Chicken Parmagiana is perhaps one of the simplest, most under-made recipes.  At least it is here at Cuisine Capers.  It is hard to say why that is, given that it is a full-flavored, hearty dish that really hits the comfort spot.

You may be asking yourself – Chicken Parmigiana?  Is that the same thing as Chicken Parmesan?  To most people, I’d say that it is the same thing — Chicken, covered in tomato sauce  and cheese and baked.  I will have to confess that I do not consider these things the same thing, as I have a different recipe that I make that I call Chicken Parmesan.  There also seems to be a plethora of ways to spell Chicken Parmigiana, including parmagiana.

It doesn’t really matter what you call it or how you spell it – all that it really matters is that it’s a satisfying dish.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons Italian Seasoning, 
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 3 – 4 boneless, skinless Chicken Breast halves
• 1 jar prepared spaghetti sauce
• 1 cup grated pozzarella cheese
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Prepare 3 bowls used for dredging the chicken breasts.  In bowl #1, add the flour.  In bowl #2, beat one egg.  In bowl #3 combine bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, Italian Seasoning, and salt and pepper to taste.

Pat chicken breasts dry and dip into each bowl in order.  First, coat with flour lightly.  Next, add the chicken breast to the egg wash, ensuring that the breast is coated, yet not dripping with egg.  Last, dredge thoroughly in the bread crumb mixture, coating evenly.  

Add olive oil to ovenproof sautee pan, and heat until nearly smoking.  Slowly immerse each dredged chicken breast into the oil and allow to fry until a crunchy coating has formed.  Flip the chicken carefully, making sure that the coating maintains its integrity.  Once both sides are fried crisp, remove from the pan.

Here’s where you can make this recipe as complex or as easy as you would like.  There are many people who would recoil in horror at the thought of using a jarred spaghetti sauce.  I will admit that there are times that I am one of those poeple.  But when I want to make good food fast, I don’t mind compromising on a quality, jarred sauce.

Drain the leftover olive oil out of the pan, add the sauce to the same pan, and bring to a simmer. Add the chicken breasts to the sauce pan and remove from heat.  Spoon some of the sauce in the pan over the chicken breasts to lightly coat.  Add mozzarella and parmesan cheese to each breast.

Place in pre-heated oven and bake for 45 minutes, until cheese is melted and beginning to brown.

Serve with a side of pasta tossed in the sauce left in the pan, or with a roasted spaghetti squash, also tossed with the remaining pan sauce.

 Paula Deen does not necessarily represent the way that I cook. There are very few things that I see Paula make that make me feel the need to go to the kitchen and create. However, I have met Paula Deen (ok, we were within a few feet of each other for a few minutes), and I found her to be the warmest, most genuine “celebrity” that I’ve encountered. My respect for her on that day went up measurably, in comparison to Emeril, who was also at that same event.

Despite that nonsequitur, It is reprehensible to me the way that Barbara Walters approached Paula Deen on this interview on “The View” recently.

Should we pay attention to the way that children eat? Yes. Should we give them the healthiest food that we can? Yes. But really. Teaching a child to cook versus teaching a child to eat a Chicken McNugget is admirable. To seemingly blame Paula Deen’s new cookbook, which is geared towards teaching children to enjoy cooking, on child obesity is incredible.

Barbara, you could use a piece of cheesecake. It would probably make you happier and healthier, frankly. And if you want to take on a cause, how about thinking about getting children involved in their food, rather than driving through a drive thu to get it.

Just Sayin’.

 Wisconsin State Fair Food

It has been a very long time since I went to the Wisconsin State Fair in West Allis. This annual August event draws people from all over Wisconsin and upper Illinois. There were the usual rides and midway attractions and of course the barns full of all kinds of animals. What I did not expect was the sheer volume of food available everywhere I turned. From the traditional carnival options to home grown Wisconsin specialties. The most notable being the Cream Puff, which of course was as far away from the entrance as you could get. So for your viewing pleasure is a photo tour of just a sampling of the food stands I encountered on my way from the entrance of the fair to the location to buy the famous Wisconsin State Fair Cream Puff.

Enjoy, more after the break…

Farro is not one of those ingredients that most people have laying around in their kitchens.  That’s a pity.  It has become a staple in my house due to its versitility, texture, flavor and health benefits.  I know, I know.  People are going to say, I don’t know what farro is.  I can’t pronounce it, I can’t cook it, and I sure as heck can’t find it in the grocery store.  Ha!  Only three out of those four points is true.  Unfortunately it is the latter point that will more than likely provide you with the most difficulty.   But I will take each point one by one.

1. I don’t know what farro is.  Easy!  Farro is an ancient grain that originates in the Mediterranean and the Near East.  Some claim that farro is the original grain from which all other grains were derived.  These days farro is most commonly produced in Italy.  While some may try to tell you that farro and spelt are the same thing, don’t believe them.  It simply isn’t true.  If you are looking for a farro substitute, you can try barley, but you’ll be disappointed.
2. I don’t know how to pronounce farro.  Mystery solved.  It is pronounced FAHR-roe.
3. I can’t cook farro.  Yes, you can.  You just need time to cook farro.  First, you need to soak farro for about 4 hours in cold water to soften it.  Then you need to cook it for about 30 minutes in liquid.  The ratio of farro to liquid is 1:2.  In other words, you need one part farro to every 2 parts liquid.  Cooking time can range from between 20 - 30 minutes, depending on how “toothsome” you prefer your whole grains.
4. I sure as heck can’t find farro in my grocery store.   I have to admit, I don’t have much to combat that point.  I mean, I can’t find farro in my grocery store(s).  I went to the health food sections, the grains sections, the bulk sections and everywhere else I could think of to find farro in my neighborhood stores.  Ok, to be honest, I didn’t really expect to find it there.  So I drove across town to find it in a more upscale grocery store.   To my chagrin, no farro.  Finally, I broke down and went to Whole Foods.  They didn’t have it in the bulk section, but they did have it pre-packaged by the barley and the rye on the shelves.  And they had only three packages.  But, if you don’t have a Whole Foods near you, or if the one near you is as awful as the one near me, you can find it on Amazon.comof all places. 

 But on to the recipe.  Or the non-recipe, which is most often the case for me.  My Farro and Arugula Salad was served with sliced, grilled flank steak atop.  The farro was soaked for around four hours in cold water, then drained.  Then the farro was cooked, 1 part farro to 2.5 parts chicken stock.  First it was brought to a boil, then gently simmered for about 30 minutes.

The farro was cooled down to room temperature and then tossed with some of the fresh, “salady” produce that I had gotten in my produce box for the week.  As it was early spring, that meant arugula, radishes, ramps, scallions.  I also added hot house tomatoes and hot house cucumbers from the farmers market.  Before adding the produce, I tossed the farro with some olive oil and red wine vinegar.  Then, after combining the produce, I again tossed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste.

When you make farro, I recommend that you make enough to be used throughout the week.  Farro makes a great grainy side dish, and it is so versatile that you won’t get bored with it.

Spring brings asparagus season, and asparagus just screams for two of my favorite ways to prepare food… grilled, and with an egg on top.  Recently, Bon Appetit called “anything with an egg on it” one of the hottest trends.  Trendy or not, we’ve been putting egg on “stuff” for a while, and we love it. 

Grilled Asparagus Milanese is simple to prepare, and an oddly rustic yet elegant addition to your spring meal.

Ingredients:

1 bunch asparagus
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp garlic powder
Salt and Pepper to taste
Balsamic Vinegar to taste
2 eggs

Grated Parmesan cheese

Snap the tough ends off of each asparagus stalk.  Lay on a single layer on a plate and coat with olive oil.  Sprinkle with garlic powder, salt and pepper.  Grill on direct heat until slightly charred, about 10 minutes.  Remove from grill and divide onto two plates.

Fry eggs in light coating of olive oil, sunny side up.  Sprinkle with coarse salt and pepper.  Place one egg atop each pile of asparagus.  If desired, spray lightly with balsamic vinegar.  Grate parmesan cheeses on top of egg yolk before serving.

Adding an egg on top of produce does not always seem to be an intuitive thing to do. But the egg yolk oozes onto the asparagus like a rich dressing, adding a complexity to the flavor that is hard to beat. Served with a perfectly grilled tenderloin aside a salad of arugula, tomato and cucumber, this meal serves as a early, healthy introduction into the grilling season.

 I may have mentioned a time or two how much I like ramps.  As it is now high ramp season, much of what I am cooking has a ramp component to it in one way or another. 

Ramps are not a very well known vegetable these days, so imagine my surprise when I was browsing through one of the latest books that a publisher had sent me for review and stumbled across a ramp recipe!  (I’ll link to the book review once I actually finish the review!)   Olives and Oranges: Recipes and Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Beyond actually had a recipe for White Bean Soup with Ramps, and it became pretty clear that  I was going to need to give it a try.

As spring can go in Wisconsin, it was inevitable that a cold, damp, dreary day would come along, and as soon as it did, I headed for the kitchen to make this soup.  In the end, it was perfect for the day – warming, filling, and flavorful.  While I veered away from the original recipe that was in the book, the spirit of the recipe remained.  What follows below is my rendition of White Bean Soup with Ramps.
Ingredients:

• 2  tablespoons Olive Oil
• 10 Ramp Bulbs, chopped, with greens saved
• 1 Carrot, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 4 yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1 can cannelloni beans, drained
• More chicken stock, as needed
• Reserved Ramp greens, chopped
• 1 lb bulk Italian sausage, cooked to doneness
• 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
• Chives, chopped

In heavy stock pot, slowly sautee ramps, carrot, and celery in olive oil until softened.  Add garlic and sautee 2 minutes further.    Add potatoes and stir ingredients together.  Season with salt and pepper.  Add chicken stock, ensuring that potatoes are covered with liquid.  Bring pot to boil, then reduce and allow to simmer for 30 minutes.  Add cannelloni beans.  If needed add more stock to cover ingredients in pot.  Allow to simmer 30 more minutes.

With immersion blender, blend all ingredients in pot until smooth and creamy.  If you do not have an immersion blender, use a normal blender or food processor.  If soup is too thick, add more stock to desired consistency.   Add pre-cooked Italian Sausage,  stir.  Add reserved ramp greens and parmesan cheese, stir, and remove from heat.

Serve with chopped chives and grated parmesan cheese garnish.

Morrocan cooking is one my my favorite types of cooking.  I love the exotic blend of ethnic flavors that combine into this style of food.  The diversity of flavors come from Arab, Moorish, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, African, and Jewish influences.  When creating a Morrocan dish, typical spices would include cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, pepper, paprika, anis and mint.

Perhaps the most common symbol of Morrocan cooking is the tagine, or tajine.  A tagine traditionally is a stew-like dish made in a clay pot with a conical top.  This pot came to also be known as a tagine.

Tagines are typically used to slowly simmer meats and vegetables, which often are served over couscous.  The shape of the tagine creates a self-basting vessel that guarantees that the meats cooked will stay moist throughout the cooking process.

One of the first dishes that I made after I first purchased my tagine was a Kefta Tagine, or a Morrocan Meatball Stew.  It convinced me that the purchase wasn’t a waste of money, and I have since gone on to use this pot, and this style of cooking often. 

Kefta Tagine:

For the Kefta (meatballs)

1 pound ground lamb or beef
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup onion, peeled and finely chopped
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil for pan-frying

For the sauce

2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and chopped
1 small bunch parsley, chopped
2 pounds tomatoes, chopped
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons salt or to taste

Combine the ingredients for the meatballs.   Shape the meat mixture into 1-inch balls.  Heat your tagine, or any heavy casserole-style pan and  add the olive oil. Brown the meatballs well in the oil, in batches if necessary, then remove. Leave the oil in the pot. Cover the meatballs and set aside.

To the reserved oil, add the garlic, onion, and bell pepper. Saute the vegetables until the onion turns translucent. Add all the remaining ingredients for the sauce and simmer, covered, 30 minutes, or until the sauce cooks down to a thick gravy.

Return the meatballs to the sauce. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes.  Serve at once directly from the pot.

Spinach and Egg Pizza on Whole Wheat Crust

Everyone that I’ve mentioned this recipe to is a little bit put off by it.  Spinach?  Egg?  Whole wheat crust? PIZZA?!?!?

Yes.  Spinach and Egg Pizza on Whole Wheat Crust might sound a bit off-putting, but it is one of the more tasty, healthy recipes that I’ve played around with lately.  I’ve made it a couple of times now, and have perfected the recipe to the point where it will probably turn into one of those “go-to” dinners because it is healthy, quick, and flavorful.

Normally when I make a pizza at home, I buy some frozen dough at the local Italian deli and start with that as the base.  This recipe, though, starts with a pre-made crust.  It adds to that “fast convenience” factor that you’ve just got to have mid-week.  Baboli makes some reasonable, bread-like crusts, and they even come in whole wheat! 

After brushing the crust lightly with some olive oil, it’s ready to pile on the spinach!

Another reason this is fast and convenient is because it uses bagged, pre-washed spinach from the store in the winter, or from our CSA in the summer.  About half the bag, chopped, works perfectly for this crust.  Also added is some salt, pepper, garlic, parmesan cheese, basil, bruschetta and sliced prosciutto.  Just a word of warning – you may want to be very careful about actually saying those last two ingredients out loud in grocery stores – it has been known to raise a ruckus… 

This gets tossed into a 450 degree oven for about 12 minutes.  Once in the oven, you’re ready to fry up some eggs, which get placed on the pizza when it comes out of the oven.

Yes, egg on pizza.  Long before Bon Appetit magazine named “Eggs on top of anything” one of the top 100 trends of 2009, we were putting eggs on top of things.  Eggs on a bed of spring greens that have been tossed with a light vinaigrette is spectacular!  Try it!

But I digress. Put the cooked egg on the pizza, sprinkle with some parmesan cheese, salt and pepper and enjoy!

Cheesecakes from The Confectional

We recently received a delivery of cheesecakes from The Confectional, out of Seattle, WA.  We don’t live anywhere near Seattle, so that might seem a little bit awkaward and strange.  Why order cheesecakes from afar?

We can think of at least 14 reasaons why!  The cheesecakes come in at least that many flavors, and they are great!  Caramel, Cocunut Cherry Chocolate, Cookies & Mint Chocolate, Kahlua White Chocolate, Mexican Chocolate, Mochaccino, Peanut Butter & Chocolate, Quadruple Chocolate, Raspberry White Chocolate, Seattle’s New York-Style, Sugar-Free Rasberry Chocolate and Triple Berry are the “standard” flavors of cheesecakes that you can choose from, and trust us, after experiencing all of these flavors, it would be hard to choose a favorite.  They were all rich, moist and flavorful, and each one stood on its own as a top notch treat.

The Confectional delivers these mini-cheesecakes to your doorstep, and they are the perfect size for serving as an elegent end to a formal dinner party.  They would also be perfect for serving at a casual buffet, a bridal or baby shower, or any other get together.  These cheesecakes are unique, and add a touch to any event that would be hard to achieve in any other way.

We served our cheesecakes at a business meeting.  The delivery arrived very quickly from The Confectional, and in perfect condition.  When this company packs their goods for shipping, they mean business.  It was shipped FedEx, with care given to every detail geared around getting the shipment to its destination intact and at a safe temperature.  Take a look at some of the packing material – you can see why these cheesecakes arrived on the doorstep in better shape than carrying a cheesecake home from across town:

All in all, The Confectional delivers the best cheesecakes you can buy, in the perfect portion, elegantly.  We enthusiastically recommend these cheesecakes for any occasion, from a business meeting (like ours) to a formal event, to a treat to horde for just yourself and your friends and family. 

The Confectional
1530 Pike Place, Seattle, WA 98101
theconfectional.com
(206) 282-4422

It is nearing that time of year – the time when the CSA box begins to deliver produce that can be creatively put to use for an entire meal. Tonight’s dinner was based nearly entirely on the CSA box, which we get from our terrific farm, Harmony Valley Farm.  The Grilled Caesar Salad with Steak and Blue Cheese was filling, flavorful, and healthy!

As I unpacked my CSA produce box this week, I realized I had the making for this immediately on hand.  The large, leafy green head of Romaine lettuce and the purple scallions were exactly what was needed for this dish.

First, the greens were grilled over our charcoal grill.  Not for long, mind you, because you don’t want the greens to wilt away to nothing.  You merely want to toss them in olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and pop them on the grill for about 2 minutes – long enough to get nice, smokey char lines, while still maintaining most of the crispness.

Once pulled off the grill, a toss with your favorite caesar dressing, some croutions and chopped scallions makes it nearly perfect.  However, to make the dish completely perfect, we topped it off with sliced top sirloin steak, grilled to medium rare, and then we added something that sent it over the top – an Artisan Blue Cheese from Castle Rock.  Rich, creamy and pungent, this cheese also came from our CSA program, as a part of the cheese shares that we opted into this year.

And, of course, our Shiba Inu Jimbo, convinced that he was on the verge of starvation, cared only about the grilled sirloin!  (Though he thought the Blue Cheese was pretty worthy as well).