Oh so easy Apple Tart

Last night, I threw together a very easy apple tart.  Of course I wasn't in the measuring mood, and I'll up date this with the correct measurements when I make it again, but if you aren't afraid to eyeball it, then you have to try it now!
You'll need:
one pie crust 
about 1/2 a cup of sugar
about 1/2 Tbls of cinnemon 
4 apples- peeled, cored, and sliced to about 1/4 in slices
about 4 Tbls of apricot jam
2 Tbls of water
1-2 Tbls of butter

Directions:
1. preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Toss the apples with sugar and cinnemon
3. On the stove, heat the jam with the water until warm and melted
4. Put the apples into your pie crust
5. pour the jam and water mixture over the apples
6. divide the butter into about 5-6 pads and set the pads around the top of the tart
7. Bake for 35 minutes or until the crust is golden brown

Chicken Milanese with buffalo mozzerella

Season Chicken with salt and pepper

Bread it with first flour, then egg, then bread crumbs.

Pan fry in a little bit olive oil until the chicken is brown on both sides and cooked through.

Squeeze a wedge of lemon on both sides.

Over with a couple of slices of buffalo mozzerella.

Bake at 350 until the cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

Chef Louis

My number one food critic....

Grilled Mahi Mahi with a Chimichurri Sauce

Grilled Mahi Mahi, corn on the cob and grilled bell peppers

I'm not a big fish eater, but I know how wonderful it is for your body, so I do try to find ways to eat it that I like.  The meat was moist but not mushy, and the Chimichurri covered any taste of fish that there might have been there.  I hope you enjoy it.

Chimichurri sauce:
1 cup of olive oil

2 lemons juiced

5 cloves of garlic, minced

2 shallots, minced

1 tbl spoon of each of the following herbs, chopped: parsley, basil, thyme, and oregano.

Season with salt and pepper.

Fish:
Place fish fillets on their own sheet of foil.  Seasoned them with salt and pepper, then spoon chimichurri on both sides and closed the pouch.  Grill them in the foil for about 8-10 minutes or until the fish is cook through.  Serve with extra chimichurri sauce.

A pilgrimage of pesto

         A few days ago, I made chicken ravioli with a pesto.  I made a little too much pesto, so I saved it with the hope of using it again.  Well, a few days later, Sean was craving spaghetti and meatballs.  I pulled out some frozen tomato sauce that I had made about a month ago and got started on my normal recipe for meatballs.  Then it hit me, I should add the left over pesto to the meatballs.... very yummy by the way.  At the end of them meal, I still had about four meatballs left.  The next night, I decided to make eggplant parmesan french bread pizza.  I thinnly sliced my eggplant on a mandalin then I pan fried it in olive oil.  I didn't bread it because it was going on bread, so just a dash of salt was all it needed.  As I layered it on the bread and covered it with the left over tomato sauce, I thought that those left over meatballs would be awefully nice on it too, so I sliced them and piled them on to my pizzas.  Then I topped it with mozzerella cheese and baked them in the oven at 375 until the cheese was starting to brown.  Sean's comment was, "This might be my favorite dinner that you have ever made."  He's so easy to please, I don't know why I bother with anything fancier than this!  

Oh one more thing, Jess keeps pestering me for the pesto recipe, but I really don't measure anything so here it is very roughly...

Throw the following into a food processor:

-big handful of fresh basil
-big handful of fresh parsley
-3-4 cloves of garlic (depending on how garlicy you like it)
-about 1/2 cup of cashews  (most people use pine nuts, but I love cashews, and I always have them in the house)
-1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
-salt and pepper
Turn on the food processor and slowly pour in extra virgin olive oil until the pesto is smooth (probably about 3/4-1 cup).

Escarole and Tortellini Soup with Italian sausage.

Escarole and Tortellini soup with Italian sausage.

Very Easy to make.

You will need:

1 lb of Italian Sausage out of the casings

1 about a head of Escarole depending on size

8 oz of tortellini

1 yellow onion diced

1 TBLS of minced garlic

48 oz of beef broth

salt and pepper

1. Remove sauage from casing and cook until brown with onion and garlic

2. Add beef broth bring to a boil

3. Add and cook tortellini for about 4 minutes

4. Add escarole and cook until wilted

5. Season with salt and pepper.

6. Garnish with parmesan cheese

weight loss foods

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/41903/top-weight-loss-foods-for-2010/

Check out the best foods you can eat to help you lose weight!  My favorite of course is the full fat cheese!!!  Apparently the protein it supplies to your body is really good!  I'm so thankful for that.  The French knew all along!  Others that made the list were grapefruit, coffee, pork chops, salmon, apples, eggs, beans and milk.

"It's good flour!"

Note to all, when drenching veal scallopinis in flour, don't be afraid to pan fry them well.  I made the mistake of removing the veal from the oil before it was browned on all sides because I didn't want to overcook it.  It was so thin!  I justified taking it out because I was making a red wine reduction and was going to put the veal back in the sauce to cook for a few minutes at the end.  While the sauce was amazing, the veal was well edible. OK, let me be honest, it tasted like flour and was a bit pasty too... Sean's so sweet, he wanted to make me feel better so he said, "It's good flour at least."  Hahaha.... Just the encouragement that I needed. 


Any hints to cooking veal are very welcome!

New Year Resolutions yuck!

This time of year, we all feel the pressure to diet, so help me with some of your low fat, but still so yummy recipes!  It's not fair that "French Women Don't Get Fat;" they eat bread all day long, wine with every meal and cheese for dessert!  I guess I need to move there... now I just have to get my husband on board.  Any suggestions?

Ideas for veal?

I have a few pieces of veal scallopini that I was going to make for dinner tonight, do you have any ideas??

Easy Tostada

Using just what I had in the house and some left overs, I made an amazing tostada.  Like I wrote in my last post, last night I made chicken and black eyed peas for a New Year's Day get together, so I used both of those in this tostada.

To make 1 tostada, you will need:

• 1 cup of pulled chicken breast, cooked
• 1/2 of a small onion finely sliced
• 2 tsp of lime juice
• 1/4 tsp of paprika
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• salt and pepper
• about 1/2 cup of beans- I used my left over black eyed peas which were already seasoned, but black beans or pintos would be great too!  (you might want to season them up with cumin, garlic, salt, pepper and paprika) 
• 1 tortilla
• about 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
• a few drizzles of olive oil
• 1/2 tomato, sliced
• 1/2 avocado, sliced
• a tbls of sour cream

You will need two medium sized frying pans.  Drizzle a bit of olive oil in both pans.  In one pan, saute onions until soft.  In the other pan, pan fry the tortilla about 5 minutes each side on medium heat.  It will start to brown and bubble up a little.  When the onions are soft, throw in the chicken, beans and spices on low heat.  Because the chicken is already cooked, we just want to heat it up, not over cook it.  Add the lime juice, salt and pepper as well.  When the tortilla is starting crisp up, sprinkle on the cheese and allow it to melt.  Remove the tortilla and place it on a plate, top it with chicken, beans, and onions.  Garnish it with tomato slices, avocado, and sour cream!  Enjoy and buen proviecho!

German Chocolate Cake... From scratch!

Today I made a very traditional New Year's Day fare, collard greens, black eyed peas, corn souffle, chicken in a honey balsamic glaze, and Sean slow smoked a pork butt and sausage!  Yummm...  To top off the meal, I decided to undertake making a German chocolate cake from scratch because I wanted to see if it would taste any different from my usual boxed cake mixes.  Let me tell you, baking is a lot of work, I have a new respect for bakers and pastry chefs!  Explain this to me, why when you make a cake from scratch do you have to separate the yolks from the whites, but when you do a box mix, you can just throw the whole egg into the mixure.   After separating my eggs, melting a chocolate bar into water on the stove, alternate adding the buttermilk to the flour, whipping my egg whites into fluf, blah, blah, blah.... The cake was AMAZING!!!!  IT WAS REALLY BETTER AND WORTH THE WORK.  I can't take credit for the recipe, but if you are interested, it was a Better Homes and Gardens recipe. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!  Keep sending me your recipes.