Polenta with Mushroom Sauce

The kiddo has become addicted to mushrooms, which means that we are eating way more mushrooms than before. You simply can't turn down a three year old asking for healthy food! This recipe uses dried mushrooms since that's what I had, but fresh mushrooms would be just as yummy. If you want a vegetarian version, omit bacon, and use vegetable stock.


Polenta with Mushroom Sauce
1 oz dried porcini mushrooms
1 cup chicken stock
4 slices bacon, chopped
2 tblsp tomato paste
2 tblsp olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup sherry
15 oz crushed tomatoes
polenta
1 tblsp butter
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Warm stock in microwave for 1 minute. Add mushrooms to warmed stock and cover with plastic wrap for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, brown bacon in large saucepan. Remove mushrooms from stock. Chop mushrooms. Strain and reserve broth. Add tomato paste, olive oil, and garlic to bacon. Stir and cook until tomato paste melts with olive oil and browns slightly. Add sherry. Reduce by half. Add reserved broth and crushed tomatoes. Stir to combine, cover, and simmer while preparing polenta. Prepare polenta according to package directions. Add butter and parmesan and stir until butter is melted. Serve polenta topped with mushroom sauce.

Peach Sauce

Trader Joe's used to sell (maybe still does) this amazing peach sauce and I developed quite a bit of an addiction to it. I weaned myself from it years ago, but then a couple weeks ago, I picked up some seconds peaches at the farmers' market for the freezer. Then I screwed up blanching them. Just when everything was going to crap, I remembered that TJ's peach sauce. Delicious all by itself, over ice cream, with yogurt, etc.


Peach Sauce
3 lbs seconds peaches cut into chunks
1 tblsp sugar (or more if you want)
1 tblsp lemon juice
Put everything in a saucepan. Heat over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the sauce thickens, at least an hour. Transfer to a glass container and store in fridge. 

Garden Salsa

This is a pretty basic recipe, but we've been enjoying it quite a bit this week. If I didn't kill my cilantro, as usual, I would have put some in, but it was tasty without it.


Garden Salsa
6-9 ripe plum tomatoes, diced
1 small cucumber, cut in small dice
1 small bell pepper, cut in small dice
2 jalapenos, seeded, minced
1 tblsp lemon juice (I would have preferred a little more lime juice, but didn't have any limes)
ground cumin to taste
salt
Place cut tomatoes and cucumbers in a small colander over a bowl. Toss with salt. Let sit for 15 minutes. Drain and mix with remaining ingredients. Let sit for at least an hour to let flavors combine.  

Crazy Green "Pesto"

I've been hearing all about garlic scapes for a while, but since they've never appeared at my farmer's market, I had never tried them. That all changed this week. I picked up two bunches since I think they're only available for a short period of time and I wanted to take a stab at more than one preparation. Tonight, I went with a "pesto" sauce. Wooey! These guys are pungent. Since I have the baby to consider, I tried to tone down the bite of the scapes, but no dice. Here's hoping the baby still wants to talk to me tomorrow!


I think I'm going with roasting the next batch of scapes. What do you think? What do you do with your scapes?


Garlic Scape Pesto
1 bunch scapes (7 in my bunch), cut into 1/2 inch chunks
leaves of one stem of basil (about 10 leaves)
leaves of 3 stems of flat leaf parsley
5 large leaves of spinach
1/2 cup romano cheese
1/2 cup reserved starchy pasta water
extra virgin olive oil
salt
Place scapes, basil, parsley, and spinach in food processor. Pulse until everything is lightly chopped. Add cheese and turn processor on. Stream in pasta water and olive oil until desired consistency is reached. Salt to taste and serve on warm pasta.

Gnocchi

Another score for Mark Bittman! This gnocchi was much lighter than I've ever had in restaurants and, for that, I was very thankful since I could score some seconds and not feel horrible afterwards. Since I used Bitman's recipe, I'm not posting here. I made a simple garlic and olive oil sauce to go with it.


Garlic and Oil Sauce
1 cup olive oil
3 tblsp garlic, minced
1 tblsp fresh oregano, chopped
1 tblsp fresh basil, chopped
1 cup chopped tomato
salt
red pepper
Saute all ingredients together until the garlic is lightly browned.

Farfalle with Tomato and Brie Sauce

I totally stole this recipe from my time at Fazzini's. I forget what it was called, but it only ran on special and I would order it every single time. Good stuff! If you're committed to healthy eating at every meal or are on a diet, you can go ahead and skip this one... For those of you who are left, you can start with any red sauce you like, but I think it's essential to have chunky tomatoes, chunks of garlic, and fresh basil. These can all be added fresh to any sauce you prefer. 


Kevin's review of this was pretty funny. He said the brie gave the pasta a texture that made every bite feel like the best bite of eggplant parmesan. I'm not certain I get it...


Farfalle with Tomato and Brie Sauce
1 package farfalle
1 batch tomato sauce (I made mine fresh with 1 large can chopped tomatoes, 5 cloves garlic, fresh basil, parsley, and oregano, white pepper, salt, and a pinch of sugar)
1 zucchini, sliced (Totally optional. I only put this in because Kevin loves veggies in pasta.)
1/2 small jar pine nuts
1 8oz wheel of brie, cut into chunks with rind removed
Cook farfalle according to package directions. While the farfalle is cooking, heat up tomato sauce and any veggies you're using. Just as the farfalle is coming off the heat, add the pine nuts and brie to the sauce and stir until brie melts. Ahh... Enjoy!

Grilled Chicken with Basil Sauce

The basil at the community garden was looking awesome this week and, since I've put a hurtin' on mine after a month of putting fresh basil in everything, I grabbed a nice big handful. This was meant to be pesto, but upon further inspection I realized I didn't have pine nuts or parmesan cheese and so I went for a simple basil and tomato sauce. I served this with a side of snap peas. 


Grilled Chicken with Basil Sauce
1 package chicken breast
1 big handful basil
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/4 cup olive oil (or more for desired thickness)
1 tomato, diced
salt and pepper
Grill chicken. In a small food processor, combine basil, garlic, olive oil, and salt and pepper until it reaches desired consistency. Stir in diced tomato. Serve over sliced chicken breast.

Chicken with Lemon Butter White Wine Sauce

As you can tell from the name of this recipe, it's going to be pretty straightforward. Any recipe that can list almost every ingredient in the title is bound to be a) really easy to make and b) a crowd pleaser since you're not likely to be serving anything that needs to be picked out or looked at questionably. I would have added capers to this if we had any, which might have detracted from point b with a lot of people, but would be super tasty. I served this with a salad and a side of sauteed broccoli and sugar snap peas. A piece of bread on the side for sopping up the sauce is also a necessary addition in our house.


Chicken with Lemon Butter White Wine Sauce
olive oil
1 package chicken breasts
1/2 cup white wine
juice of one lemon
1 1/2 tblsp butter
salt and pepper
Heat olive oil in pan over medium high heat. Brown chicken on both sides and cook to 165. Remove chicken from pan. Deglaze pan with white wine. Add lemon juice and butter and salt and pepper to taste. Once butter is melted, return chicken to pan and let sauce reduce for 3-5 minutes while you take everything else to the table. Remove from heat and serve chicken topped with sauce.

Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken

I bought delicious goat cheese at the farm the other day and decided to try my hand at stuffed chicken. Let me tell you one thing right off the bat - make sure your chicken is thawed before you start this. I didn't. It made this much more of a pain than it needed to be. 


I thought spinach and sun dried tomatoes would be a good combination with the goat cheese, but I'm sure there are plenty of other delicious options. Change up the stuffing. The method remains the same.


Goat Cheese Stuffed Chicken
2 chicken breasts
handful of goat cheese, cubed or crumbled depending on the consistency of your cheese
handful of spinach, chopped
5 sundried tomatoes (I used the kind that comes packed in oil), chopped


Marsala Sauce
1 tblsp olive oil
1 container chopped mushrooms
2 ounces chicken stock
1 cup marsala wine
1/2 tblsp butter
salt and pepper


Place chicken breasts in between two pieces of waxed paper and pound into thin slices. Salt and pepper chicken. Leaving space around the edges, top the chicken with goat cheese, spinach, and tomatoes. Roll and place seam side down on a baking sheet. Cook at 350 for 20 minutes or until chicken reaches 170 degrees.


While the chicken is cooking, prepare the marsala sauce. Heat the olive oil over medium heat and lightly brown the mushrooms. Add chicken stock and marsala wine. Simmer and reduce sauce by about half. Add butter. Taste and season.

Chicken with Gravy

I based this on Rachel Ray's Chicken with BLT gravy. I made a few substitutions based on what was in my pantry and the fact that I simply refuse to buy tomatoes in the winter. She made it in 15 minutes. I, however, encountered a little issue with my new meat thermometer and ended up taking just a bit longer. 


Chicken with Gravy
4 tblsp olive oil
1 package chicken thighs (Mine were bone in, which led me to need the meat thermometer, which led to this recipe taking longer than expected.)
5 slices bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tblsp flour
1 cup stock (I used beef because that's what I had in the fridge, but chicken would be recommended.)
1 tblsp tomato paste
1 cup frozen peas
2 tblsp heavy cream
3/4 cup white wine
salt and pepper


Split the olive oil between two skillets and heat both over medium high heat. Salt and pepper chicken thighs. In one skillet, place the chicken thighs. Cook on approximately 7 minutes on each side, until the meat reaches 165 degrees. In the other, place the bacon. Brown the bacon. Add the onions and cook until tender. Sprinkle flour over bacon and onions and cook for 1 minute. Add stock, tomato paste, and peas. Stir and bring to simmer. Add heavy cream and stir. Remove from heat. Move the chicken to a serving platter. Deglaze the pan with the wine. Add the wine to the gravy and mix well. Pour the gravy over the chicken and serve.

Pizza

Nothing better than homemade pizza! I toyed with the dough recipe included in my bread machine to bump up the amount of whole wheat allowing me to pretend that pizza is healthy. It worked, but the dough was too wet and needed extra flour when rolling out.

Pizza Dough
2/3 cup water
1/2 tsp honey
1 tsp salt
1 tblsp extra virgin olive oil
1 cup bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 tsp instant yeast
I'm not sure how to translate the recipe to be made without a bread machine, but the machine kneads for 25 minutes and then rises for an hour.

Pizza Sauce
1 14.5 oz can diced tomato
2 tblsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tblsp sugar
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp oregano
dash onion powder
dash crushed red pepper
pinch salt
Combine all ingredients in saucepan. Bring to simmer then reduce to low. Cook 20-30 minutes to reduce. Use stick blender to puree. Let sauce cool in refrigerator before topping pizza.

Cheap Mushroom

I had a craving for mushrooms and the mushroom lady was selling her "old" mushrooms for cheap. She gave me twice the amount I asked for at half the price. Who am I to complain? I figured I would wing it and try a cream sauce.

Mushroom Cream Sauce
1 tblsp butter
1 pint mushrooms sliced
salt and pepper
1 tblsp flour
3/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup half & half
2 oz fontina cheese
Melt butter over medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook until tender. Salt and pepper to taste. Add flour and stir to coat mushrooms. Add milk and half and half. Heat slowly until sauce thickens. Add cheese and heat until it melts. Remove from heat.

I used my sauce in a casserole, but I think it would have been delicious over chicken. I just wasn't able to make anything right away, so casserole seemed the best option.