thaw. I made a Herb Butter out of a stick of butter, some Basil, Oregano, Dill, Thyme, and Herbs De Provence. Then I washed the birds and patted them dry. Next I gave each bird a nice butter massage, coating the entire bird with the Herb Butter. Now for my secret tip, carefully separate the skin on the breast from the meat, just enough to get a finger between them, and now carefully put a fresh Basil leaf between them. I did one leaf per side. Now just a little salt and pepper on top, and then into a baking dish or roasting pan, breast side up. Into the oven at 350 for an hour and you have a nicely browned bird for dinner. Quick tip for every one, when you are buying birds like this, and they all weigh 1 pound, bigger is not better. I bought one that looked larger than the rest but weighed the same, lets just say she was a big boned hen, not a lot of meat there. But the good news is my wife could not finish hers, so I got the half of the breast she did not finish. I must say the most fun I had was watching and teaching the kids how to disassemble a whole bird, they thought it was pretty cool to each have their own. If you are wondering about the rest of the sides in the picture, it was a gourmet box of Great Value Chicken Flavored Rice, and a bag of mini croissants. Hey I said it was under 15 bucks, don't judge me.

Now We're Cooking With Jager

Now I have been known to make some strange cookies, but I think I may have outdone my self this time. Jagermeister cookies. I got the idea when I was discussing this blog with my good friend Jeremi, and he said some thing along the lines of you should figure out something to make that has Jager in it, and since I have been on a cookie kick for a week or so, naturally my mind went here. Licorice is a very sweet and distinctive flavor, that many people don't like (me being one of them) but I must say either I did not put enough Jager in or the sugar cookies blended well with the taste. These were pretty good. Any way here is the recipe if you would like to try them.
1/2 cup Jagermeister
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Mix the Jager, shortening, sugar, sour cream, vanilla, and eggs together. Sift in flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Mix well. Refrigerate the dough (in the bowl no need to cover the bowl) for 45 minutes. Generously flour your counter top and roll out the dough. Cut the cookies. Bake them at 400 degrees until just barely light golden brown on the bottom, for me this was 9-10 minutes. After cookies have cooled you can frost and decorate.
And for the frosting
1/3 c. butter
3 c. powdered sugar
1 tbsp. cream or milk
3 tbsp. Jagermeister
Blend all together until smooth
Now I was not sure until i did some digging around online about the myth that alcohol is cooked off. It is just that a myth. According to a study conducted by the US Department of Agriculture’s Nutrient Data Laboratory calculated the percentage of alcohol remaining in a dish based on various cooking methods, since these cookies are baked for under 10 minutes they will retain over 40% of the alcohol. And since you don't cook the frosting it will retain about 70% of the alcohol if left over night. Here is a link to where I got that info. Kind of an interesting table they had at the bottom of that page. Anyway I took these cookies to work so that my buds from 100.3 X Rock and the bands that played at work tonight could enjoy them, and I hope they did. Also any of you that read this on a regular basis might recognize the recipe today, that's right just the same one I posted earlier this week with Jager strategically inserted. Well I think I am done with cookies for a while, so check back soon and see what else I have been up to.

Down and Dirty Breakfast

OK, today's post is not about making anything fancy, just a real good massive breakfast i love to eat. What you do is get shredded hash browns and get them in a skillet, you need to make two square patties out of them. When they are nice and browned put them on a plate and sprinkle shredded cheese on them. Next start a couple pieces of bacon. Put the bacon on top of one of your hash brown squares.Looks tasty right? But that is not enough, we have all that wonderful bacon grease in the pan, why not fry up a couple eggs and throw those on top.

MMMMM.... but wait, I still have this other hash brown square. Guess i should put that cheese side down, and turn this bad boy into a sandwich.
Top with a dash of Tabasco, and you are ready to dig in. Not exactly healthy, but what are you going to do. Stay tuned I have a challenge from one of my Radio DJ friends to make some extreme cookies for a show Thursday night, I am thinking Jagermeister.

Sweet Success

Thank you Christy!!! She sent me a link to a recipe for the cookies I wanted so bad. While they don't taste exactly like the Wal-Mart ones, they are pretty darn close. I guess the secret to making soft cookies that stay soft is sour cream, odd but it works. So here is the recipe for those of you that have a sweet tooth like I do.
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
Mix the shortening, sugar, sour cream, vanilla, and eggs together. Sift in flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Mix well. Refrigerate the dough (in the bowl no need to cover the bowl) for 45 minutes. Generously flour your counter top and roll out the cookies. Cut the cookies, I used the rim of my PBR glass to cut my cookies. Bake them at 400 degrees until just barely light golden brown on the bottom, for me this was 9-10 minutes. After cookies have cooled you can frost and decorate.
I have another recipe for the frosting.
1/3 c. butter
3 c. powdered sugar
3 tbsp. cream or milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
Beat together all ingredients until smooth.
This frosting has a kind of light tan color, but a few drops of red food coloring makes a nice pink color. I tried for purple, but apparently I am a better cook than artist. I think the color I ended up with is a purplish-grey, nothing a few sprinkles wont fix. Anyway I have a bunch more cookies to frost.

Man, I thought this was going to be easy

Well you may have noticed I have not written in a while, and I am sorry for that, but I am back. Sometimes I just cant think of anything to write about so I just skip it, then days turn to weeks, you all know the routine ( see my work out schedule for more examples).
Ok back to food, I am sitting here trying to figure out the recipe for those super moist sugar cookies with the yummy pink frosting and sprinkles, you know the ones you buy at Wal-Mart. Anyway I figured I would take this chance to catch you all up on what I have been up to. For my birthday mom got me a bamboo steamer, and I am loving it. The first thing I made was Steamed Lemon Herb Shrimp. Pretty simple recipe you need:
1 package uncooked shrimp the 25-35 per pound size works nice
2 lemons
whatever herbs you like on seafood, I used Dill
Arrange the Shrimp in a single layer, you can use peel on Shrimp if you wish, just do me and everyone a favor, and I can not stress this enough, DE-VEIN YOUR SHRIMP. Yeah I am talking to you Joe's Crab Shack, that is nasty.
Sprinkle your herbs over the Shrimp and then thinly slice the lemons and cover the shrimp.
Put the steamer over a pot of boiling water for 7 to 9 minutes or until shrimp are pink, be careful, like a lot of shell fish they are easy to over cook, and then become really chewy.
Well I am going to try out this recipe I found for cookies, will let you know how it turns out later.