Monday Night Italian

Last night when Rick came over (with chicken in hand), he said that he wanted us to do chicken parm again soon.  While I do love that dish, I am trying to eat better these days so I decided to try to lighten it up a little bit by not frying it, and instead, I would bake the chicken first.  I found this Cooking Light recipe on myrecipes.com and thought that it would be perfect.  As you know from my success with cooking steaks inside, I love using my cast iron skillets in the oven, but when I was looking at the nutritional information, I realized that it wasn't all that great for you so I opted to go with my original recipe. I did, however, serve it over whole grain pasta and halved the chicken breasts which meant more meals for us!

The new challenge, however, was to find something to go with the chicken parm.  I decided that I wanted to do a little appetizer to serve while the main dish cooked.  I decided that I wanted to roast some garlic and serve it with a sliced baguette as a crostini.  I also wanted to make it similar to the crostini that I made a while back but with a tist.  I'd never done roasted garlic myself, but I started it first.  We were really impressed with the final product. I love it when that happens.

 Roasted garlic straight out of the oven!

Here's what I did.


Roasted Garlic Crostini
Ingredients
2 heads of garlic
1/2 baguette, sliced
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Italian Seasoning Grinder
3 Cheese Blend (Shredded)
Basil leaves
Balsamic Vinegar


Directions
Preheat the oven to 400F.

While the oven is preheating, mix olive oil with Italian Seasoning.  Place the sliced baguette pieces on a baking sheet.  Brush the pieces with the olive oil, saving some.  Set aside.


Peel the white skin off of the garlic heads.  Cut the top of the garlic head off (about 1/3 inches off the top).  Place the garlic heads in aluminum foil squares, and place them in a muffin pan.  Cover the garlic with the olive oil mixture and wrap the garlic heads with the aluminum foil.  Place the pan in the oven and cook for 30-35 minutes.  When the garlic is cooked, take it out of the oven and let it cool. 

While the garlic is cooling, toast the baguette pieces in the oven for around 5 minutes.  Once the garlic has cooled, removed the garlic from the skin with a small fork and place it in a bowl.  Spread 1-2 cloves of garlic (depending on the size of the clove) on each piece of toasted baguette.  Sprinkle with cheese and balsamic vinegar, and top with a small to medium basil leaf.  Enjoy! 

Penne with Shrimp and Herbed Cream Sauce

Tonight is the first night this week that Rick and I have been able to spend together. Even though our daytime commitments have us a little stressed out, I'm so glad that we got to spend some quality time together tonight. With NY Strips on sale at various supermarkets, I was thinking "grill out!!!" but Rick wasn't that hungry so I opted to do a shrimp pasta dish. I searched foodnetwork.com for a recipe, and I came across this one. We both agree that it wasn't a stand out, but it was definitely a good one so I thought that I would share it here. The changes that I made was to up the red pepper flakes to 1/2 teaspoon, added two shallots, subbed low fat milk (made a roux with butter and flour) for heavy cream, a can of diced tomatoes (drained), and crab stock for clam juice.

Here is the original recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 pound penne pasta
  
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 pound medium shrimp, peeled, and deveined
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus extra for seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus extra for seasoning
• 1 (15-ounce) can whole tomatoes, drained, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 cup white wine
• 1/3 cup clam juice
  
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Directions

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain the pasta and set aside.

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the shrimp, garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper. Cook, stirring frequently until the shrimp turn pink and is cooked through, about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the shrimp and set aside.

Add the tomatoes, 1/4 cup basil, 1/4 cup parsley, and the red pepper flakes. Cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the wine, clam juice, and heavy cream. Bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 7 to 8 minutes until the sauce thickens. Add 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, the cooked shrimp, the cooked pasta, and the remaining herbs. Toss together until all ingredients are coated. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Transfer the pasta to a large serving bowl. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and serve immediately.

A little meal for two

When you are cooking for a small number, you run the risk of too many leftovers. There are definitely certain meals that I love, but after the third or fourth time in a row of eating it, they really lose something. In order to avoid meal burn-out, I started using recipes that were made for two. One that I had made several times was fried catfish and and green beans with crushed almonds. As is often the case, these two recipes are from epicurious.com. One of my favorite things about them is that they are both really simple, rather quick, and made for two.

When I showed Rick the recipes, he was excited about them. I had thought that I had made them for him before, but apparently ;), I hadn't. For the preparations, Rick broke up the slivered almonds while they were still in the package while I prepped the green beans. He also toasted the almonds. While Rick minced two cloves of garlic and pressed another, I sliced two shallots to substitute for the chives in the catfish recipe. I've never done that substitution before, but I needed to get rid of the shallots. We breaded the catfish with panko after an egg wash instead of just flour. Rick was on frying duty, and I put the green beans together. When I was making the sauce for the catfish, I forgot to put the ginger in, but it turned out great! I know I've said it before, but Rick said that it is on his lists of favorites. We've been talking about redoing this recipe this week so that he can experience it with the ginger, but we'll see.

Here are the recipes. Both of these recipes serve 2!

Fried Catfish with Chive-Ginger Sauce
Ingredients

• 2 1/2 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 1 teaspoon finely grated peeled fresh ginger
• 1 small garlic clove, pressed
• 1 teaspoon (packed) golden brown sugar
• 4 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
• 2 6- to 7-ounce skinless catfish fillets
• All purpose flour

Directions
Whisk vinegar, soy sauce, lime juice, grated ginger, garlic and golden brown sugar in small bowl to blend. Mix in 3 tablespoons chopped chives. (Sauce can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.) Press 1 tablespoon chopped chives onto both sides of fish. Sprinkle fish with salt and pepper. Dredge fish in flour; shake off excess.

Pour peanut oil into heavy large skillet to depth of 1/4 inch. Heat oil over medium-high heat. Add catfish fillets to skillet and cook until crisp outside and just opaque in center, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer catfish to paper towels to drain. Place catfish on plates. Pour sauce over. Garnish catfish with whole chives and serve immediately.

Changes I made: bread fish in panko; subbed 2 shallots for chives forgot to use ginger (it's great either way!!)


Green Beans with Crushed Almonds
Ingredients

• 1/2 pound green beans, trimmed
• 1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/4 cup blanched whole almonds, finely ground

Directions

Cook beans in a 3-qt. saucepan of boiling salted water until crisp-tender, about 4 minutes, and drain. Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over moderate heat, then cook garlic, stirring, until it just begins to turn golden, about 1 minute. Add almonds and cook, stirring, until they begin to color slightly, about 2 minutes. Add beans and cook, stirring, until tender and heated through, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Changes I made: Break the almonds in their plastic package and then toast them. I used two cloves of garlic instead of one. I cooked with extra virgin olive oil instead of butter.