Category: Side Dishes – Starch

Today was Hubby’s birthday. It also happened to be the craziest night we have this week (doctor’s appt for Boy, piano lesson for Girl), so I needed something that I could get on the table quickly, since I knew I wouldn’t even be home until 6:30. When we were at Costco this weekend, Hubby saw these pre-made Chicken Cordon Bleu and wanted to get them, so I decided to make them for his birthday. Not something that I would ordinarily buy, but he loved them.

To go with, I just steamed some frozen (organic, from Costco) green beans and this multigrain pilaf recipe from this month’s Cooking Light magazine. One of Hubby’s co-workers gave us some special, imported buckwheat groats (kasha) recently and I’ve been wanting to try it. The pilaf was surprisingly good. I expected it to taste more “healthy”, if you know what I mean, but it was actually pretty good. Of course, I was famished at dinner tonight, so that could have had something to do with it.

Getting ready to make the pilaf. From left to right: buckwheat, barley, bulghur.

Hubby’s not a big fan of conventional cakes and detests icing, but he LOVES these cookies, especially straight out of the oven. So….we decided this would be the perfect birthday dessert.

I used store-bought polenta for this (Frieda’s brand, with herbs), but I’m looking for a good recipe to try to make my own sometime soon. Cut it out of the tube and cut into half-inch slices. Fry the slices in a drizzle of olive oil until they’re lightly browned on both sides. Top with good quality (I like Rao’s) jarred sauce (or make your own, if you’re so inclined). Serve over sauteed spinach. This was popular with both Boy and Girl.

I made some more of these today, to put in the freezer. They will likely get served at a meal over the holidays. I decided to “spruce” them up a little and added a bit more chopped sage, cheese and some finely chopped pecans to the filling. I used a fancier, fluted cutter, too, to make them look more festive. I made about 48 (2 trays). I think they’ll freeze just fine and that the extra filling additions will be an improvement, but I’ll let you know!

Next blog entry will be Christmas Sugar Cookies!

I made this savory bread pudding to take to our family Thanksgiving dinner. It’s from the new Cooking Light cookbook. The recipe can be found on their website here.

This is the bread pudding before baking.

Overall, I thought it was a really good recipe and would probably make it again, but for Thanksgiving, it was maybe not the greatest choice, but it was too similar to the stuffing and having both at the same meal was a bit much. I might be tempted, in the future, to add a little chopped, sauteed celery to it and serve this INSTEAD of stuffing, but it’s definitely not necessary to have both. It was yummy, though, and rich. I used a really good parmesan (Reggiano, my favorite), so the cheese flavor really came through. The technique for cubing and then roasting the butternut squash was really handy, too, and I will probably prepare it again that way for adding to salads, veggie sautes, even an omelet or some cooked rice or pasta. The squash that I started with was HUGE, so I roasted all of it and froze what I didn’t need for this recipe, so watch out for butternut squash ravioli or risotto or soup or something on the blog really soon.

I also made a batch of the gnocchi – again – I think that I have them perfected now. They received rave reviews. I also made this salad again – also very well received. I also brought along a batch of the Swedish Spice cookies.

DELICIOUS!!! The gnocchi turned out SO well and Boy and Girl DID enjoy helping. They were VERY precise about their rolling of the dough, the cutting, the rolling on the fork tines. I couldn’t be happier! A couple of things:
—the dumplings require a little more boiling time than the recipe specifies to make them “al dente” enough
—the salt in the cooking water is probably not necessary – we found them to be a tad too salty (just a TAD)
—we didn’t need quite as much flour in the dough as the recipe specified and didn’t need any flour on our work surface at all
—when you’re making this with kids, they will be tempted to make other designs out of the dough. Girl made an Easter Island-type design that she called her “guy”. It’s hard to see in the photo, but this “guy” actually has a nose, mouth, eyes, etc.

She insisted that I boil him, alone, so that he could be identified and consumed, later, individually. This will make probably the most unusual school lunch contribution that I have ever seen (this coming from a woman that actually owns Japanese hard-boiled egg molds in the shape of a fish, a truck, a bear and a rabbit).
—the brown butter gets done much faster than specified, but MAN, is it ever yummy.

These will DEFINITELY be considered for Thanksgiving. I think they would travel fairly well and could probably be microwaved, if you watched them very carefully.

The pork chops were quite good, too. A little pedestrian, nothing too spectacular, but reliable and would be widely accepted. I cooked the onions (intentionally) for quite a long time, until they were almost caramelized. Definitely easy, a good candidate for “busy week-night” rotation, but not one for entertaining or any kind of special event. The gnocchi, however, would be a stellar candidate for that kind of thing…….

I’m making this for dinner tonight – be sure to check back for results. I’ve made the dough and shaped half of the dumplings – I’m saving the other half until Boy and Girl get home from school, because I think (hope?) that they’ll enjoy helping. It’s a little like working with playdough – kinda fun. Hubby is going to buy a camera this afternoon, so I (hopefully!) will actually be able to include a photo! We are invited to a multi-generational big family meal for Thanksgiving (in-laws, out-laws, step-s, ex-es, etc.) and I have high hopes that this will be the dish that I will bring to contribute (and a big VAT of those salad green with pumpkin vinaigrette).

More later…….