Chicken Marsala

I love chicken marsala, especially from Buca di Beppo. I found this veal scallopine ala marsala from Mario Batali, made a few adjustments and the sauce turned out pretty close! One thing I would do differently next time is not to season the flour because it didn't add much to the chicken. I also used white mushrooms instead of oyster mushrooms, and left out the thyme (because I forgot even though it was sitting on the counter). On the side were spaghetti with browned butter and mizithra cheese (see below), and sauteed zucchini and yellow squash.

Mizithra Cheese

This takes just about no time to prepare. The original idea came from and Old Spaghetti Factory favorite: spaghetti in browned butter, topped with mizithra cheese. In the past, I bought this Greek cheese from the restaurant (offered grated in little brown bags for around $6). I found some (ungrated) at Pavillions, which is a lot more convenient than driving all the way out to the OSF in Duarte (the nearest location). It's handy to have around and very easy to make!

1. Boil the spaghetti noodles.
2. Meanwhile, grate about 3/4 - 1 cup (non-compacted) Mizithra cheese.
3. Chop about 1 tbs of parsley.
   
4. Brown 1/2 stick (or to taste) of butter.
5. Add 1 clove of finely chopped garlic (I used my newly purchased garlic press) when the butter is almost done browning.
   
6. Toss cooked spaghetti in the browned butter and plate. Top with Mizithra cheese and parsley.
   

Quick Asian Dinner

This is the first time I cooked in about a week. Things have just gotten really busy here with finishing the last 2 meetings of my Fall class and it's finally over! We had a few uncooked seafood leftovers from Mom's birthday hotpot on Sunday so I tossed them into some boiling water, plus a can of corn kernals, 2 beaten eggs, a handful of green onions, and topped it off with Korean seaweed for this soup. On the side were leftover Thai fried rice and ready-made pot stickers that I fried up. Altogether, it must've taken about 20 minutes!

Broccoli Galore

Two dishes of broccoli: 1. Chicken & broccoli casserole, 2. Broccoli salad.

Chicken & Broccoli Casserole. An easy but time-consuming dish...always a hit though. I don't have exact measurements, just get a casserole dish and make layers of the following:

• bottom - rice
• 2nd - steamed or blanched broccoli
• 3rd - boiled chicken in bite-size pieces (season the water w/ salt)
• 4th - 1 or 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup + (optional 1/2 cup mayonnaise)
  
• 5th - bread crumbs toasted in butter
• top - shredded cheese

Assemble all layers except for the cheese and bake for 40 minutes. Remove then add the cheese and broil until the cheese is melted. Remove and wait a few minutes before serving because it gets HOT!

Broccoli Salad. This salad is amazing. I had it at the Souplantation and couldn't get enough. Fortunately for me, I found the recipe online. I also found one from Paula Dean on Foodnetwork.com and liked some of her ideas, so I took a few and adjusted the Souplantation one. Here is the original recipe and the changes I made (in parentheses), including a few of my own (since I had some extra stuff on hand).

Joan's Broccoli Madness

• 1 bunch uncooked broccoli, cut into florets
• 1/2 cup crumbled cooked bacon
• 1/2 cup cashews (substitute w/ spicy/sweet pecans from Trader Joe's)
• 1/3 cup raisins (substitute w/ 1/2 cup dried cranberries)
• 1/4 cup (1/2 cup) chopped red onion
• (grape tomatoes)
  
• (optional on the side pre-shredded cheese)
  

Dressing

• 1 cup mayonnaise (1/2 cup)
• 1/3 cup sugar (1/8 cup)
• 2 tbs apple cider vinegar (1 tbs)

Mix the broccoli, bacon, cashews, raisins and onions in a large bowl. In a second bowl, beat dressing ingredients together gently until smooth.

About 10 minutes (30 minutes) before serving, toss the salad with the dressing to allow flavors to meld. Serve on chilled salad dishes.

Camping in Big Sur

This is pretty much what we usually eat on our camping trips, with variations on protein and veggies: rib-eye steaks, corn on the cob, zucchini. One thing that I did differently with the corn this time was to boil it first then finish off by grilling, which saved time and also kept the corn from burning. I also grilled up a couple of hot dog buns for our dinner rolls. We were very happy with how the food turned out. The I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray bottle is amazing for travel.

Meatloaf

This is my first meatloaf and the reason why I started this whole blog. It's about time I take charge of cooking my own meals, and I wanted to document the successes and failures to make improvements, remind myself what I can make, and to share some tips with you out there (and your tips are welcome as well!).

I used Anny's recipe (thanks, Anny). Yum!

As you can see, we had a little fun making this meal. We call him "Meat Man". The twist: one sweat Italian sausage hidden in the middle of the loaf, although it's a tad hard to see in the photo.