Easy No-Bake Chicken Parmesan, LEAP DAY!

Happy Leap Day, everyone! To celebrate this rare occasion I present to you a quick and simple no-bake Chicken Parmesan dish.

You will need:

• 3-4 thin chicken cutlets
• 2 cups flour
• 2 TBSP lemon pepper
• 2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
• 1 TSP salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 16 oz. box of Ziti pasta
• tomato sauce
• grated Parmesan cheese to garnish

Be it store bought or homemade, you'll need some sort of tomato sauce to smother your cheesy, chicken concoction.

Rinse off the chicken cutlets and place them on a paper towel to dry. Season the cutlets with salt. Combine the flour, lemon pepper, and salt in a large Ziplock or plastic grocery bag.


Heat the vegetable oil in a medium sized skillet on medium-high heat. Wait until the oil has a chance to get hot. When that chicken hits the oil, you want it to sizzle!

Take a chicken cutlet and drop it in the flour mixture and shake it up. You're going to want to keep a firm grasp on that bag so you don't get flour all over your kitchen. Make sure the cutlet is totally covered in flour. Place it in the hot oil. Repeat with each cutlet. Let them cook for about 4 minutes on each side. Remove them from the oil and let them dry on a bed of fresh paper towels. These will soak up the extra oil.

While the cutlets are still hot, sprinkle on the Mozzarella cheese and smother them with tomato sauce. Serve with a side of pasta. Don't forget, it wouldn't be Chicken Parmesan without some Parmesan cheese on top!

YUM! Enjoy-a this-s simple-a recipe-a, from-a me to-a you! That's my Italian accent. ENOY!

Love,

Liz

Light and Healthy Pasta Salad

I'll tell you about the pulled pork later, oh my GOD.

So I couldn't decide what to do as a side for this scrumptious swine. Fortunately, I had enough time to decide during the 12-hour period I slow-cooked the pork roast. The day started with me positive I was going to have potato salad, then I got lazy because it was a holiday. So I picked up a few fresh ingredients, spent around $5, and ventured to try my first pasta salad!

You will need:

• red wine vinegar
• olive oil
• red wine vinegarette
• salt
• black pepper
• 1 small garlic clove
• 1 shallot
• 1 cucumber
• 1 tomato
• 1 12 oz. boxes of tri-color rigatoni
• 3 green onions

First, boil the pasta, dur.

Dice up them cucumbers, green onions, the tomato, and shallot. Smush the garlic clove with your palm or the side of your chopping knife, then dice it into small bits.

Once the pasta is fully cooked, drain it and set it aside to cool for about 2 minutes. Run the pasta in the colander under a light stream of cool water. Let the pasta dry, then transfer it to a serving bowl. Mix in the cucumbers, green onions, tomato, shallot, and garlic. Season with fresh cracked sea salt and black pepper, then splash some red wine vinegar, olive oil, and red wine vinegarette on to suite your pallet. If you want, you could substitute the red wine vinegar for your favorite salad dressing or just add a little olive oil.

It's just as good as a light snack as it is a side dish for a hearty sandwich (par examplar: pulled pork sandwich), the likes of which (sandwich) I'll reveal in the coming weeks.

I apologize profusely to the slothful performance of this blog in previous weeks, but you see I've been in the Big Apple! YES, I'm due for a change of scenery and culture. The bonus is that my new roommate is a chef and a butcher. Get this, the fridge has 3 lambs heads in it! Dude, I want to try that.

Love,

Liz

Pasta Sauce RE-RE-RE-RE-MiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiX!!!

It's been over 4 years since I started this blog and since then I've matured, and so have my recipes. Tonight I'll tackle the pasta sauce. I've definitely changes things around and updated ingredients. I hope you'll enjoy this new version as much I do!

Believe me once you realize how easy it is to make you own really good marinara sauce, you'll never eat it from a jar again.

This time, you'll need:

• 1 14 oz. can whole tomatoes peeled (with or without basil)
• 1 14 oz. can crushed tomatoes
• 1 tiny can tomato paste (you only need half the can)
• 1 whole tomato (diced)
• 1 giant onion or 2 medium sized onions (diced)
• 2 cloves garlic (diced)
• 2 fresh basil leaves or 1 TBSP or chopped basil
• 2 TSP oregano
• 1 hot pepper (diced) or 1 TBSP hot pepper flakes
• 1 lb. ground sirloin (browned and drained)
• 4 TBSP olive oil
• 2 TBSP salt
• 2 TBSP sugar
• 2 TSP black pepper 

Fist, heat up a medium sized frying pan, then add 2 TBSP oil. Once the oil is hot, sautee theonions until the are almost tender, then add garlic. When the garlic is golden brown, stir into the onions and remove from heat. While this is going on, pour the rest of the olive oil into a medium cooking pot and brown the ground sirloin.

Next, combine crushed and peeled tomatoes, diced tomato, onions, garlic, basically everything, into the pot with the browned sirloin. Bring to a boil and stir. Then, reduce heat and simmer, stir regularly. For hours. On end. Make sure you mush up those big chunks of tomatoes and onions once they tender. Unless you want it to be chunky, then leave it be and simmer for at least an hour.

The changes I've made, such as the quality of beef and extra herbs are definitely noticeable from my earlier attempts. Trust me, the ground sirloin apposed to beef is RIDICULOUSLY striking.

Love,

Liz

Mama's Lasagana, Easier Than You Think!

I personally (1) know a lot of people who are intimidated by making lasagna, and (2) know a lot of people who screw up lasagna on a regular basis. Ever had lasagna soup? That mushy, oozy, runny, excuse of lasagna? Probably.

We all know that person who thinks they can cook, has big dinner parties, then forces what ever ill-conceived culinary abomination they've envisioned down the throats of their hesitant but polite group of friends.

You don't want to be that person, so let's begin.

You will need:

• Sauce, THE MOST IMPORANT part of any Italian dish. Make it meaty, veggie, whatever. You can even try my recipe here. It's a little dated, but still holds strong.
• 8 oz. of Ricotta cheese
• 8 oz. of Mozzarella cheese, sliced or shredded
• 16 oz. box of no-boil lasagna noodles
• 1 egg 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. The most important first step is DO NOT BOIL THE NOODLES. This is the number one cause of lasagna soup. The extra moisture from the noodles seeps out during the baking process and turns the sauce watery. Gross.

 

Mix the Ricotta cheese with 1 egg. In a big baking dish, 9x13 inches, something along those lines, start with a layer of sauce that's about 1/2 inch thick. Next cover the sauce in a layer of lasagna noodles. Make them fit, but don't overlap. Then comes the Ricotta, spread 1/2 cup across the noodles. You can use a little bit more but not too much, you don't want the ingredients to overflow. Now cover the Ricotta with a layer of Mozzarella. Again, don't use too much or it will become too chewy. Back to sauce and repeat!

 

Remember to leave about 1/2 - 1 inch of room in the baking dish and cover it with tin foil. Just in case it does overflow, put a cookie sheet under it in the over. Bake for 25 minutes with the foil on, then remove foil and bake for another 15minutes.


Stick a fork in it! If it's done, the fork should go right through the gooey cheese and tender noodles. Let it stand for 5-10 minutes to solidify. Enjoy with some delicious garlic bread and a salad!


Love,

Liz

Pasta Sauce

Ooooh! First recipe, exciting!

This is a very simple way to make home cooked pasta sauce that my mamma taught me a while ago. Here are the ingredients:

• 2 medium onions

• 3 cloves of garlic

• 1 large can of crushed tomatoes (28 ounces)

• 1 large can of whole peeled tomatoes (28 ounces)

• 1 box of whatever pasta you fancy

• Table salt

• Ground Pepper

• A bottle of olive oil

• A large cooking pot

• A frying pan

• A medium-sized cooking pot

• A pasta strainer

Ok, get that big old pot and frying pan, and put them on the stove. Leave the medium-sized pot off to one side.

Pour some olive oil on the bottom of each.

Now, leave that alone, don’t put the heat on yet, just leave it the hell alone.

Go get your onions and dice them. That means cut them up into tiny pieces. Put the diced onions into the frying pan and turn the heat on low. Stir them up every so often. You don’t want them to stay in the same place in the pan or they’ll burn and be gross. What we’re going for with the onions is NOT to caramelize them. We DO want them to be cooked though, not very crunchy, almost looking clear white.

Moving on to garlic. These must be cut up tiny-tiny. Don’t use the ends of the cloves.

Just to sum up what should be happening in your kitchen right now:

The big pot on the stove has olive oil in it, just enough to cover the bottom.

The diced onions are cooking in olive oil in the frying pan.

Now, shove all of the onions to one side of the frying pan. Add a little more olive oil into the deserted part of the pan and put the diced garlic in it. When you cook garlic, you want it to turn a golden color. If it cooks too much it’ll turn brown, and it’s going to be bitter and ruin everything.

While the garlic is cooking, keep stirring the onions, making sure that they are still separate from the garlic. Also stir around the garlic every once in a while.

Get your cans of tomatoes, open them up, and pour them into the big pot. Put the heat on medium low. Stir it up a bit and try to smash some of the whole tomatoes in half with whatever you’re stirring with.

Once the garlic is that nice light golden color, mix it in with the onions and let them cook together for a minute or so.

After that, turn the heat off on the frying pan and dump the onions and garlic into the big pot with the tomatoes. Stir them up and let them simmer together for about ten minutes.

My roommate thinks that simmering is when you keep the heat on low. It’s not. It’s when the contents of the pot are bubbling softly, rather than bubbling violently like when it’s being boiled.

So, after it’s been simmering for a bit, add the salt and pepper to taste and keep smashing the whole tomatoes in half.

As the sauce is cooking, fill up your medium-sized pot with cold water. Don’t fill it to the top, though. You’re going to be adding pasta to it. If the pot is filled too much with water, it will overflow when you add the pasta, duh.

Alright, put the pot of water on the stove and set the heat to high. Put a lid on it, if you have one. It doesn’t really matter, the water will boil either way. It’s just going to boil faster if the lid is on.

Once the water is boiling, add salt to the water. This will give the pasta a bit of flavor on its own.

To measure out how much pasta you want to use, this is what my Nonno does: take a bowl (whatever bowl you’re going to use to serve the pasta in), and fill the bowl according to how many people are going to eat. So for two people, put in two bowls worth, three people three bowls, etc.

Dump the appropriate amount of pasta into the boiling water. Make sure you stir the pasta around every few moments so that it doesn’t get stuck to the bottom of the pot.

Test the pasta by periodically taking out a piece with a fork and tasting it.

If it’s tough, it’s not done.

If it’s chewy, it’s not done.

It has to be tender.

If it’s mushy, you over did it. It is now inedible by Italian standards.

Once you find the pasta to be perfect, dump it out in a strainer over the sink.

By now, your sauce should be ready to serve.

I taught this recipe to my friend Diego and he added his own little spices to the sauce because he’s Costa Rican and he has to. I use hot peppers from my Nonno’s garden. What my mamma suggested is to put the tiniest pinch of cayenne pepper in. But when using cayenne, be careful. Too much of it will make your face explode and more importantly ruin the sauce.

AWESOME!

To make it a meat sauce, simply add a pound of ground beef to the big pot before putting in the tomato sauce.

Brown the beef in the olive oil. This means that you smash up the beef with your stirring implement and keep shifting it in the pot until it is brown throughout.

When it’s done, pour the beef out into a strainer. This gets rid of all the grease. Then put the beef back in the pot and add the tomatoes.

IMPORTANT!

1. Use lean beef. It’ll either say 8% fat or 92% lean. You want the fat content to be somewhere in that area.

2. Keep washing your hands! Especially after dealing with raw meat.

Sweet! That was the first of many entries in this recipe blog. I hope your meal turns out great. Please feel free to comment on any part of the recipe or if you couldn’t understand some parts or if you just have questions in general.

I’m off to go eat Mexican food now. ADIOS, HOMIES!!!

Love,

Liz