The $100+panini maker is one specialty appliance I refuse to own.  I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t own one if you so choose, but I am applianced out and a good grill pan will work just fine.  Between the stand mixer, the blender, the food processor, the waffle iron, the coffee grinder, the coffee pot, and the number of specialty pans I own, I might explode with another single product appliance!  A good grill pan is a necessity for any kitchen and will present delectable paninis.  If you want to go crazy you could use a bacon press to weigh down your sandwiches or some foiled bricks, or just your arm and a spatula.  How’s that for simplicity?  Not often I recommend you *not* purchasing cookware.  The trickiest part of paninis on a griddle is turning them without spilling your sandwich.  The aforementioned squishing with a spatula will help the cheese to contain the ingredients, and you can do it with a spatula on bottom and a fork on top or two spatulas, but a good set of tongs provides me with the most control.

These delicious summery sandwiches were a perfect weeknight dinner.  With crops of tomatoes (not mine but other people’s) right around the corner, here’s a great way to highlight your seasonal produce.  I roasted a whole chicken to get my chicken breast meat, partially because I think it yields the best, most tender flavor, and partially because I was planning to make tortilla soup later this week.  My roasted chicken recipe can be found here.  If you don’t have the time or energy to roast a chicken, a grocery store rotisserie chicken would work fine, or you could coat skinless boneless breasts in olive oil and salt and pepper and just cook them up on your grill pan.  We’re a family who loves to dip, so I brought out one of our staples a Garlic Balsamic Vinaigrette to be used as our dipping sauce.

I think due to the crusty nature of the bread used in a panini, you could easily make these in advance then pop them in the microwave for a quick cheese melting with great results.  I generally make mine with ciabatta bread, but I had pugliese on hand this round.  Pugliese is very similar to ciabatta, just a little rougher of a crust and a slightly different loaf shape, though I guess that could change based on who is shaping the loaf.  At the end of the day, either will work or some other crusty loaf of Italian bread.

Roasted Chicken, Tomato, Onion, Mozzarella Panini Sandwich Recipe makes 5 sandwiches

Breast Meat from a Roasted Chicken, skin removed and sliced into 1/2 inch slices

3 Roma Tomatoes, cored, then sliced very thin

1/2 a white onion, Sliced paper thin

Fresh Mozzarella, 10 slices 1/8th of an inch thick

10 slices pugliese (or ciabatta) 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick

olive oil

Coat one side of each slice of bread with olive oil.  Preheat a grill pan on medium heat.  Place one slice of bread oiled side down on grill pan.  Top with 3 roasted chicken slices, mozzarella, then tomatoes and onions, followed by another slice of bread oiled side up.  Grill on first side for about 5 minutes until you see cheese beginning to melt, then use a good pair of tongs to flip quickly.  Use a spatula to squish down and continue grilling on second side about 4-5 more minutes.  Be sure to watch grill temp and lower heat if necessary to ensure you’re not cooking any faster than this.  Serve with Garlic Balsamic Dipping Sauce.

Garlic Balsamic Dipping Sauce

1/4 c. balsamic vinegar

1/2 c. olive oil

1/4 c. water

1.5 tbsp fresh garlic, minced

1/2 tsp Murray River salt

8 turns fresh ground pepper

For the vinaigrette, combine vinegar, oil, water, garlic, salt and pepper.  Whisk together then let rest for at least 30 minutes for the flavors to combine.  Whisk again before serving.  Keep remainder in fridge for up to two weeks.

A recent client inquired about mini key lime tarts.  Last Christmas my brother-in-law requested individual tarts with assorted fruit fillings for dessert.  At the time, we laughed at him, but now he’ll probably get his wish.  It seems the universe wants me to learn how to create mini desserts.  Still high off my mastery of molten chocolate cakes prepared in advance, refrigerated, then rewarmed but still molten; I set out to research individual tarts.  I’ve discovered the best pan is the Chicago Metallic 4 Fluted tartlet pan.  You might be able to remove a pastry crust tart from a silicone pan easily, but I think a graham cracker crust requires a removable bottom tart pan in order to preserve your fluting.

Key Lime Tartlet Recipe makes 24 4inch tartlets

2 box graham crackers

12 tbsp sugar

20 tbsp melted butter

7 egg yolks

2 tsp key lime zest

2 cans sweetened condensed milk (14 0z each)

1 c. key lime juice (takes 25-30 key limes if using fresh)

In a food processor, use the steel blade to process graham crackers into crumbs.  Pour 5 c. of crumbs into a large bowl, and mix with sugar.  Pour in melted butter then stir to combine.  Divide the mixture amongst 24 tartlet molds with removable bottoms.  Press crumb mixture to the edges, then bake in a 350 degree oven for 6 minutes.

Combine egg yolks and zest in a large bowl.  Stir in sweetened condensed milk, then incorporate key lime juice.  Stir then fill each tartlet cup almost to the top of crust.  Bake in a 350 oven for 20 minutes, then check to see if center is firm.  Let cool in tartlet pan then push up from bottom to serve.

Enhver krever å finne ekte, moderat kvisemedisiner i det lokale apoteket hjemmefra her naturlig. Du trenger ikke å besøke legen og få resept. Hvor du kan finne det beste tilbudet, spør du, jeg er bare fornøyd med prisene på denne butikken og anbefaler deg. Du trenger en spesiell behandling 4 ° scenen Svært alvorlig form av akne.
When I moved to the great state of Texas, I came from deep in the midwest, with southern roots and southern parents, but absolutely no idea what life had in store for me.  My parents always wanted me to go to school in the south, they would wind up here , dang it, and so would I.  I met my husband the very first week of college at the University of Texas.  He didn’t know he’d become my husband, but I did.  I grew up with a mind for fairy tales and princes and happy endings, not because I was taught to, but on my own because, seriously I was born this way.  Life should be roses and bridge clubs.  I’ve wanted to do a million things in this world, but everything in my dreams had a big family at it’s center.

It’s easy to see now, that I sold my FIL (father-in-law) and SMIL well before I’d ever sold Cory on my merits.  You could never find a family to welcome me so readily as they did.  It’s like they’d been waiting for me for years and were so thrilled I showed up, I could do anything and always appear perfect in their eyes.

This recipe came from FIL, even though it’s not his exact method (my grill leaves much to be desired.)  He’s made it for us many times, and everyone loves it.  Thanks FIL for the great recipe, and I will be forever touched by the way that you accepted me so gracefully without question.

Boston Pork Shoulder Recipe

1 7 lb Boston Butt (Pork butt roast – hard to find, pork shoulder will work)

Lemon Pepper (my mother reads this website so I can’t use expletives.  plan for a jar and a half)

New potatoes, peeled

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.  Rub the pork with the lemon pepper, then add some more.  Cory notes, take some more, then, just keep going.  Place the pork directly on the oven rack.  After an hour, place new potatoes in a 13×9 glass casserole, then spread underneath the pork to catch the drippings.  Let cook for about 3 more hours until an internal temp of 160.  Let rest 20 minutes then slice and serve.

I may be perfecting the ultimate pizza crust recipe for the rest of my life.  I feel it’s critical to document my experiments and successes so that hopefully, I will one day achieve the Agatucci’s glory at home.  I highly recommend you read that article.  It’s about my favorite pizza joint in the town where I grew up.  And now I’m sniffling and totally teary.  Food does that to me.

A bonus for this crust is that this is a no yeast recipe, so need to have yeast on hand, or wait for rising, etc.  This recipe was very good – I’d serve it to guests with absolutely no qualms.  But it’s just not exactly what I was aiming for.  For one thing – I want a super duper thin crust.  This was thin, but it wasn’t as thin as I was hoping.  So for next time, more rolling – to the point of insanity.  In addition, the bottom was crispy – but it could be crispier and be even better.  I’m musing over this and my current thoughts are, perhaps a hot pizza stone would help.  Perhaps an even hotter oven.  Perhaps the aluminum foil I placed below the pizza somehow reflected the heat resulting in a less crisp crust and I should just let my oven get messy.  That one is a question for Robert Shimmin.  I’ll update when I have a chance to ask him and he sends me an answer.

For simplicity, the sauce I used on this pizza was Nona Caputo’s Homemade Spaghetti Sauce.  Who is Nona Caputo?  I have no idea.  It may actually be homemade.  I suspect it came from Jimmy’s Italian Market as it was a part of the gift basket SMIL bought for me at the Dallas Food and Wine Festival’s Silent Auction.  I’d imagine you could use any high quality spaghetti sauce with similar results or just your regular grocery’s jarred pizza sauce.

Extra Thin Crust Pizza Recipe

One of my Blogger friends, Monet of Anecdotes and Apple Cores, had a recipe for Homemade Bread with Olives and Rosemary last week that looked truly delicious.  I don’t often make homemade bread, so my skills are a little rusty, but I was willing to give it a shot.  After conferring for some advice from Monet on timing for my Kitchen Aid, then receiving a few tweets on timing the dough’s rising, the bread made it to the oven.  Off hand, I still really don’t understand the twitter phenomenon.  I’ve had an account for at least half a year, but I only use it sporadically.  For one thing, I’m fairly certain I’m not going to find Kim Kardashian offering me fascinating culinary or lifestyle advice for that matter.  And most of my friends don’t tweet, so who in the world will see my musings or care?  In any case, if someone could please explain this phenomenon to me that’d be great.  Or if you have a twitter handle and you use it frequently and think you provide interesting content, let me know so I can follow you and figure out what in the heck this is all about.

So back to the olive bread.  My reason’s for attempting this bread were three-fold.  One, I still have a large quantity of white whole wheat flour on hand just begging to be baked.  Two, I’ve had a couple of catering related questions on bread, and I want to hone my skills.  And three, SMIL just won a wonderful bottle of olive oil for me (in a huge gift basket) in the Dallas Food and Wine Festival’s silent auction benefiting the Farmers Market.  It’s delicious and perfect for dipping.  And of course the OLIVES.  Unlike my sisters or Monet, I truly believe olives make everything taste better.  Happily, I discovered my MIL has a large rosemary bush in her front yard, resulting in my having all the necessary ingredients on hand!  I used Nicoise Olives in my bread, which in retrospect the slightly tarter flavor of the Kalamata’s would probably be better – or maybe even green olives!  Yum!

Be sure to hop over to Anecdotes and Apple Cores to check out her other super recipes like Cranberry Almond Muffins and Honey Yogurt Whole Wheat Bread !

White Whole Wheat Bread with Nicoise Olives and Rosemary Recipe

(from Anecdotes and Apple Cores)

1 tbsp Active Dry yeast

3/4 c. warm water (105-110 degrees F)

1 tbsp sugar

2 tsp kosher salt

1/4 c. olive oil

2 tbps fresh rosemary, chopped

1/2 c. Nicoise olives, chopped

1 c. All-Purpose Flour

3 c. White Whole Wheat Flour

In a bowl, stir to combine yeast and water for approximately 10 minutes.  In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine sugar, salt, olive oil, rosemary and olives.  Use paddle attachment to stir on low, then add yeast mixture and continue stirring with the paddle attachment.  Add the flour in small batches at a time until combined, then switch to your dough hook.   With mixer on lowest setting, use dough hook to knead dough.  Add additional flour to dough as necessary to let dough form a ball and pull away from the sides of the bowl.  Knead on low speed for 7 minutes.

Coat a glass bowl with olive oil then move dough from stand mixer to bowl.  Rub a teeny bit of olive oil all around the sides of the dough, then cover with plastic wrap and let rise for an hour and a half.  Move bowl to a cookie sheet, then form a loaf shape.  Cover with a damp towel and let rise for an additional hour.  Sprinkle surface with flour and score the top of loaf.  Bake in an oven preheated to 400 for 30 minutes.  Continue to sing Hot Cross Buns over and over again while you wait for your fresh bread.  Dip in olive oil and enjoy!

This tomato tart recipe might also be called a quiche.  It came from a now out of print Williams Sonoma Entertaining Cookbook – where it is deemed a tart.  I’ve made a few adjustments to the recipe – the largest of which is that it takes at least twice as long to cook as the original instructions say.  I first made this quiche for a back yard brunch and play for some neighbors and their children.  It was very well received.  Kathleen has since asked me several times for the recipe.  It only took me 2 years ; ) but I finally remembered which book contained the recipe.

I’ve made this with half and half and I’ve made it with cream.  It works both ways, but the cream is way better.  Anything resembling a quiche exists as the antithesis of diet food.  This tastes delicious and while you definitely shouldn’t eat it every day, pull it out every now and again and savor the taste.  It delivers a wonderful spicy, savory flavor that is surprising, then delightful.  Also can be made using a store bought frozen pie crust for ease!  Can be served for brunch, appetizers, or as a side dish at dinner.

Tomato Tart serves 8-10

adapted from Williams Sonoma Entertaining Cookbook

1/4 c. chilled butter

1/4 c. chilled Spectrum Palm Oil Shortening

1 and 1/2  c. flour

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3 and 1/2 tbsp ice water

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

3 tbsp fresh mint, minced

1/4 lb. Gruyere, sliced into thin slices

4 tomatoes on the vine

1 c. heavy cream

2 eggs

1/2 tsp kosher salt

12 turns fresh ground pepper

In a food processor, combine flour and salt.  Add butter and shortening cut into little pieces.  Use the pulse button to cut butter and shortening into flour until you see no more large pieces.  Through the top, pour the water 1 tablespoon at a time and continue to pulse until dough is just moist.  Move to a floured surface and form a ball.  Roll out with a floured rolling pin into a circle.  Press into the bottom of a glass pie pan, evening out and smoothing the edge.  Freeze overnight.

Core and cut tomatoes into slices.  Using a paring knife, trim the seeds and jelly from the slices, then move to a colander to drain.  Salt tomatoes slices, then let sit for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350.  Remove the now frozen pie crust, and use a spatula to cover the bottom with the Dijon.  Sprinkle with mint, then top with the Gruyere slices.  Arrange tomatoes on top of the Gruyere.  Combine cream and eggs, whisk to beat.  Season cream and egg mixture with the salt and pepper, then pour over the tomatoes.  Bake in oven for about an hour, until filling has risen and firmed and has a golden brown color.

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Key Lime Pie is my father’s favorite dessert, so I made it for his birthday last week.  I’ve been through a variety of bottled key lime juices over the years.  Between being hard to come by and inconsistent, I decided to give this a go with fresh key lime juice.  Key limes are those teeny limes you see occasionally in the grocery or specialty foods market that are just smaller than a golf ball.  Unfortunately, as seems to be the case with all limes in recent years, some of them are totally dry and tend to yield no juice, while others are wonderful.  Unless you have a powerful electric juicer or a super fancy hand held one, I would recommend sticking with the bottled juice.  I hand squeezed 50 of these key limes last Friday and it nearly killed me.  Not to mention that it took forever.  I was telling my sister I’d have to call it the $50 pie if I wanted to sell it.  Squeezing all those darn teeny limes for such a small yield was a beating.  As for the bottled juice – my favorite brand is the Pompeii key lime juice – all the HEB’s in the Austin area carried that brand but I’ve never seen them in the Dallas area.  For the rest of us non-Austinites, I’d recommend the Nellie & Joe’s 100% key lime juice.  I’ve also heard good things about the Manhattan Brand Key Lime juice but haven’t tried it, yet.

Key Lime Pie Recipe

1 and 1/2 sleeves of graham crackers

5 tbsp butter, melted

3 tbsp sugar

7 egg yolks

2 tsp key lime zest

2 cans sweetened condensed milk (14 0z each)

1 c. key lime juice (takes 25-30 key limes if using fresh)

In a Cuisinart or other food processor with large blade, process graham crackers to tiny crumbs.  In a large bowl stir 1 and 1/4 c. of the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter until well combined.  Press mixture into a 9 inch pie pan and smooth to create an even layer on bottom and sides.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 6 minutes.

In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks and zest.  Add sweetened condensed milk and stir to incorporate.  Add lime juice and continue whisking until all combined.  Pour into prepared crust then bake about 25 minutes longer.  Check for a firm center, then remove and cool.  Refrigerate at least four hours, then serve topped with a dollop of whipped cream.

Fish night!  SMIL told me she read somewhere that for perfect skin you should eat salmon, melon, and something else I forgot.  Along with nearly everyone, our family needs to eat more fish.  It’s healthy, it’s quick to prepare, and we are over-chickening in this house anyway.  Luckily I have children that eat and love fish, so fish night isn’t the battle it was in my childhood.  My little guy thinks of salmon as pink chicken.  A word to the wise, if you’re cooking salmon and invite my children over, please note to prepare them an adult size portion or they will consume my entire dinner.  Fortunately for us, über-granni still has a freezer full of wild coho that we are not above pilfering.  Thanks Mr. Richard!

This lemon butter sauce added an extra little zest to the fish, and the lemon pepper was a great choice, too.  My lemon pepper came from a local spice company (Good Spice) I found at the Milestone farmers market.  Coincidentally, the summer season for the Milestone Farmers Market kicks off Sunday the 18th at 4531 McKinney Avenue in Dallas from 11-3.  Last time I went I was the only one there, which was kind of eerie, but they did have local eggs and local butter and other cool stuff.

Roasted Salmon

(serves 3)

3/4  lb. Wild Coho Salmon

grapeseed oil

Lemon Pepper

Kosher Salt

Preheat oven to 375.  Place rinsed and dried coho in a glass pan.  Drizzle with a small amount of grapeseed oil, then sprinkle liberally with lemon pepper and kosher salt.  Roast for about 15 minutes.  To test for doneness, gently poke center of fish with a metal fork, fish should flake and fork will feel just slightly warm when removed.

Lemon Caper Butter Sauce

(Serves 3-4)

4 tbsp butter

2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

2 tbsp white wine

1 and 1/2 tbsp capers

fresh ground pepper

In a skillet over medium heat, melt butter.  Add lemon juice, wine, capers and stir with a wooden spatula.  Dust surface with fresh ground pepper.  Stir and let continue cooking for 2 minutes then serve.

Due to budget cuts and my continual tendency to overindulge at the grocery store, I’m trying to create only recipes wading through what’s currently available in my fridge and pantry.  It’s a great process for spring cleaning as well as creating new space for future bounty.  This recipe is quite similar to a Mediterranean pasta I blogged about last fall, only it requires a few less ingredients.

Pitted Niçoise olives are my very.most.favorite type of olives, but you probably only have access to them if your grocery has an olive bar.  They’re similar in color to Kalamatas, but smaller and with a more earthy, less astringent taste, IMO.  Kalamatas would certainly be an acceptable substitute if they are crowding up your refrigerator, though!  I also prefer Niçoise olives for snacking with a glass of bold red wine.

Montasio Cheese hails from the northeastern corner of Italy.  It has been awarded a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) from the EU ensuring only cheese made from this specific region can bear this name.  It is an excellent grating cheese.  I purchased some for an herbed frittata I made recently, not realizing I already had an unused block at home (hence the necessity for paring back the fridge).  I absolutely loved the flavor of this cheese over hot pasta.  It struck me as slightly less nutty than a parmigianino reggiano with a more smooth and synthesizing flavor.  You could certainly grate another hard cheese in a similar fashion without tracking down the Montasio, but if you have the means, I highly recommend it.

This recipe also used skinnless boneless chicken breasts, since they were on hand.  You could certainly use split breasts if it suits you or even shred the meat from a grocery rotisserie chicken for ease!

Penne with Chicken, Niçoise Olives, Capers and Montasio Recipe

4 oz dried penne

2 skinless boneless chicken breasts

Emeril’s Chicken Rub

grapeseed oil

3 c. chicken broth

3 tbsp pitted nicoise olives, chopped

2 tbsp capers

2 tbsp grated Mantasio

fresh chives, snipped with scissors

Heat a skillet over medium high heat.  Rinse chicken and pat dry.  Season both sides liberally with Emeril’s Chicken Rub then sprinkle on a pinch of kosher salt.  Add about a tablespoon of grapeseed oil to skillet, let warm one minute, then add the chicken breasts.  Brown on each side for about 3 minutes to a nice golden color.  In a sauce pan, bring chicken broth to a boil, then add browned chicken breasts.  Cover and reduce heat to a simmer.  Simmer for 35 minutes, then remove chicken and shred with using two forks.

Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil.  Add penne and cook 10 minutes or to package directions.  Drain.  Mix in shredded chicken, capers, olives and Montasio.  Stir to combine.  If no longer warm, heat in microwave about a minute to serve warm.  Top with snipped fresh chives.