Foodie Friday

Chef of the Month

I had another good week of cooking at home.  I mostly cooked meals from Michael Symons and he didn't disappoint.  

From his 5 in 5 I made Chicken Breasts with Mozzarella, Tomatoes and Basil.  I did a little altering because I don't have fresh basil right now so I used a little arugula that I had leftover.  It worked.  This was a great meal.  I served it with some fettuccine with a little bit of olive oil and a dried herb Italian blend.

From The Chew: What's For Dinner I made Symon's patty melts.  I've made similar patty melts and never had much luck but these turned out really good.  The special sauce is delicious in a thousand island-y kind of way.  I really don't like rye bread so I used sourdough instead.  I know an argument could be made that that's not a patty melt but it was still pretty good!  These were served with a side of oven baked fries cooked Bobby Flay style.   Also, from this book was Pan Seared Skirt Steak with Caramelized Onions.  Another Symon recipe.  My only problem is that my medium-high stove setting is obviously hotter than his medium-high setting because my steak cooked a little faster than he said it would.  The bacon/beer sauce was amazing.  I'll definitely try these again but either with lower heat or shorter time.

I did make Mario Batali's pizza crust from his Italian Grill cookbook.  The crust was good but not better than any other crust I've made.  Balali calls for the crust to be grilled but it was in the 30s that night and I'm not going outside to put anything on the grill and I don't happen to own a grill pan.  I didn't do the pizza in Batali's Margerhita style because I'm pretty sure there would've been an uprising if I'd serve a pizza that was mostly sauce with 1 slice of mozzarella.

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I made 2 different types of cookies this week.  The first is these Moose Track Cookies from Inside BruCrew Life.  I had planned on making these a few weeks ago but someone (J) found the bag of Reese's minis before that could happen.  For future reference this recipe actually requires 2 bags of the minis so I was a little low on peanut buttery goodness.  This was one of those recipes where I didn't see anyway it was going to come together to be even mildly edible but somehow turned into airy chocolate-y cookies.  I probably won't make these all the time since I do have to buy a special ingredient but they'll definitely get remade and next time with the appropriate amount of Reese's.

I also made Andes Mint Grinch Cookies from Six Sisters Stuff.  I've made them at Christmas and called them Grinch cookies.  I've made them around St. Patrick's Day and called them Leprechaun cookies.  This time I made them in January and just called them good.  I did leave out the green food coloring though.  These are buttery minty deliciousness and are easy and make enough to share.  It does require one box of Andes mints to chop up but those are cheap so I don't worry so much about them.  I'm sure in a pinch mint chocolate chips would work though I do like the big chunks of Andes mints in these cookies.