Happy 2014!!! It's a Snow Day Today!

It's so embarrassing that I haven't added a single post on here since last January.  Today we are snowed in here in New York City and most of the surrounding areas.

I came across a post that I had put together awhile back on my old blog (Multi-Tasking Momma) and thought it might come in handy for those parents who need to keep the kiddies entertained while they are stuck inside.

Yay, Snow Day ... Now What?

School is closed for the day.  The kids are overjoyed.  Time to get bundled up and head outside for some good old fashioned winter fun.  Snowball fights, build a snowman, build a snow fort, make a snow angel.  All of that should last, if you're lucky, about an hour and a half.  What to do after you've come back in, warmed up and had your hot chocolate?  Most likely, the kids will plop themselves in front of the television or start playing video games.  If you're looking for something else to keep the kiddies entertained, why not give one or more of these indoor activities a try?  Most of these activities are geared towards younger children from around 4 - 10, but to be honest, my almost-18-year-old would gladly do any of these!

Picnic Lunch– You have to feed them anyway ... Pretend it’s summer and have a picnic lunch on a blanket in the middle of the living room. Bring out  the stuffed animals and even place a few potted plants if you have them around the blanket for a touch of the outdoors.

Sock Puppets – Go through the sock drawers for a handful of orphan socks. Get some yarn, buttons and big fat needles. Have fun creating wacky puppets and then put on an equally wacky puppet show.

Snowflakes – No two snowflakes are alike. Bring out the white copy paper and a few scissors and have a blast creating your own snowstorm indoors. Hang them around the house for a winter wonderland both inside and out.

Write a book - If he or she is old enough to sound out and write their letters, they can spell the words phonetically and write it on their own.  Then they can draw pictures to go with the story.  If they're too young to write for themselves, they can narrate and you could do the writing for them.  When its all done, bind it by punching holes in the pages and tying them together with yarn.  Or put it in a report cover if you have one handy.  Be sure to write the date somewhere on the book.  Over time your child will have their very own collection of books that they authored.  Not only will they serve as keepsakes, but they'll be able to see how their writing skills (spelling, grammar, etc.) has developed over time.

TP Bowling -  Save those cardboard TP rolls and arrange them like bowling pins on one end of the hall.  Stock up a few balled-up socks on the other.  Bowl or throw at the “pins,” and you’ve got an indoor bowling alley.

Scavenger Hunt - Hide 5-10 objects in random places and make a list for your child to find them.  Clues for younger kids are helpful.  To make it challenging for older kids, do a "psychic" scavenger hunt.  In this variation, you give a vague description of the item and let the kids figure out what it is.  If they bring the correct item, they get a point.  Hiding the objects for this isn't necessary.

Puzzles, Word Games, Board Games - you could never go wrong with these oldies but goodies.  I've never heard of someone having a miserable time while playing Candyland or Chutes and Ladders.

Chicken with Spinach and Mushrooms in Sherry Gravy

Sorry ... do to an error on Google+, all of my photos from my earlier blogs have disappeared.  

I went to a local place for lunch last week.  On the daily lunch special was a dish listed as Chicken Venice.  It was pan seared chicken cutlets with spinach and diced tomato in a sherry sauce served over linguini.  Sounds yummy, right?  Wrong.  The chicken was bland, the tomato just was too acidic for the sherry sauce, and the linguini was way past al dente.  I couldn't help but think how good this dish could have been if a little more attention was paid to it and its flavors.  So, of course, the next day I set forth to create my own version.  I'm not sure if Chicken Venice is the correct name for this since when I looked it up, I found several different dishes, all of them different.

Maybe someone can create a clever name for my recipe.

Ingredients:

4 boneless, skinless chicken cutlets, sliced in half horizontally into thinner cutlets
4 cups of fresh baby spinach, washed (a pkg of frozen cut leaf spinach, defrosted and squeezed of excess water could be used in a pinch)
1 10oz pkg of white mushrooms, sliced
2 tablespoons of chopped garlic
1/2 cup of sherry or marsala wine
2 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of cooking oil (veg, canola, etc.)
1 cup of chicken broth
8 slices of fresh mozzarella (you could use regular packaged mozzarella or any melting cheese, but the fresh mozzarella really makes a difference)
Salt and pepper to taste

Season the chicken cutlets with salt and pepper and then dredge lightly in flour (not shown).

Pan fry cutlets on medium heat until golden brown and cooked all the way through.  About 4-5 minutes each side.

Drain cooked cutlets on paper towels and set aside.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in skillet and add the chopped  garlic (not shown.)  Sautee until the garlic softens but do not let it brown.

Add sliced mushrooms, season lightly with salt and pepper (the salt will help to draw out the water in the mushrooms) and cook until softened and the mushrooms begin to brown light around the edges.

Add sherry and chicken broth and bring to a steady simmer.

Add the other tablespoon of butter and let it melt and mix well.  This gives the sauce a smooth and shimmery consistency.

Add the chicken cutlets and heat until warmed through.  Then remove the chicken to a platter.  I served it over rigatoni, so I placed the cooked chicken on the pasta.   Top the chicken with the sliced mozzarella (not shown).

Add spinach leaves to the mushroom gravy.

Cook until the leaves begin to wilt.

Pour the hot mushroom and spinach sauce over the chicken in order to melt the mozzarella.

As I mentioned, I served this over pasta but it would be excellent with rice or roasted potatoes or just with some crusty bread to mop up all the gravy.

I'm On A Roll ... Coconut Roll, That Is

Sorry ... do to an error on Google+, all of my photos from my earlier blogs have disappeared.  

Baking has never been my strong point, but I think there's something about the holiday season that makes you want to get the oven cranked up.  Those pie scented candles just don't quite replace the warm smells of something baking in the oven. 

I decided to give coconut rolls a try because they don't require a whole lot of ingredients and the dough is similar to a bread dough.  And one of the few things I can bake is bread.

You could add the food coloring or leave it out. I like it because its festive looking and the red food coloring scare is so 30 years ago.  The sweet dough can be used for a number of different recipes, like cinnamon rolls.

All in all it came out pretty well and its impressive enough to serve at Christmas brunch.

Here's what you need:

Multi purpose sweet dough:
1 cup of milk
1 tablespoon yeast (1 packet)
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs beaten
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Filling:
2 cups of sweetened grated coconut (The recipe I saw called for fresh coconut that needed to be grated and mixed and cooked with sugar, but this was so much easier and yummy as heck)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons of melted butter or margarine
Food coloring (optional) - about 3 drops, depending on how deep you want the color

Here's what you do:

Scald the milk (heat it but don't boil), add salt, sugar and yeast.



A regular package of yeast has one tablespoon worth

Add the butter or margarine

Beat two eggs and add to the bowl

Add about 3 cups of the flour and mix with a wooden spoon to form a dense batter

Then add the remaining flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, to form a firm but elastic dough.  Lightly grease the bowl and leave the dough covered for about an hour and a half until doubled in size.  Most bread dough will rise in about an hour, but since this dough is dense with the milk and egg, it takes a little longer.

Drink a mimosa while you wait for the dough to rise.  This one had orange mango juice.  Yum!

Punch down the dough and divide into two even sized balls.  These are obviously not even.  Oops.

Roll out one of the dough balls to a rectangle of an approximate size of 9 x 13 inches.  I know this looks more like an oval than a rectangle, but you get the gist.  Brush the dough with the melted butter or margarine (I forgot to take a picture of this)

Place the shredded, sweetened coconut in a stainless steel or glass bowl.  This way it doesn't become stained with the food coloring.

Add cinnamon and about 3 drops of food coloring and mix well

Sprinkle the coconut all over the dough.

Fold a small flap of dough over the coconut

Now fold small flaps on the top and bottom, like you're rolling a burrito or an egg roll.

Then roll up the rest of the dough

Place on a greased baking sheet or (as I've done here) on a parchment lined pan.  Cover and let it rise for a second time.  About 35 - 45 minutes.  During the last 10 minutes or so of the second rise, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes until golden.  This got a little darker than I would have preferred, but oh well.  I brushed it with a little melted butter when it came out of the oven and it was fine.  Let cool on a rack for about 20 minutes.

Using a serrated bread knife, cut slices off the roll.  I cut mine on an angle, but you can cut into straight slices if you prefer.

This is what the roll looks like when sliced.

After I finished slicing up the whole roll, I left them to cool completely on a wire rack.

And voila!  Here's the finished product.  Good with coffee or a second mimosa!

Holiday Cheer (or lack thereof)

Bah humbug!  It seems to be all I'm hearing these days.  Ok, maybe no one is actually quoting Dickens, but so many people are complaining about how much they hate the holidays.   Come on people, it's the most wonderful time of the year!

I think a lot of it comes from the overwhelming amount of commercialism that's become attached to the holiday season.  Each year there's more and more pressure to give "the perfect gift"; bigger, better, faster, cooler.  I don't remember there being so many commercials for high ticket items like cars and electronics when I was a kid. And I don't know anyone who ever opened their front door on Christmas morning and had a $70,000 car with a big red bow on it waiting in the driveway.

I've long used the phrase that "my family put the 'fun' in dysfuntional".  Yet somehow, during the holidays, we were somewhat normal.  My sisters baked and cooked in the kitchen with my mom, my brother would take leave from the Navy to be home, my other brother (whom we rarely saw) would come over all dressed in a 3-piece suit with his lovely wife.  Aunts and uncles, cousins and neighbors visited.  My dad would be there Christmas morning to open presents with us.  There was one year that my dad traveled all through the night to get there before I woke up.  I went to bed crestfallen that he wasn't there.  As soon as I woke up, instead of checking my Christmas stocking as I normally would, I raced to my parents' bed and was amazed to see my father sleeping there.  It was a Christmas miracle!  I don't remember any present that I received that year.

Saying "Merry Christmas" to someone would never be thought of as offensive or politically incorrect.  I am Hindu.  I grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood and my best friend in high school and for many years after is Muslim.  We all celebrated the holidays together.  It wasn't a religious holiday for us, but it was sacred.  It was the time for enjoying food and telling stories and shopping and ice skating in Rockefeller Center.  It was the time for being with friends and family.  

Years ago I read something where Caroline Kennedy spoke about her Christmases as a child.  She didn't remember the toys under the tree.  She remembered the walnuts and oranges that her mother filled their stockings with.  It was a Victorian tradition that had been followed in her family for many generations.  What she remembered the most was that after all the presents had been opened, the family sat around cracking walnuts and peeling oranges as they laughed and talked.  

This Christmas, don't drive yourself crazy searching for the perfect material gift.  It doesn't exist.  Focus on creating a perfect memory with your loved ones.

Chicken Sausage Breakfast Sliders

Sorry ... do to an error on Google+, all of my photos from my earlier blogs have disappeared.  

I had a bunch of leftover fresh herbs from Thanksgiving and didn't want them to go to waste.  There was thyme, parsley and sage.  The parsley and thyme I use frequently, but not so much with the sage.  So I thought "What to do with all the fresh herbs I have leftover from Thanksgiving?"  And it dawned on me "Make chicken sausage patties, of course! Duh!"  I made them smaller, topped them with egg and cheese and zip zap zoom, yummiest breakfast sliders ever!

You could use chicken or turkey for this.  I had about a pound of ground chicken leftover from a 3-pound package.  I used about 2/3 of the package making chicken lettuce wraps as an appetizer for Thanksgiving.  I thought I would use it to make pasta sauce later in the week but my kids woke up starving the day after the biggest eating night of the year and didn't quite want turkey leftovers.  Now that I think about it, we didn't make turkey sandwiches until Monday morning to take to school and work.  Anyway, here's the recipe, feel free to use any herb or mix of herbs you have on hand.

Here's what you need:

For the sausage
1 pound ground chicken
1 tablespoon finely chopped sage (or 1 tsp dried)
1 tablespoon finely chopped thyme leaves (or 1 tsp dried)
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley (I don't recommend using dried parsley.  I think it smells like fish food.)
2 teaspoons finely minced garlic
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1 teaspoon paprika (to add a little color and heat - optional)
1 tablespoon of or cooking spray

For the eggs
4 large eggs
1/4 cup heavy cream
2 tsp oil or cooking spray

Other:
Small rolls (I use Kings Hawaiian which is found in most supermarkets)
Cheese for topping.  Use any kind you like.  For this I used regular American slices that I cut into four squares each.

Here's what you do:

Here are the herbs I used.  (Left to right) sage, thyme and parsley

Place your ground chicken in a stainless steel  or glass bowl.  Wanna know why?  I'll tell you at the end.

Finely chop all of your herbs.  If you're using dried herbs, move on to the next step.

Add the herbs, salt, pepper, garlic and chili flakes and  paprika (if you're using them).

Mix well until all of the ingredients have been well blended.  Do not over work the meat.  The patties will taste like rubber.

Here's my fancy slider maker.  I took the infamous red beverage cup and cut the bottom off.  About 3/4 inch will work.  Just trim it so that the patties aren't lopsided.  If you don't have any of these laying around, you can just form the patties by hand.  I use this as a mold so that all of the patties are uniform in size and thickness.

Line the mold with a piece of plastic wrap.  This will keep the meat from sticking inside of the cup and  will make it easy to lift the slider out of the mold.

Add the chicken mixture to the mold and pack down to form.

Make all of the patties and set aside.  

Heat 1/2 tablespoon of oil or a couple spritzes of  cooking spray into a large nonstick skillet.  When the pan is hot, but not smoking, add the sliders to the pan.  Cook the patties for about 4 minutes on each side.  Do not press down on the patties with your spatula.  All that does is squeeze the moisture out, leaving behind a dry hockey puck.  

While the patties are cooking, crack four eggs into a stainless steel or glass bowl.

Add the heavy cream.

By now it should be time to give your sliders a flip.

Beat the eggs until well mixed.  Pour the eggs into a nonstick skillet that has been sprayed well with cooking spray or coated with 2 teaspoons of cooking oil.  

Get your buns on a plate ... Your slider buns that is.  Split them open so that'll be easy to assemble once everything is ready.

Drain the cooked sausage patties on a paper towel.

Then place them on your rolls.

Cook the eggs slowly and gently on a medium flame.  Pull the cooked eggs away from the  sides of the pan allowing the liquid eggs to flow under.  Continue doing this until all of the egg is set.  When all of it is set, you can turn the whole thing over and turn off the flame.  

Continue cooking all of the sliders and placing on the rolls.

Here's what the egg looks like after its set completely.

Top each slider with a piece of egg

Then top with the cheese of your choice. (Sorry about the blurry picture)

Here's the final product.  My husband added the sandwich picks to hold it all together.

This is Maurice.  He's not part of the recipe, but he was patiently waiting to get some!

These sliders were proof that big things really do come in small packages.  I was only able to eat one plus a piece left behind by my son.  Somehow my husband was able to put away three of them, but then he was full for the rest of the day.  You can leave out the egg, of course and just have chicken cheese sliders.

Bon Apetit!

BTW, the reason you should use a stainless steel or glass bowl when working with eggs or blood based proteins in a nutshell is that they're both essentially organic polymers.  Birds of a feather flock together, meaning the polymers attach to each other.  The protein that you place into the plastic bowl with become "attached" to the bowl and even after you've washed the bowl, trace amounts of the protein will linger.  If all you have is plastic, then use it but be sure to scrub with lots of soap and hot water and even a drop or two of bleach.