Chicken Pot Pie 2

 

Okay, I admit it, we've visited Chicken Pot Pie before.  And yes, that recipe is still one of my favorites.  However, this is the perfect recipe for when you are just too busy to make pie crust, and you want to throw something hearty and healthy together quickly.

 

I apologize for not having a picture of the entire product, but Laela was yanking on my pant leg telling me that she was "STARVING", so chicken pot pie with a hunk cut out is what you get.

 

Easy Chicken Pot Pie (mostly from scratch!)

 

You'll need:

• 1 sheet of puff pastry
• 2 chicken breasts (can be leftover from roasted chicken- that's what I used)
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2 potatoes, chopped
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1Tb butter
• 1Tb flour
• 1 cup chicken broth/stock
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 sprig thyme
• Salt and pepper

Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 425-degrees Fahrenheit.
• Heat a large skillet to medium heat.  Add a few glugs of olive oil.
• Place the onion, carrots, celery, and potatoes in the pan to cook for about ten minutes.  Stir occasionally.
• While the vegetables are cooking, heat a medium saucepan to medium-high heat.
• Add the butter and flour.  Whisk until they are well combined.  Do not allow it to brown. 
• Pour the chicken stock/broth into the pan with the butter/flour mixture.  Whisk until it thickens to an almost gravy consistency.
• Mix in the rosemary (I cut my rosemary with scissors to make it nice and easily diced) and thyme leaves.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
• If using raw chicken, cut it into cubes.  Put it in the pastry dish.
• Add the cooked vegetables, frozen peas, and the chicken stock/broth mixture to the pastry pan.  Gently stir the ingredients together.  They'll meld together well while they bake, so don't go overboard trying to mix everything together.
• Gently unroll the puff pastry over the pastry dish (I usually use a pie pan, but you can use anything you like- corning ware is great for this).  Gently pinch the sides so that they adhere to the dish.  If you have any leftover dough, hand it over to your little one to make fun shapes, and then top the pastry with the shapes.
• If you want to it to have a rich golden texture, use a pastry brush to paint the pastry with an egg wash (1 egg that's been beaten with 3 tablespoons of water).
• Bake for 30 minutes.
• Enjoy!

Fancy Pork Tenderloin Made Easy

 

Do you ever have those moments when you're reading "Real Simple", or your walking through a gourmet shoppe, and you look at the food, and you're like, "*sigh*, wouldn't it be great to have the time to make that?" (Please tell me that I'm not alone in my foodsanity.)

 

If so, this is the fancy dinner for you.  It takes five-minutes of prep, 40-60 minutes in the oven, and then it's time for dinner!

 

Cara's Fancy Pork Tenderloin

 

 

You'll need:

• 1-2 lbs of pork tenderloin
• 1 foot of butcher's twine
• 4-5 slices of bacon/pancetta
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• Salt and pepper

 

Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 425-degrees farenheit.
• Sprinkle salt and pepper all over the pork tenderloin.
• Wrap the bacon/pancetta slices around, or over the top of the tenderloin.
• Place the rosemary on top of the bacon/pancetta wrapped tenderloin.
• Hold the rosemary/pancetta-bacon in place with one hand.  Wrap the tenderloin in twine so that the bacon-pancetta/rosemary stays in place.
• Fill a baking pan with 1inch of water.
• Place in the oven in a medium rack (it will dry out on the top rack).
• Lower the heat to 375-degrees farenheit.
• Cook for 40-60 minutes depending on weight.
• **If you feel that your bacon/pancetta hasn't gotten crispy enough for your liking, heat a skillet to medium-high heat.  Place the tenderloin on the skillet, bacon/pancetta side down, and allow it to crisp up for 2 minutes.
• Feel free to add some mixed veggies (potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions) to the bottom of the pan to cook with the tenderloin.  Yum!
 

Enjoy!

An Expat Onion Dip Craving...

Since we've moved to Italy, I've had these moments that I've begun to call my "Homer Simpson" moments.  Usually they involve a craving for extra crispy bacon.  Bacon!

Okay.  I'm back.  Whew.  You don't know how much you love certain things until it's either completely impossible, or ridiculously difficult to get them.  Tacos?  I figured that out.  Pho?  Strangely, found the ingredients at a local outdoor market.  But my go-to foods when my husband is traveling and I'm single parenting for a week?  Ugh.  Florence doesn't have them. 

Kyle was away last week, and all this mama wanted was some onion dip.  You might be thinking, onion dip?  Who craves onion dip?  ME.  I want it with carrots, peppers, chips, whatever.  Just hand it over.

But here's the problem, Italians don't do pre-packaged food, or food mixes- unless it's pasta.  Is this good for you?  Yes.  Do I live 99.9% of my life this way?  Yes.  But man, sometimes I just want onion dip. And not that crapgasm in a tin that you can buy for 4 euro.  Ew.  No thanks.  I'd rather be grumpy.

Or figure out my own damn onion dip.

So I did.  I looked up a few recipes online, and realized that no sir, I don't have sour cream.  What I do have is a big bag of onions, some worcerstire sauce, a tub of 0% greek yogurt, some garlic, and some hope.  While you might be thinking, "silly American girl, you can't make onion dip in Italy", I'm telling you that you are so wrong my friend.  So wrong.  And I'll furthermore tell you that my shameful addiction to onion soup mix packets, feverishly swirled together with sour cream and barely refrigerated before I devoured it while we lived in the States is o-v-e-r.

This dip is so good, that even when I got sick I was still finding a reason to house it.  Then I made the mistake of telling Kyle that I figured out how to make onion dip, and I had to make more!  Which only made me eat more!  Ah!  And I'm not one of those people that gorges on things.  Ah well, I guess we all have our kryptonite.

So here's the skinny on how to make some amazing, delicious, and internationally ingredient friendly onion dip.

Cara's Onion Dip

You'll need:

• 3 small yellow onions, finely diced
• 2 garlic cloves, diced
• 1 cup 0% Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup, 1Tb mayonaisse
• Garlic powder (3-4 stiff shakes)
• 2tsp worcestire
• Salt and Pepper (to taste)
• Olive oil

Instructions:

• Heat a medium-large skillet to medium-heat.  Add a good glug of olive oil to the skillet.
• Add the onions to the skillet.  Sprinkle a bit of salt. 
• Lower the heat to medium-low heat.  Allow to carmelize for 20-minutes.
• *If the onions seem to be sticking to the pan, add water periodically to continue the caramelization, and to keep the onions from sticking.
• In a medium sized bowl, combine the garlic powder, greek yogurt, worcestire, and mayonaisse.
• Once the onions begin to caramelize, add the diced garlic.
• After the onions and garlic are caramelized, allow them to cool (10-15 minutes).
• Mix them in with the yogurt/mayo mixture.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
• **This tastes best if you let it sit for a few hours, but it will also taste pretty great if you let it set for just a half hour/hour.

Enjoy!

P.S...Did I mention that this is virtually guilt free? ; )

Laela's Biscuits

My child makes the best biscuits ever.  Seriously.  One day, I had all the ingredients out (but not measured), and she just started scooping and "smooshing" the ingredients together.  Let me tell you, my little 3 year old is a superstar, because baby, her biscuits are delicious.

And yes, she wears a Sleeping Beauty dress while she bakes.  Don't you?

Laela's Biscuits:

You'll need:

• 2 cups flour
• 1Tb baking powder
• 1Tb sugar
• About 1/3 cup butter
• 1 cup milk

Instructions:

• Smoosh together with your hands. 
• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Farenheit. 
• Play.  Have fun.  Make goofy shapes. 
• Bake for 10 minutes.
• **Laela also stuffed some with proscuitto and cheese. (You make a pancake, fold the meat and cheese, and then wrap the dough around it.)  YUM.

Here's the snowman biscuit Laela made:

 

 

I cannot emphasize how excited and proud Laela is when she makes something all by herself.  The fact that she made this biscuit recipe up all on her own while we were cooking dinner one night, and that it came out delicious, was fantastic for her self-esteem.  I know it can be messy, and for some it can be difficult to allow anyone into the kitchen, but try it.  Invite your children into the kitchen and allow them to create.  They really might surprise you!

Lazy Le Mont Blanc

Happy New Year everyone!

I don't know about you, but this holiday season has been busy busy busy!  Holiday parties, school activities, and then some much needed family time has kept my family on the go for the last few weeks. 

This Saturday is La Befana, which is the evening before the day of the Epiphany.  In Italy, the night before the Epiphany,  La Befana comes.  The short version of this Italian tradition is this: Befana is an old woman that flies down the chimney and brings treats/small gifts to the good children, and coal to the naughty ones to celebrate the eve before the wise men brought the gifts to Jesus.  You might be thinking, "isn't that what Santa does?"  Italians will argue with you that there is a major difference. Trust me ... don't fight the Italians on this one.  Just accept that you get to leave the lady some cookies and wine and enjoy the extra goodies. 

When the Epiphany is over, my husband is going back to work, Laela back to school, and I will be starting Italian lessons (yay! finally!  I'm going native!)  What's ridiculous, is that I'm most looking forward to my Italian lessons so that I can take some of the cooking classes that I found that are taught by super cute Nonna's who speak Italianglish.  I want to really understand them so that I can share what I learn with you all...and so I can eat more lasagne...

Speaking of lasagne, I had the BEST lasagne the other day.  My buddy Sandro made lasagne that was so good, if I were dropped in a vat of it, I'd eat my way out.  Seriously.  When he forks over the recipe, trust me, I'll be making it for you all!

Until then, let me share this little nugget...

We went to dinner at a friends' house for Christmas.  I was feeling a bit lazy, but I had promised a posh dessert.  What did I make, might you ask?

The lazy person's Le Mont Blanc.

Lazy Le Mont Blanc

You'll need:

• 4 oz good quality chocolate, finely chopped (I used dark chocolate, 50% cocoa- use whatever you have on hand, or what you prefer)
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 10 medium sized meringue cookies (I made my own, feel free to use packaged.)
• (1) 1lb jar of vanilla infused or plain chestnut puree/spread

Instructions:

*The Nigella Express book that I found this recipe in calls for semisweet chocolate and 2 meringue nests (approx. 3in diameter each, from a packet).  I felt that Nigella would understand my lack of desire to traipse out into the rain to switch up from my chocolate choice. 
           As for the meringue, I had just made budino di cioccolato.  Since I had the leftover egg whites, I whipped up an easy meringue.  First of all, heat your oven to 375 degrees farenheit.  In a metal bowl, I whipped 3 egg whites until they had light peaks.  Then I beat in 1tsp cream of tartar and 1/8 tsp salt.  Once stiff peaks were formed, I gently and gradually beat in 3/4 cup of sugar.  Once a stiff meringue (a whitish-silver, smooth textured mixture, that when you pull up on your beater, the mixture leaves a point- like a peak- is what you'll be looking for) is formed, you can be fancy and put the mixture into a piping bag and swirl them into circles, or you can use a spoon to plop them onto the baking sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray.  Place the meringue cookies into the oven.  Turn the oven off.  Do not open it for two hours.  The longer you leave the cookies in the oven, the crunchier they'll be!  Easiest. Cookie. Recipe. Ever.  And people will think you're a rock star for being able to make a fantastic meringue.

Now, back to business...

• Get out 6 pretty glasses, or one pretty serving bowl. 
• Sprinkle the chocolate evenly among the 6 glasses, or evenly in the serving bowl.
• Whip the cream and vanilla.  Once it has formed the consistency of whipped cream, crumble meringue (I saved 6 for topping the mont blanc, but you don't have to), and gently fold it into the whipped cream. 
• **A note on folding.  You are not folding clothes, and it is not the same as folding dough.  If you mix it, the whipped cream will get watery.  You want to gently scrape the sides of the bowl, and gently, gently, swirl in the meringue.  This is not one of those things that you have to get perfect, or that you have to make sure everything is evenly distributed.  Put down the OCD for a minute, and just let it be.
• Evenly distribute and spread the chestnut cream/puree in the glasses.
• Top with cream and a meringue if you have extra, or are feeling fancy.

Enjoy!

Sugar Cookielicious!

 

It's cookie time!  Ky came home from work the other day seeming a bit "American treat" homesick, so I surprised him with some nummy yummy sugar cookies.  It also made my little girl who was pleading to make Santa some cookies pretty darn happy.  (Not sure how Santa's going to get any cookies since my little love and big love keep asking me to bake more of the dough that I froze for the big guy!)

 

Now I've got to give it to you straight, these cookies are AWESOME.  Full disclosure though, the recipe with the Crisco is just a bit better.  The cookies puff up nice and pretty with the Crisco, and if you're not a butter enthusiast, these are just a touch more buttery than they would be with Crisco.

 

This nice thing about these cookies, is that they make about 50 per batch (awesome, right?), and whenever I've been in a "baking pinch", these have saved me from having to devote hours that I don't have to making tons of cookies for that party/event/school lunch that my exhausted, semi-brain dead self may have forgotten about.  Whew.  Also, since I usually do these as 2 inch balls, if you shrink the balls down to 1 inch, you'll have twice as many cookies, and barely any extra work.

 

First, here is the recipe as I would make it in the States:

 

Sugar Cookies

 

You'll need:

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350-degrees Farenheit.
• Whip the butter and shortening for 20 seconds.
• Add the sugar and vanilla.  Whip until creamy.
• Whip in the egg yolks.
• Beat in the baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.  Scraping the sides occasionally.
• Gradually beat in the flour. 
• When the dough is well mixed, shape it into 1 or 2 inch balls.
• Place 2 inches apart on a cookie sheet, and pop them in the oven!
• Bake for 6 minutes.
• Allow to cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes. 
• Transfer to an air tight container.
• Make sure your container is air tight so that your cookies stay chewy!

Enjoy!!

American Sugar Cookies Italian Style

 

You'll need

• 250 grams butter, softened (I could only find salted)
• 2 Cups Sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

Instructions:

• Preheat your oven to 125 degrees Celsius.  (I tried it at a higher temperature and it made the cookies spread too much).
• If you're kickin' it old school like me and don't have a mixer in your beautiful new abode, here's what you do: 
• Put your softened butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs into a nice big bowl.  Wash your hands thoroughly.  Dry them thoroughly.  Dive those hands in and cream that sugar baby!  Squish until it's mixed!  You'll know it's ready when everything is feeling very thoroughly mixed.
• Next, work the cream of tartar and baking soda into the creamed sugar.
• Add the flour, and work that in until it's a nice, sticky-smooth dough.
• Create 1-2 inch balls.
• Place the dough balls 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet.
• Bake for 5-7 minutes.
• Allow to cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheet.
• Place the cookies in an air tight container.

Enjoy!!

 

 

 

Laela wouldn't share!

 

Holiday time!

Holy moly, where did the time go?  Life has been a whirlwind for my family and I lately.  We lived in a hotel for six weeks, and now we've finally moved into our beautiful apartment...that has six broken sinks, one squirting toilet, and a partridge in a pear tree.  But we're finally in our home, and the adventure can officially begin!

You might be wondering what my family and I have been eating since we moved to Florence.  If you guessed pasta, you would be correct-a-mundo.  I have eaten so many different types of pasta over the last 7 weeks, that it would make a carb avoiding American run for the hills...then hit the treadmill, and maybe some bikram yoga.

It's interesting though.  Italian pasta isn't as heavy as American pasta.  Everything is fresh.  Typically, what you're feeding your family is what's in season.  Farm to table is just the way things are here.  It's not a trend.  It's not some next big thing.  It's the way Italians have always, and more than likely, will always cook.

We're talking about a place where the residents choose to maintain the history of their buildings, rather than knock them down and make them modern.  The art, architecture, and food are some of the most important aspects of Italian culture, and unlike many other countries, Italians don't want to change their culture.  It's amazing to walk down streets, or walk into a shoppe, and find out that it's been that same shoppe since 1706.

So while I'm on this Italian journey, bear with me as I learn the proper ways of cooking pasta, pizza, and other Italian specialties during my family and my time in Italy.

Lesson 1:  There is no brown sugar in Italy.

It's the holidays.  I found myself with a hankering for a giant ginger cookie- my most absolute favorite cookie in the whole entire world.  After a harrowing search, I came upon some vanilla (score!), and I had thankfully brought baking powder and baking soda with me from the US (for some reason it's flavored here.  Odd.).  Then I went on a molasses and brown sugar search.  Some friends directed me to one of the local shops that sells foreign goods.  I jumped for joy.  Silly, silly, naive American girl am I.

It looks like brown sugar.  It even smells like brown sugar (sort of).  But it is not brown sugar.  It's fine natural sugar that sticks together like brown sugar.  Sure, it'll be fantastic for some pumpkin muffins (which I also scored, even though I grossly overpaid for my tiny can of pumpkin.), but honey, it won't work for my ginger cookies.

So what's a gal to do?  Amazon baby.  I pillaged that website like it was no one's business.  I did however, have to come up with a solution to make my little girl who was BEGGING to make cookies happy.

So what did I do when I didn't have the majority of the ingredients I usually use to make cookies?  I made make-shift sugar cookies.

Tune in Friday for a tastylicious sugar cookie recipe that's super easy to make in Italy and the USA!