Easy Peasy Lemon Sqeezy

After seeing pictures of Easy Sole Meuniere in Corinne's facebook album earlier this week, I was all over it. Side note - Corinne's name (lets face it, a majority of my recipes come from this girl) can now be linked to her new blog!!! That's right! I love discovering new blogs, so I get pretty excited when I get to follow one created by a close friend!! Welcome to the behind the scenes of blog world ma dear :) Now, with all that excitement, where was I. Sole. Ah yes. Sole is a firm flat white fish with a delicate flesh and mild taste. It's also super inexpensive, especially at Haymarket. $3.00 a pound, yes please.

These 3 large slabs of fish = 1 lb. That's $1 per piece of fish. You really can't beat that. Along with the sole I made Ina Garten's Oven-Roasted Vegetables. Below we have the veggies + lemon for the fish + kiwis because I haven't had a kiwi in ages.

as well as some leeks + potatoes + parsleyIna's recipe called for Fennel, but no Haymarket stands could provide. I decided to substitute leeks. After pouring myself a stiff one (it is Friday night after all) consisting of Svedka vodka, Polar diet tonic, Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice and a splash of lime, the simple prep work began.

1) Preheated the oven to 425*

2) I had a lot of veggies to wash.

3) Green Beans. Enough said.

4) Slicing and dicing.

5) Coating in olive oil, salt & pepper.

6) Prepping the baking sheets with tin foil.

Roast Away my fresh green veggies.

Fresh Parmesan cheese is sprinkled on when they are near completion.

The sole gets seasoned with salt, then coated in flour, then added to a large saute pan with 3 tablespoons of butter. After a few minutes the fish is delicately flipped; 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice are added. I eyeballed the zest and juiced a bunch of lemon slices directly into the pan. I emphasize delicately above, one wrong move with the spatula and you have 5 pieces of fish instead of one.

P.S. The other two fillets already cooked are keeping warm in the oven. P.P.S. Grating lemon zest has never been easier.

I put the fresh chopped parsley in my Colorado shot glass so I could clean off the cutting board.

Then I tossed all the roasted veggies together.

The fillets of sole are drizzled in the lemony butter sauces from the pan and sprinkled with parsley.

So I was a bit generous with the parsley.

A bottle of chilled white wine was opened.

This Oregon Riesling from A to Z Wineworks tastes sweet with fresh vibrant citrus notes and a clean finish. It proves to be an overall dynamic white wine which paired perfectly with tonight's simple entree.

I've been in the mood for Riesling and sole fish lately. This meal of buttery flaky fish with crisp roasted vegetables in a variety of tastes and textures hit the spot all around.

Unfortunately, Adam is not sole fishes biggest fan. He still ate it of course, but he'd much prefer a thick juicy cut of swordfish. He raved about the veggies. Especially the potatoes.

Well, I'm off to Connecticut with my sister, we're taking a road trip to the town of Granby where our cousins Meg and Jen reside. Meg runs her own dance studio and choreographs a big performance with her young students every year. Jen's kids are dancers with Meg's studio, so I can't wait to see everyone and watch my second cousins perform! I'll be back on Sunday with a recap. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Thanks Citysearch Boston, Fresh and LuxLash!

Last Thursday, I was lucky to be invited to another fabulous Citysearch Boston event held at Fresh.  I've heard about Fresh and sampled some of their products so I was definitely interested in learning more about their products.  I learned about how they focus (and perhaps even pioneered) the use of natural ingredients in skincare products.

The event was a blast.  While others were excited about the complimentary St. Germain cocktails and trying out the cupcakes from the new-to-Boston Cherry Bomb Bakery, I was happy to indulge in an eyebrow consultation from LuxLash and a make-up consultation from the fabulous Jeannie Vincent of Fresh.  Jeannie is also a contributor on the ever so fashionable Boston website - New Brahmin.

I had a fabulous time at  the event and even picked up a few Fresh products.  Photos from the event can be found here.  There was also a drawing for a goodie bag and I dropped my name in it but sort of forgot about it.  That is until I got an email from Fresh stating that I was the winner!  Citysearch Boston editor Christine Liu told me that this bag would be drool-worthy so I was so excited to see what I had won.  The bag included:

Michel Nischan's Sustainably Delicious cookbook.  I browsed through it last night and I absolutely love that it focuses on sustainable cooking - using ingredients that are readily available and that respect the local environment.  This is something that will definitely come to good use!

I also got a nifty reusable water bottle from Fresh.  I already have one at work so this one will be the one I carry around the city.  

I also got a gift box filled with some amazing Fresh products including the Soy Face Exfoliant and Cleanser, Umbrian Clay Face Treatment, and a product I already adore - their Brown Sugar Body Polish.  I even used the Brown Sugar Body Polish this morning and my skin feels so unbelievably smooth.

I have a better photo with the actual products but I'm having some issues uploading it this morning.  I'll upload it once Blogger is less finicky.

And finally, I won a gift card (worth $395) for a full set of lash extensions.  I've never done lash extensions before but I am definitely excited to try them out for a special occasion!  

Thanks again to Citysearch Boston, Fresh and LuxLash for such a fantastic prize!  If you're interested in learning more about CitySearch events, apply to be a Dictator here.

Chicken Parm in Vodka Cream Sauce

Tonight I wanted to cook. I had You Won't Be Single for Long Vodka Cream Pasta recipe sitting in my Internet Explorer favorites. Time to bust it out. I decided to pair this distinctively named sauce with a classic favorite, Chicken Parmesan. Below are all the staples needed for this evenings meal. Some recently purchased, others already available in my fridge or cabinets.

That's a good lookin' pile of ingredients right there. Check out the star of the show: the Svedka Vodka. But wait...I still think I'm missing something.
There. Notice anything different?! Now the cooking can begin. First, I busted out my Gourmet Grater. This changes lives. I'm telling you. I can't say enough about how impressed I am.
The original sauce calls for two cloves, but Adam and I love garlic so I went crazy and added three to the mix of olive oil, a tablespoon of butter and two diced shallots.
I sauteed this for about 5 minutes and then added:

1 cup of Vodka.

While the vodka reduced by half which took about 5 minutes, I boiled the water for pasta and preped the chicken. Assembly line style set up I drudged the breast in flour, dunked it in whisked egg and then coated it in a mixture of 1/3 cup Italian breadcrumbs mixed with 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese. I cooked  them in a large skillet with olive oil over medium heat for about 10-15 minutes, turning once.
How's that vodka reduction coming? Time to add 1 cup chicken stock and 1 can crushed tomatoes

The stove-top is bustling with activity! Don't forget to season your sauce with salt and pepper.
In the meantime, chop about 20 leaves of fresh basil, slice your mozzarella, and cut your loaf of bread. Place the mozzarella slices a top the chicken and cover to heat until melted. Shredded mozzarella will also work. Allow the sauce to simmer until the pasta and chicken are just about done. Then stir in 1/2 cup of the heavy cream. When the sauce returns to a bubble, remove it from heat.

Drain your pasta and then toss in the sauce and basil leaves.

Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese before serving and pair with a large glass of Italian red wine. I'm drinking Chianti.

Buttery soft Mozzarella, tender juicy chicken with a light crispy outer layer, and good old al dente fettuccine in a creamy garlicky tomato sauce with a kick - oh yea, you can taste that vodka. The addition of fresh basil enhances the dish ever so.
Like RR said - you won't be single for long! Impress your next dinner date or even your significant other with this dish sooner rather than later.

Spicy Shrimp and Chicken Sausage Stir Fry

On Tuesday night, I was happy to find myself alone in the apartment.  B was off at the Celtics game for a guy's night out and I was ecstatic to be able to get some alone time.  I had some pretty low key plans - laundry, wrapping a housewarming gift, and catching up on some DVR.  I wanted to cook myself something simple but tasty for dinner and I ultimately settled on throwing together a simple stir fry.

Since B doesn't like shellfish, I rarely cook with it when I'm cooking for the two of us.  So when he is not around, I tend to try to incorporate shellfish into my meal.  I have a bag of frozen shrimp on hand so I took out about half a dozen of them and dethawed them.

I then got to work on my other ingredients.  I chopped up half a large white onion that was leftover in the fridge.

I also chopped two cloves of garlic along with some green onion.

We also had two leftover spicy Italian chicken sausages in the fridge, which I sliced up.

I wanted to make the stir fry spicy so I picked a few ingredients from the pantry to work with:

The beauty of a stir fry is how easy it is to cook.  I started out by heating up a pan on the stove with some olive oil.  I first added the chopped onion to the pan.

After the onion had softened a bit, I added some fresh cracked pepper, coarse salt, cayenne pepper and the spicy chipotle rub to the onions. 

I then added the coarsely chopped garlic cloves and the sliced chicken sausage to the pan.

When the chicken sausage had sufficiently browned, I added a few splashes of the Pickapeppa Sauce along with the chopped green onion and the shrimp.

At this point, I lowered the heat and put a lid on the pan.  I wanted to let all of the spicy flavor blend together.  When I opened the lid, the spicy aroma was so intoxicating.  As much as I love spice, I wanted to mellow out the heat so I grated some leftover cheddar cheese on top of the stir fry when I plated it.

I absolutely loved this improptu dish.  The stir fry had a lot of heat and I loved the combination of the green onion, chicken sausage and the shrimp.  I thought that the plate was really inviting in color but I will admit that it probably lacked some crunch.  Next time I would consider adding some water chestnuts or celery to give some contrast without taking too much away from the flavor.  Regardless, this spicy shrimp and chicken sausage stir fry was the perfect dish when I was cooking for one.  I was happy that there was enough leftover for lunch the next day.  The leftover stir fry really soaked in all of the spicy flavors overnight and I think it might have been even better for lunch.

 We all like to cook for ourselves sometimes.  This leads me to ask - If you cook for someone else like a roommate, family or signficant other on a regular basis, what do you like to make when you are just cooking for yourself?

Desserts From My Spring Dinner

I know, I know, you guys could all take or leave the dinner. What you really want to hear about are the desserts. I don't blame you. Everyone knows that's the best part of the meal!

Before my family came up to visit, I emailed my mom and sent my sister a Facebook message asking them their favorite kind of cake and their favorite flavor of ice cream. My mom emailed me a ton of great ideas while my sister wrote back: "Mint chip, chocolate cake, confetti frosting ( the Betty crocker kind :) )." Turns out she meant rainbow chip rather than confetti, and she had to know I would only go grab a canister of frosting as a last resort. Lucky for me, King Arthur Flour sells rainbow chips! (Although I can't find them on the site anymore...)

At first I considered stirring them into the frosting and trying to trick her, but then I let that go and decided to just adorn the tops of the cupcakes with the rainbow chips. I thought they would look nicer that way.

And though she requested mint chip and I had already looked up a few recipes for it, I remembered that she also loves hazelnut gelato and decided to make that instead when I saw David Lebovitz's gianduja straciatella gelato (which basically means hazelnut ice cream with streaks of chocolate) in The Perfect Scoop.

So the girl got Thomas Keller's chocolate cupcakes with chocolate and vanilla frosting and chocolate flakes and rainbow chips and David Lebovitz's gianduja straciatella gelato. So not spoiled!

And don't think I forgot about my mom. I read through her list of ideas and decided to make coffee ice cream with chocolate coffee chunks and a New York-style crumb coffee cake. In my family, we're pretty much in agreement that there should be more crumb than cake. I saw a recipe in a recent issue of Bon Appetit that sounded good to me, but I checked a few other sources just in case. I had just purchased Baking Illustrated, and since Cook's Illustrated rarely steers me wrong, I thought I might find a good crumb coffee cake recipe in there. I glanced through the headnote, and as soon as I read "achingly sweet crumb topping -- and too much of it," I closed the book. This would be one of those rare times I could not trust Cook's Illustrated. The rest of the world knows there's no such thing as too much crumb topping, right?

So I went with the Bon Appetit recipe, which you can find here. Unfortunately, I somehow did not really get any pictures of the cake, but I will tell you that it baked up incredibly moist with an appropriate crumb-to-cake ratio. I'm even thinking of making an extra batch of crumb next time and putting some in the middle of the cake too. It was that good.

And the coffee ice cream was just amazing. We're talking about a coffee ice cream that actually tastes like real coffee -- you steep coffee beans in milk and cream and use the coffee-flavored mixture for the ice cream. We all really enjoyed it, and I found some delicious chocolate coffee chunks on the King Arthur Flour Web site that were the perfect mix-in.

I also made some whipped cream and hot fudge, set out strawberries (which my dad explained I could hull with the end of a peeler for minimal waste -- I left that job to him!), pineapple, bananas, sprinkles, and nuts, so everyone could make sundaes if they wanted or just mix and match cake, fruit, and ice cream.

The best compliment I received that day was from my little brother. He tasted some of the ice cream, and then asked, "Megan, did you make this?" I said yes and waited for a not-so-nice comment, which I'm used to getting from him, since he's in a my-oldest-sister-is-so-not-cool phase.

The whole room went dead silent with shock when he said, "Good job." That's how you know how good the ice cream was.

We ended the day with my favorite game: Apples to Apples.

I'm going to try to get those ice cream recipes up soon. I'm so behind on posts! I guess that's what working 72 hours a week will do to you! But the way I think of it is that while there may not always be time to post, no matter how much you work or how busy you are, there's always time to cook and bake -- especially for the people you love. So even when you don't hear from me, don't think there's not a ton of cooking and baking going on here!

Oh, and I just need about a handful more of you to complete my blog survey, and then I can start analyzing the results and sharing them with you. If you haven't taken it yet, click here to do so. I promise it will only take a couple minutes of your time. Thank you so much!

If someone offered to make them for you, what would be your ideal birthday cake and favorite ice cream flavor?