What’s for Dinner?

One of my most proudin’est creations is something I call Saganaki Chicken. I love saganaki, the flaming cheese that you get at Greek restaurants, where they squirt the lemon juice on it, spread on the brandy, light it and say, “opa!” It isn’t the show I enjoy so much. I think it is just the crusty, fried feta cheese. In fact, shut up and give me my flaming cheese already.

I pound chicken cutlets flat between sheets of plastic wrap, dip them in beaten egg, and then roll them in shredded parmesan and feta crumbles instead of breadcrumb. It will work with just the parmesan, too, only it will be less melty — more like a parmesan crouton on the outside. You fry them in just enough oil to cover the bottom of the pan.

This doesn’t work as well in a dry pan, and it is pretty messy. You also have to be careful not to peek, and try to flip the chicken before it has formed a nice crust on one side. I’ve put marinara over the top of this like chicken parmesan, but I really think it tastes better all by itself. I put the chicken pieces on a cookie rack as I cook them, with a paper towel underneath, because the little suckers want to stick to the paper towel while they are very hot. They are crunchy, cheesy and salty. I garnish with basil or parsely, and squeeze lemon over them.

“Opaaa!” Eh, shmeesh.

Wish I had a better pic… this is one from the olden days, when I was still using my trusty camera from junior high. No, Jen, it is not a Disk Camera. But it is the one I got right after that, so if you’re sly you can figure about what year that was.

This salad is one I ripped off from the cafe that was downstairs in the office building I worked at in Skokie. It was really the only decent thing they had, but I could eat it just about every day… so that was ai’ight. I chop portobello mushrooms and red bell pepper, and cover them with my own vinaigrette (balsamic, olive oil, Italian seasoning and a little sugar). I keep that mix (peppers, mushrooms, vinaigrette) in the fridge, or bring it along that way so that I can mix it with the lettuce right before I eat it. Then I crumble in goat cheese, and top it with fried chow mein noodles. Oh, and scallions are good, too.

Might be my favorite salad. Until the next salad.

Okay, I have a confession to make… I had never actually purchased uncooked shrimp before. I always got cooked, or cooked and frozen. But in the interest of upping the quality of my cuisine, I knew I had to stop being so lazy. Sometimes at least. Especially since the fresh takes about two minutes to cook. I still plan on getting frozen sometimes — but maybe I’ll be frozen uncooked shrimp. Do they make those? I cleaned these under water, and left the tails on.

Anyway, I used Alton Brown’s “No Guilt Caesar” dressing recipe… It got such rave reviews on FoodTV.com that I just had to give it a shot. It’s made with tofu, and no raw eggs. I thought it was really good!! It made so much, that two days later I served it at a little dinner party, and everyone seemed to dig it. My pregnant friend, Lindsay could indulge and not worry about the eggy-weggs. I used firm tofu, cuz that’s what I had — and I added a little milk to thin it to the consistency I wanted. I also added anchovies (which pregnant women can have, as long as they are the tinned kind). Anyway, Alton claims that anchovies have no place in real caesar dressing, but I can’t imagine it without. Call me trashy.

I marinated the shrimp briefly in lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and Nonno’s seasoning. Chris’ grandfather makes this with fresh herbs (sage, rosemary, garlic and red pepper flakes) and a mezza luna, and then freezes it for us. I grilled them on my handy-dandy grill pan.

I covered the salad with parmesan cheese, and added more fresh lemon juice. It was fantastic!

As promised, I made Kira’s brownies the very next day after she posted about them in a comment (see Kira’s blog on my blogroll: “Shovel-It-In.”) She stated that she uses the “one bowl” brownie recipe on the back of the Baker’s unsweetened chocolate box. She said she also adds extra chocolate morsels and macadamia nuts. I did the same, except I added half a bag of chocolate and peanut butter morsels that I had. And next time I will crush up the nuts a bit smaller, instead of just throwing them in the way I did. I was in a big hurry to get these things in my mouwf.

Well, the resulting recipe will go next to my cornbread as an Untouchable for all time. I don’t think I’ll ever make another brownie. The morsels melted all through the mix, and the top is crispy and the inside, when heated for ten seconds each time in the micro, is a fresh and chocolate-lava gooey as the day it was born. Wait, I hate the word “gooey.” And yet that it what it is. God is it gooey, and dare I say the forbidden word? Moist?

Thank you Kira. You’ve changed my life yet again!

About once a month for oh, my whole life, my dad would get a craving for Steak ‘n Shake chili mac. We’d have to rush out and get it. I’ve often said that I think he was under the misgiving that there was a little fetus growing in his little potbelly, and he would get the cravings that would correspond to that condition.

I could never figure out why the chili mac I made at home never tasted like the mac at Steak ‘n Shake. I even bought the chili that they sell there out of a can, and it still didn’t taste right. Later I realized that there was chili sauce under the chili. Now I put the pasta sauce in the bowl, a healthy glug of chili sauce out of the bottle, and warm chili. Then the cheese, onions, and sometimes some sour cream. Shown in the picture above is my buddy Cameron’s fantastic Howitzer Death Fart Chili that he was kind enough to send home with us. Well, that’s what I call it. The effects last up to five days (that’s tested fact, and not a joke), but lordy. Worth every green swamp cloud that the stuff emanates. Just make sure you look ahead on your calendar to what you have going on during the weekend.

Speaking of the perfect club sandwich, how good are those on a hot day? Chris and I went out and bought all the fixin’s, including turkey bacon (btw, nothing compares to Trader Joe’s turkey bacon. It’s all thick cut and farm-y). We also got taffy apple salad from Jewel, which tasted just like taffy apples. Yum.

They were so good, we made them again the next day!

This was a super easy dinner I made by marinating a package of chicken breasts in a Ziploc gallon bag overnight. I just put the chicken in with a liberal amount of olive oil, plenty of salt, pepper, the juice of three limes, and chopped cilantro and a little mexican seasoning. I smooshed them around in there until the oil and juice were mixed, then I grilled them up the next day.

The corn is from Market Day. I nuked it, then salted it and added some salsa and chopped raw red pepper. I added more lime juice and served it close to room temperature.

I love those dinners you can be half-dead to make. Friggin’ sweet!

Chris and I stopped by the Buffalo Grove Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor on a hot day when I didn’t feel like grocery shopping OR cooking. The service was pretty lousy, and by that I mean incredibly slow, yet disarmingly apologetic. The other bad news is that the matza ball soup was very mediocre:

They might have called it Mush with Boullion Cube, though I don’t know if it would have sold so well. Chris’ omelette was all right, but didn’t look spectacular:

If we ever return, however, it will be because my club sandwich was an absolute perfect “10″: a light coat of heavy restaurant-quality mayo, lettuce, tomato, well-done bacon, wheat toast, and real carved turkey. It was a thing of beauty:

Overall, I would recommend the sandwich. They also had a very wide array of creative ice cream sundaes and treats, which we did not sample. I would go back to try those.

I was also pleased to see that the silverware was magnetized, which I haven’t witnessed since Denny’s Restaurant in 1991, when our friend Chris C. made an elaborate working sculpture that clicked together in a domino effect:

Between the sandwich, the ice cream we didn’t try, and the magnetic forks? Worth the money, no question.

I’m not really into baking. If you’ve read my “User Info” page, you know this is because I find that I have to be too precise. However, my need for cookies with chips in them forces me to put my baker’s hat on, because I haven’t had any from the store yet that really compare with even the crappiest batch of homemade, warm cookies. Plus, you get a ton of them for a lot less money. My friend Brooke has inspired me to double the chips in just about all my cookie recipes. Chris often asks me why I don’t just eat the chips, because isn’t it really those that I’m interested in? Or, why not just melt them down, and mainline them into a vein, he asks? I tell him that the chocolate cools too fast and clogs up the needle, stupid. Sheeshh.

I changed up my chocolate chip habit recently and made this batch of “scotchies.” (I’m not sure how the Scotts came to be synonymous with both a buttery flavor and a breed of little black dogs, but I guess those are both pretty good things to have your name attached to. Not so for the poor Gypsies… I still hear people say they got “gypped” fairly often.) Anyway, do I digress? I won’t bother copying the recipe, because it’s just the one on the back of the butterscotch chips bag. For this batch, I ran about a cup low on oats, and substituted the rest with more flour — and they still came out fine. A little cakier, but they definitely scratched the itch.

Shown is about single serving, plus one glass of milk. Because I’m watching my figure.

Hoo dogie. If you’re in the mood for sin, do I got somethin’ fo’ dat azz.

I have an all-purpose mexican chicken recipe. It isn’t really a recipe, so much as a collection of a few ingredients, dumped into a slow cooker:

four or five chicken breasts, fresh or still frozen
about a half-jar (1-2 cups) of your favorite salsa
4-6 oz. of jelly (low sugar will work fine, no sugar will not work) of just about any flavor: grape or peach or…
one taco seasoning packet, or house mexican seasoning plus salt

I cook this on high for about 4 hours, or up to six if the chicken is frozen solid. When it is cooked, shred it right in the pot with two forks. You can use this for chicken tacos, enchiladas, or these: the badass chicken nachos. Just scatter the chicken over tortilla chips, smother with cheese sauce or shredded cheese of your choice, and place under the broiler until the cheese is melted. Wolf ‘em down with guacamole and sour cream, plus your favorite beer… and hate yourself so much in the morning that you’re unable to pick up the phone and call yourself ever again. Just pray that you don’t run into yourself in public.