Parmesan Chicken with Butter Balsamic Sauce

 

Crisp roasted chicken
With butter balsamic sauce
Minus the butter

Lest you get the wrong impression about my dietary consumption habits, I realized I should probably post a dish that includes meat.  Though I do tend to cook a great deal of vegetarian food, I am definitely an omnivore at heart.  This post illustrates two things…that I do indeed cook meat, and that I can be a big dumbass in the kitchen.  Point number two is not a new theme at all.   Quite frankly, I am sometimes amazed that the majority of my culinary adventures turn out pretty dang good, if I do say so myself. 

The classic story that always comes to mind to illustrate said mishaps is the time I made a family favorite dessert called Southern Delight.  The simple crust is comprised of three ingredients—nuts, butter and flour.  Somehow, I managed to forget the third (and obviously crucial) item.  I didn’t realize my omission until I glanced in the oven expecting to see a golden brown crust, and was instead greeted by nuts sizzling away in hot butter.  Awesome. 

So fast forward many years to August 2009, and I decided to cook a recipe that my foodie friend said was delicious, Parmesan Chicken with Balsamic Butter Sauce. I am proud to say I remembered the parmesan, the chicken, AND the balsamic.  However, the butter did not fare as well.  Ah well, it was still tasty and inadvertently healthier.  My glass of Viognier was definitely half full that evening. 

Vegetable Salad with Fresh Herbs & Balsamic Vinaigrette

 

Farmers' market treat
Sweet organic explosion
Cornucopia

 

Carrot Soup with Coconut & Lime

Sweet carrot puree
With a subtle citrus hint
Dances on my tongue

Tofu Stir Fry with Eggplant & Bok Choy

Golden soft tofu

Surrounded by crisp green leaves

Mediocrity

I came to a profound realization after cooking these last two dishes. Though I am exceptionally good at eating Asian food, I stink at cooking it. I’m not entirely sure where I go wrong. For example, for this dish I sautéed some ginger and garlic in oil, added soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, scallions, tofu, eggplant, and bok choy. It sounded delicious. It looked delicious. But it just tasted okay. Since life’s too short to consume food that is just okay, I decided to purchase the highly rated The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon. We’ll see if that rectifies the mediocrity…I’ll report back later.

Tempeh Peanut Curry

Velvety peanuts

Join the rich coconut milk

In a symphony

Roasted Chickpeas with Chard, Garlic, & Shallots

Beans and shallots dance
A roasting, melding, wafting
Rainbow in the pan

As I was sorting through an old folder stuffed full with old recipe clippings (the kind you usually save and never look at again), I came across this gem from Bon Appetit. Let me just say that I’m so glad I did…this dish is like healthy comfort food that warms your soul. Even though I was eating by myself, I was literally oohing and aahing with every bite.

If you’d like to try your hand at it, the recipe can be found online at epicurious.

I mostly followed the recipe, though I cut way back on the oil to roast the chickpeas in and didn’t drain them. Also, I didn’t have fennel so I used herbes de provence instead. I’m sure you could cut out the roasting step entirely to save time, but there’s really nothing like roasted garlic. Yum.

Raw Pie with Coconut, Date & Nut Crust

Raw. Bad rap, perhaps?

Delightful dates, nuts & fruit
Pure simplicity

Here is my first attempt at creating a completely raw dessert. Although I'm far from a raw foodist, I must say this pie was simple, delicious, and really highlighted the intense flavor of the fruit I picked up from the farmer's market. I actually made the pie a while back, so I don’t remember what I did exactly (though I do recall I used to get really mad at my mother when she said there was no recipe for something I liked!)

So I’ll try to recap…for the crust I combined about 1 cup of almonds, 1 c of walnuts, 1/2 c coconut, 1/2 c dates, dash of salt and cinnamon in a food processor. Taste and adjust as necessary. Press it into a pie pan and stick it in the fridge. For the second layer, puree a package of strawberries with some dates, and then separately puree some blackberries with dates to achieve the different colors. Spread on the pie crust and top with fruit! Voilà! I seriously couldn’t believe how easy and yummy it was--I even thought about becoming a raw foodist…for about 2.37 seconds.