Foodie Friday

This week I definitely met my goal of eating at home!  Every meal was a chef of the month meal too!

Chef of the Month:

First up was the baked ziti from Molto Italiano.  I did cheat a little and used a store-bought sauce.  I did make the besciamella sauce and chopped up fresh mozzarella.  The results were good but not that different from any baked ziti I've ever made.  Any recipe that involves a tomato cream sauce would taste about like that and it'd probably be easier to make.  Make again? Not with this recipe.

Then came another Batali recipe - Pasta Fagioli.  This came from The Chew: What's For Dinner.  It's essentially a bean and pasta soup and the results were okay.  I could eat it but it definitely wasn't a meal that you'd want to eat again.

So I took a break from Batali and made Michael Symon's Salisbury Steak from Michael Symon's 5 in 5.  Now this was tasty.  I served it with mashed potatoes which was perfect for soaking up the delicious sauce.  It was also quick to make which is kind of the purpose of the book.  The second 5 is for 5 minutes.  It wasn't quite that quick but it wasn't too bad.

So now back to Batali.  I made pork Milanese from The Babbo Cookbook.  I've made this type of dish before and this rendition is one of my favorites.  The arugula works well with the citrusy dressing and the crisp breaded pork chop.  It also makes for a very pretty presentation just don't let the pork chops get too browned.

Pinterest:

I was busy enough with the chef recipes that I only ended up making 3 recipes from Pinterest.  I did make a turkey club sandwich one night but that involved no recipe.  I did use chipotle mayo on it which reminded me that chipotle mayo is good stuff.

I did manage to make:
I made this White Cheddar Beer Bread from How Sweet It Is.  This is a good cheesey dense bread but the beer and cheddar didn't pair quite as well as I expected.  I think I prefer honey beer bread to those with cheese.  Still pretty good though.

Anne Burrell's Focaccia  - I made this a few times before and it is good stuff.  It does take 2 rises but it doesn't require a sponge like a lot of other focaccia breads.  I also like that you can change up whatever seasoning you sprinkle on it depending on what you're serving.  I've used Italian Seasoning, a cheese blend and just plain salt.

Soft Batch Style Chocolate Chip Cookies from Picky Palate - These are good.  Like possibly my new go-to chocolate chip cookies good.  I made them one time before and ended up over baking them but this time I was careful about the sizing of the cookies and the time.  I cheated a little bit because I didn't want to wait for the butter to soften or to get out my mixer so I just melted the butter and let it cool to room temperature.  It worked great.  Seriously these are everything chocolate chip cookies should be.

I was going to make these yummy looking Moose Track Cookies from BruCrew Life but someone (aka my husband) found the bag of mini Reeses cups in the pantry and helped himself.  I'm going to get another bag next time I go to the grocery store and will be making these cookies that day since the Reese's cups have a very short lifespan in my house.