Week 25 Rachel Ray Bacon-Wrapped Chicken with Red Wine Rice with Grapes and Swiss Chard

Dave

We have a story for you. Carl and I went to the grocery store on a Wednesday night. We got our chicken and many other supplies. The next day we go and look for the groceries. They are no where to be found. They ended up being right where we left them. In the trunk of the car! That car had been in the sun all day and the food was beginning to smell. UCK. Linda rescued us and went out and bought the food all over again. Woops. Another learning lesson for the Sladkey-Sladkey team.

The Red Wine Rice with Grapes was my favorite. I loved the grapes put in later after the rice was cooked. It really made a cool texture. I will put that recipe here.

Bring 1 and 3/4 cups of dry red wine to a boil with a bayleaf in it with some 1 tablespooon of Olive Oil. Stir in 1 cup of white rice and reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 15 minutes. Stir in 1 cup halved red seedless grapes and a little fresh parsely and let sit for 5 for minutes.

UMMMM. That was good.

Carl

The rice was OK I didn't love it it was kinda burnt on the bottom so not so appealing yo me. Also the Swiss card was bitter and not so great. Th chicken was my fav because it had a blue cheese and pecan filling and a bacon wrapping and a mustard gravy that mended well. not great my favorite.

Week 22 Chive Risotto Cakes, Wild Mushroom Risotto, Parmesan Roasted Broccoli and Fresh Lemon Mousse

Chive Risotto Cakes

Parmesan Roasted Broccoli

Wild Mushroom Risotto

Carl

Ohhhhhhhh sooo gooood was one of our best meals Delicious savory, sweet, tart! We had risotto cakes which were good cheesy and crunchy. Also we had mushroom risotto which was Omani (earthy 5 flavor other than bitter, sweet, salty, and I think sour I don't know fo sho). Next we had Parmesan roasted broccoli many liked it, i thought it had a scruppcious taste. Lastly we had lemon mousse that was tart and delicious! cant wait till next week RACHEL RAY...were putting on a 30 minute timer to test.

David

Tonight was good. Each item turned out really well. We had four items because it was spring break and we had a little extra time. We had a couple of guests over. Kelly has only been at one other dinner. I don't know if Daniel is really a guest anymore because he is a regular. We also had Nikki Fondell over. Be sure to check out her blog. It is good stuff. My favorite was the wild mushroom risotto. I loved the shitake mushroom mix. It was too much work to make so we did not include it in the blog this week. Another favorite was the chive risotto cakes. The recipe is included below. The broccoli was especially easy. I would definitely recommend that.

Liz gave us a comment saying we need to put the actual recipe's in the blog. Here you go Liz.

Parmesan Broccoli Cut 2 pounds of broccoli and place on a greased tray. Put 2 T of Olive Oil over the top with 2 garlic cloves finely sliced with a little pepper and salt on top. Cook for 30 minutes at 425. After it comes out put 1 T of Olive oil and 1 tsp of lemon zest with 1.5 T of pine nuts, 1 T of lemon juice, and 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. Mix and serve

Risotto Cakes: Cook 1 cup of Arborio rice in 4 Qrts of water for 20 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Add 1.5 cups of shredded Fontina cheese 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt, 2 eggs, 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp of pepper and 3 T of minced chives. Let it chill for 2 hours. Then make 7-9 round cakes and put them in corn flake crumbs. Then fry them in olive oil for 4-5 minutes on each side. They are tasty. Nikki tried putting lemon juice on the top of them and she thought it really tasted good.

Click to play this video

Click to play this video

Week 9 Layered Tortillas, Mushroom Rice, and Buttered Plantains

We cooked for Linda and Kelly tonight.

Home-made chips. Just cut up corn tortillas and salt them and bake them for 30 min.



Layered Tortillas with chicken on top




Carl's Mushroom Rice Dish

Here is the plate with everything.

Buttered Plantains

Carl

this week was Delicious and there was no huge problem! We had tortilla layers that were awesome we had a tomato chili sauce with chicken on top. We also made chips and guacamole. I made my own rice poblano and wild mushroom it was great! can't wait till next week!

David

This meal tasted very traditional. To make the tomato sauce that went on the tortillas, I cut up 5 tomato's and added garlic, onions and jalapeno pepper to a puree. Then I cooked it for 5 minutes. We put this sauce on the deep fried tortilla pieces. It was good.

Carl and I are learning a lot. We talked about it tonight. We are doing things with a lot more efficiency. We are working with each other very well too.

To make the chips, all we did was cut white corn tortillas into fourths. Then salt them. Then put them into the oven for 30 minutes. You might have to turn them. This is an easy way to get low fat chips that also don't cost too much.

We made Rick Bayless's Guacamole as well. MMMMMMM.

Week 6 Rick Bayless and Enchiladas

Carl

Well this week was amazing and very green. We had green enchiladas, green rice, and gucamole. Everything was good except the almond rice cooler was OK but we didn't have cheesecloth so we had some chunks in the drink the flavor was great but the sparse cinnon and rice bit didn't go over to well. On the other hand everthing else was amazing, it had a kick but not to strong (for me) jamie (my sister) had some trouble. Can't wait for next week!(kelly, my oldest sister is coming home for winter break!)

David

Authentic Mexican by Rick Bayless



Chicken Enchiladas

Tomatillo Sauce

Chicken

Cream

Onion

Salt

Corn Tortillas

Oil

Mexican cheese

garnish



Herb-Green Rice with Peas

Onion

Celery

Cilantro

Parsley

Poblanos roasted

Garlic

Broth

Salt

Peas

Oil

Rice



I liked the rice the best. It was had a little kick to it. It was easy to make as well. All you had to do is mix the greens stuff together, and get it boiling, then saute the rice, then bring the mixture to a boil and cook for 15 minutes. Then you will add the peas and you are done.



Our family really enjoyed the tomatillo enchilada's. Carl did a great job of making this dish. He had it for left overs the next day and said he thought this was a keeper.



The rice almond drink did not go over well. It tasted great at first, but ended up tasting a little like indigestion medicine.

Week 5 Rick Bayless Time

Carl
Introducing are chief Rick Bayless is an honor. He's has won numerous awards for his cuisine like top chief masters winner on Bravo TV also Rick has his own TV show (Mexico One Plate at a Time). Amazingly enough I had an oral procedure and the dentist that did it was Rick Bayless dentist! Anyway his food is definitely matches up with his profile EXCELLENT. WE made crispy fried tacos, guacamole, tomato stained rice, and flan. Starting out my favorite was the taco there crispy outsides and fresh delicious insides are the perfect match. All with the tacos the guacamole was outstanding it watched well with the tacos. The rice was OK not great but, the flan and caramel was amazing soft and delicate the smooth custard was definitely worth the effort.

David

Wow, this was fun to cook MEXICAN today. Carl and I have been looking forward to cooking with Rick Bayless's recipes for a long time. We really admire him as a cook. We watch many of his shows.

We had two guest cooks with us today. Jamie Sladkey and Daniel Rische. Both did a terrific job. We couldn't have done it without them. Jamie made the guacamole and Daniel cut put some tomato and also did a lot of dishes. Thanks Jamie and Dan.

First of all, Carl did a great job of cooking the flan. I really thought he burned the caramel, but it was very good. Needless to say, I'm proud of him.

I was very excited about the rice dish. It was a vegetable rice dish with peas and carrots. The family thought it didn't have enough taste. I think the problem was that I didn't cook it very well.

The Taco's were out of this world. It was very interesting to me to soften the tortillas up before we put the meat mixture into them. Rick Bayless suggests a little oil in the pan and then searing them for just a few second on each side. It was really a nice way to make them not crack. Then we put some oil in the bottom of the pan and fried them for a few minutes. They came out a little like taquitos. Of course we bought the Frontera Grill "Rick Bayless" chips.
Wow was I full after that meal.