CHICKEN-MANIA, COUNTRY PANCAKE HOUSE, GAMJATANG, THAI-STYLED PORK SPARE RIBS

(Thursday, February 18, 2010)

CHICKEN-MANIA

During the day today, Mikyong, Shirley (ameliemoments.blogspot.com), little Amelie and I got together out in Harrington Park to cook some Samgyetang. Here's what a lot ofchicken looks like...



Since Shirley was taking some home, we put the hot pot outside on the snow to cool it off. And wallah, ready to transport. During the time I was there, Mikyong kept telling me something like "time to eat, stop that, and eat first so you can play" during random times of the day. It turns out, one of her little daughters and I have the same name! Somp came over later and when we were leaving, the whole troop gave us a round of multiple hugs. That has to be one of the best goodbyes. It's such a loving home and thanks for having us over Mikyong. :)


COUNTRY PANCAKE HOUSE

So to some finds for this week, we'll start with the Country Pancake House. On tuesday, many places around town were closed or closed early as we had another sweep of snow plow through Jersey. It kept us in for most activities...except eating. We saw a place called COUNTRY PANCAKE HOUSE on the Foodnetwork and decided to have some pancakes. On our way there, the snow got worse, but that didn't keep us and many other people from trekking out to get some pancakes. There was even a 10 minute wait when we got there.

The restaurant was very cozy with huge murals covering most of the walls and some silly signs on the wall that said something along the lines of, " Seniors over 100 eat free, but must be accompanied by their parents". We were surrounded by kids who didn't have to go to school with their parents, families and HUGE pancakes. They started by bringing out a basket of cornbread both original and chocolate chip cornbread. They were warm and slightly sweet. To help get a better feel of everything in the restaurant, it'll be illustrated in .... huge pictures.



When our food came out, we were overwhelmed by how much food there was! Kee ordered a plate that had 3 eggs, 3 slices of ham, 5 slices of bacon, 1 sausage, hasbrowns and 2 pancakes. I ordered some strawberry, blueberry and banana pancakes with a side of hasbrowns.





The pancakes were good. I ordered the hashbrowns and glad I did because 4 huge pancakes alone is overload. In between, I was included in a self-initiated taste testing on Kee's plate too because you have to try one of everything on the table. The hashbrown was some of the best I've ever had. Speculation of secret ingredient? BUTTER!

140 East Ridgewood Avenue
Ridgewood, NJ
p- 201.444.8395

TRY IT.



GAMJA TANG- POTATO SOUP

And for cold weather, good ole kamja tang really hit the spot yesterday. Piping hot and hearty. My husband likes gamja tang so I thought I'd give it a try and I haven't had it many times so I referred again to maangchi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT5_tkC7p9M

I used her recipe for the most part. I changed 2 things. I didn't want to buy a whole bechu and Miss Maangchi said I could use kimchi. So I did. I have the kimchi that was made a few weeks ago that doesn't have the strong fermentation flavor yet so it was perfect for the recipe. Iit was also cut into fourths just like I needed so this worked out doubly perfect. The other thing I changed from this recipe was taking the beansprouts out. Beansprouts just seemed like overload according for us, but if you feel you'll like them, by all means please try.

The new concepts for this recipe were perilla leaves and perilla seeds. What is a perilla plant? I googled it and it turns out a parilla leaf is something I've been eating all my life!





KENEEP! I guess I never heard it in English before. :)

Now that I had perilla leave figured out, what does a perilla plant's seed look like and which isle do I get it in?? I asked the HMart lady and we went back and forth to the grain isle then to the korean spice isle twice. SO!.... Incase you try this recipe and are in the same shoes, the perilla seeds are in the sesame seed isle and they look like light colored peppercorns.








THAI SPARE RIBS

And the menu for dinner tonight was Thai Spare Ribs. This took a little longer for prep and cook time, first processing various fresh ingredients, marinating for for about 6 hours and cooking for 1.5 hrs. For serving, I prepared a zesty green topping, served it with blue-cheese smashed potatoes and a mix of peas, tomatoes, avacados with a cold "dressing".





Though it took a long time, it was totally worth it! On my husband's rating scale, I got a first ever standing ovation. Literally! Makes me want to cook a second dinner tonight to see if I can score another one of those. A happy diner, makes a happy cook.



Bone Appetite!

FY

VALENTINE'S DAY

(Monday, February 15, 2010 )



Happy Valentine's Day! I hope everyone got to spend time with your loved ones and family. It was our first valentine's in our new house and it was so lovely. My husband and I celebrated a day early with a meal with ingredients from Whole Foods. Whole Foods has amazing fruits, vegetables, seafood and meat sections, but the prices are high so it's not a place to frequent. We had ribeyes, fillet mignons, huge sweet cocktail shrimps, a fresh mexican avacado salsa and a dessert which I will elaborate further on. My husband is a man of the grill and for those who have tried it, they're nothing less than big, juicy and melt in your mouth sensations.



My small group sisters and I also really enjoyed a special surprise from the brothers. A home cooked meal! There is nothing more heartwarming to come into a room of guys who have gone out of their way to make the day special for us. Menu?

A crab cake salad that had a heart shaped crab cake filled with a lot of crab, under it was a round slice of apple with a heart carved it in, all on avacado accompanied by a spring mix. Second course was creole and lime zested mahi mahi with sofrito rice and steamed broccoli. They were served by the guys with papertowels draped over their forearms, with a "tantalizing" description of what was being served to us. Truly an impressive and well thought-out presentation.

Dinner tonight will be eftover Mahi Mahi with the fish taco toppings leftover from last week. In a few entries back, we went to the Cheesecake Factory to sample fish tacos to taste a professional way to make them and after Bobby Flay's restaurant on tuesday, the inspiration came to try one of his fish taco recipes. It was like many other fish recipes except for the tomato salsa topping that included jalepenos, serrano peppers, ancho chili powder, chipotle sauce that gave it a good kick. It was served warm over a mix of cold veggies.

FOODIE NOTE: a good way to make a dish more appetizing is to have a variety of textures. Bobby Flay used the hot and cold contrast on top of the characteristic of tender Mahi Mahi against the crunchy cabbage that make it appealing.



This run of fish tacos turned out well which is a relief. I overcooked Mahi Mahi on the first run and during dinner, it was an angry fish in our mouths, but this time, happy. Oh, the art of practice.



VALENTINES DAY TREATS
So back to the topic of Valentines day, we brought the party to my husband's office on Saturday made WHOOPIE PIES! Traditional Whoopie Pies are chocolate cakes with white icing in the middle, but to make it a Valentine's day theme, they were made into Mini Red Velvet hearts, filled with cream cheese frosting and with a little red crystal sprinkles on top. I got it off a website recipe and made them just a tad smaller than it called for, but if you want to give it a run, here's the recipe.

Whoopie Pies


Red Velvet Whoopie Pies
Ingredients:
For the cookies:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
8 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 oz. red food coloring

For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese
5 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2½ cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375˚ F. Using a heart template cut out from card stock, trace evenly spaced hearts onto pieces of parchment paper sized to fit two cookie sheets. Place the parchment on the cookie sheets so that the side you have drawn on is facing down; set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and brown sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg until incorporated, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Blend in the vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, beat in about a third of the dry ingredients, followed by half of the buttermilk, beating each addition just until incorporated. Repeat so that all the buttermilk has been added and then mix in the final third of dry ingredients. Do not overbeat. Blend in the food coloring.

Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large plain round tip. Pipe the batter onto the parchment paper using the heart tracings as a guide. Bake 7-9 minutes or until the tops are set, rotating the baking sheets halfway through. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets at least 10 minutes, until they can be easily transferred to a cooling rack. Repeat with any remaining batter. Allow cookies to cool completely before proceeding.

To make the cream cheese frosting, in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the cream cheese and butter on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Mix in the vanilla extract. Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated, increase the speed and then beat until smooth.

Transfer the frosting to a clean pastry bag fitted with a plain, round tip. Pair the cookies up by shape and size. Flip one cookie of each pair over so that the flat side is facing up. Pipe frosting onto the flat-sided cookie of each pair, leaving the edges clear. Sandwich the cookies together so the flat sides are facing each other and press gently to help the filling reach the edges. To store, refrigerate in an airtight container.

Foodie Note: The recipe says to pipe the batter through a bag with a tip, but no worries. You don't need to have the tips to do this. You can use a ziplock bag, fill it with the mix, cut off a little of the tip at a time to adjust to how much you want it to come out and start piping. Also, feel free to add some kind of sprinkle some red colored crystals on top to give it more color. I took two off the top of the batch for some dear friends. :)





And for our Valentine's dinner dessert... a mini cake! This cake is better kind of plain or ugly on the outside. I used both. Breakdown, 10% plain with 90% ugly. I used processed red velvet cookie parts from the Whoopie Pies into tiny crumbs, used the icing from the whoopie pies and whipped up some scratch white cake for the rest. So what does an 10% plain with 90% ugly cake look like?



But it sets up the surprise for the inside. Don't judge a book by it's cover also applies to cakes.





Cool Culinary Success.


SOMETHING COOL
On the topic of COOL, I practiced a dish that is out of season this weekend, but I am practicing naeng myun for a future purpose. For the most part, preparing it is not too hard, but getting the flavor right for the soup in mool naeng myun is the most challenging. Bibim naengmyun is a little more straightforward. For a first run... not bad, but there is always room enough to soup something up, of course. It'll take a few more times to get it up to a "secret recipe" level. So if you would like to learn, here is one link that shows a way to make it. It's the mangchi lady that my friend Jess told me about. She's a Korean version of a cooking show. She really pulls out a mangchi (hammer) in this segment. It momentarily terrifies you, but the feeling is instantly calmed when you see what she uses it for.


http://www.ifood.tv/recipe/cold_buckwheat_noodles_naeng_myun


So the soup was made, but our refrigerator was currently full, a large part taken residence by a kimchi tong . Problem is that this pot of broth needed to be chilled. First, I scooped some of the soup into ice cube trays for later use. The use of broth ice cubes during serving allows the broth to be very chilled and an undiluted taste. So that was about 2 scoops of broth, but there was still a whole pot left of this soup. Problem and in need of solution.... Hmm...It's cold outside and the soup needs to be cold. How do we fuse the weather into the broth? ..." Good ole fashioned resourcefulness.






Bon Appetite!


FY

BBP, LINDT, HEARTY LASAGNA, OX TAIL SOUP

(Friday, February 12, 2010)


Jersey got hit with a snowstorm the past two days and it's been nice. There was snow everywhere, by far the most snow I've seen here in Jersey during my time here. My husband got two snowdays, but three days off including his day off. Businesses were closing everywehre and kids were out of school! No one ever turns down a snow day! :)

Below is Kee's car after park't for 2 days:



Before the big snowstorm hit, my husband and I were out painting the town and we ended up at the Bergen Community Mall. That place is getting big with Century 21, Nike Outet, Saks Off Fifth and a lot of other little stores. We went there for the Nike outlet and it was just around dinner time so we stopped By Bobby's Burger Place which is owned by the great Throwdown Chef, Bobby Flay! The interior was simple with irregular shaped tables, lime green chairs and a citrus colored wave for a light. We walked in, ordered off a simple but complete menu and sat ourselves.

When our order was done, out came a burger that was about 6 inches tall held together by a skewer! We both got the Blue burger which was a burger topped with lettuce, tomato and blue cheese. On top of that, we got our burgers "CRUNCHIFIED", which means the burger was added with potato chips. That gave it a good 2 inches on the top. On the side, we ordered some sweet potato fries that came out with a side of horseradish honey mustard sauce. Look at that!



The burgers were huge, but once we pressed it down and crushed the chips a little, it was a good size to eat. Verdict? OH SO GOOD!

The crunchy texture from being "CRUNCHIFIED" was a nice touch, the meat was tender and succulent, but the best of all was the creamy blue cheese. It was a burst of flavor. Mm Mm! The sweet potato fries were off the charts too! Sliced with the fresh and light crisp, a dip into the horseradish honey mustard made it just short of heaven.

We found more sauces at the table. A green jalepeno sauce and a red chipotle ketchup which we tried on our burgers and dipped our fries. The jalepeno sauce was the best thing ever for the first half of our meal, until we saw another sauce being served. We hailed a waiter, pointed a quiet finger and inquired. "What is that and can we get some?!" As suspected the sauce was excellent and turned out being a homefry BBQ sauce. It had pureed roasted garlic, BBQ sauce and some other kickin' spices. It was spicy and so good that we thought we died and went to heaven... Bobby Flay, we love you, but too bad you are taken. Did you know Bobby's wife is a Texan? :).



So after dinner, off to he Lindt chocolate store I had been eyeing since we got to the mall. It was containers and containers of those signature shaped chocolates. A circle with two triangle shapes on the side.




We were greeted by a salesperson at the door. "Hi sales person. I'm already sold over to the deliciousness of your chocolates, but thank you for the free sample!" Yes, he gave us a whole one for free! So we went through and picked a few. There were American and European Lindt chocolates. The European had a lot of hazlenut selections which was good, since hubby and I like that. Hazelnut cream, a real hazelnut inside hazelnut cream coated with chocolate, a hazelnut surrounded by 1/2 hazelnut cream and 1/2 green pistacio cream, hazel nut with rice... Our bag consisted of about 10 chocolates, half american and half european. 70% hazelnut. :)


Then came the snow. On snow day #1, we had a warm and hearty lasagna made by Tammy. The lasagna had grown while baking so our eyes grew big when this entered the room and at the sound of cheese sizzling, we began our Pavlov reaction. Tammy and I had two servings, Kee and Sung had three. What a perfect and hearty meal while the weather was so brutal outside! Of course, we played settlers while enjoying this goodness. Good food. Good fun. Nice people. So happy.



And yesterday, snow day #2, we were home again and we have all our utilities included in our rent, so it was another dish for all day fire. FIRE IT UP! This time it was GGori Gom Tang, Ox tail soup. We cooked this from 9am - 8:30 pm until our dinner guests came over. I used ox tail and some beef shanks , but I learned that beef shanks should only be used to add flavoring to the broth, not serve. The ox tail on the other hand was extremely tender and stirring had to be taken with care to avoid taking the meat off the bones .



And for dessert? A second shot at the Tiramisu! Kee and I made it together this time for RUM control, and our guests were able to eat it this time. SUCCESS!! It was good, but as always there's still room for improvement. As my husband does when he has good food, we shed a tear. It's not a tiRUMisu like last time, but a tear-amisu. So beautiful.




Stay tuned for our Valentine's Day treats!


Bon Appetite!


FY

FOODIE YOODIE BLOG: A WORLD TOUR

(Monday, February 8, 2010)


Traveling the world, tasting different ethnic foods and exploring the culture would be such an awesome experience, but those come around only once in a while. As usual, it was an ordinary week in Jersey and this week we went through a supposed "snow storm" with 0" of snow. Those weather men! Well, until we get to go exploring outside of Jersey soon, a mini-world tour is nice. This week consisted of cuisines from Korea, India, Italian, Chinese food ending with an American tradition. Mmmm Mmmm Good!

So 1st stop? KOREA! for some KIMCHI making. Earlier in the week, I spent the day with Amy and we made Kimchi together. It is a long process, but the end result is very fresh and clean kimchi. She had a big kimchi tub from her mom so we let the kimchi soak in salt water for the larger part of the day, added the spices and at the end of the day, we had homemade kimchi to last us for a while. Thanks Amy!



2nd Stop, INDIA! for some Saag Paneer and Nan~ I tried using some Garam Masala, which is a spice used in Indian cooking and a combination of garam masala and tumeric filled the house with a very fragrant and delicious smell. I prepared some homemade Paneer, an indian cottage cheese , along with some Naan and wallah, dinner!



3rd Stop? ITALY! for some TUSCAN CHICKEN and MINESTRONE SOUP. The Tuscan Chicken was simmered until tender in white wine and had flavors from the fresh rosemary sprigs. It paired with some Itialian Minestrone with of course, white wine, because the recipe used white ."BON APPETTITO!" Watch out for the steam!





Last but not least: CHINA! for the much anticipated SOUP DUMPLINGS! Thanks for inviting us out Tammy. :)

We went out to Flushing , NY with some friends, 10 of us in 2 cars, and finally tried the soup dumplings from Nan Xiang. We started by ordering some shanghai noodles and scallion pancakes, which were dense pancakes with beef and a delicious sweet, soy-based sauce. Then of course we ordered soup dumplings and ordered like we were on a mission. We kept ordering one after the other to a point to where the waitress was trying to convince us to get another dish! But we were sure of what we wanted and ordered 16 between 10 people! There was a choice of pork and crab so we ordered both. About 20 minutes later this is what came out:



We dove into these things and of course, for those who have tried eating soup dumplings, you know there's a method to eating these. The soup inside is incredibly hot so you have to go slow!

2 methods:
1 you can bite the top part off, put a little soy-ginger-vinegar sauce in there, drink the juice and then eat the rest or
2. You can poke a hole in the wanton with your chopstick, slowly pick up your wanton and let the juice drain into your spoon , drink the soup and then eat the rest. Apparently, the way you can tell if you're a soup dumpling veteran is that your plate has less of the juice from the wanton on it and my plate was OK. :)

So as we ate the wantons over time, our plates were getting more and more soup on it and while we were waiting for the next orders to come out, we'd put our spoons down on the plate and when picked up again, there was resistance. ^0^ So when the soup cools, it turns into a gelatinous substance that is sticky so you have to either eat fast or be mindful of your spoon. Don't let your spoon stick to your plate! For some time, we could not figure out why some dumplings had a hole when there wasn't one when they were being placed on our spoon. With some investigation and some round table discussion, the conclusion was because as the soup dried, the dumpling skin stuck to the spoon and when it was lifted, it'd get a small tear and in turn, contribute to puddles on our plate! There was an incident on our side of the table where the dumpling was picked up from the dumpling pan and served to someone. The wanton would barely have a hole and the juice started leaking but was was saved because it landed just in time on the spoon, but on another occasion, the wanton had a hole from sticking to the dumpling pan and the person serving did not know, so it created a whole path of the soup to a plate! Not ideal for cooling soup from soup dumplings. Sticky mess!

But for the most part, the dumplings were delicious with no tears. The outter shell of the wanton had a chewy texture that was amazing and the soup was a little less greasy than the other ones I tried. The crab had a great seafood taste and was light and the pork was a little heartier. They were both so good and I couldn't decide between the two!

So the verdict from the group? Jason's thumb's up says it all.



OH SO GOOD! :)

As for the verdict between Soup Dumpling vs. Husband? Though these soup dumplings on a scale of 1-10 are a 10 and I already want to go back for more, my husband is somewhere on the scale like a 14....or maybe 32?.... no...100+. The day we went to eat soup dumplings was actually our 23rd month anniversary and he came home from work "late" with some pretty pink and magenta Gerber Daisies. Sorry soup dumpling. Husband wins by far! Happy 23 months to the Love of my life. :)


and for an American tradition, the annual Superbowl went down yesterday for the New Orleans Saints vs the Indianapolis Colts. We got together with our friends and we had a combination of mini-corn dogs on-the-spot fried in a mini deep frier , quesadillas and homemade guacamole, spicy wings with Cilantro, oreo cookies, jambalaya, tacos with an amazing Cilantro slaw, hummus with Cilantro and chips and more.Cilantro, cilantro, cilantro! yum! Nothing like good food and football. Congratulations to the New Orleans Saints for a game well played and their first ever Superbowl Win for Naw'lins!




Bon Appetite!

FY

A HOT POT, 4 CHICKENS, MORE CHICKEN, AND A CABO CAKE

(Wednesday, February 3, 2010)

What a weekend! It was so cold everywhere. My brother who's in Virgina got snowed in and had to cancel all his saturday plans and in Texas, it's a shivering 30 degrees and of course here in Jersey, we're getting some biting cold weather. I went for a stroll in the morning and by the time I got back, the warm house was welcome. So what do we do when the weather is cold? We eat hot, comforting foods and think of warm places. Of course, these nice-eties are better with friends and can only be topped with more friends.


HOT POT WITH THE YUNGS

The Yungs are always so generous in welcoming us over and invited us again so we went over and shared a hot pot with them at their place. We used lots of fresh veggies, meat, homemade broth that Amy made and some pseudo meat. I say pseudo meat because we had fish balls, shrimp balls and this square tofu thing that I absolutely loved! The warm soup was so welcome and we were so thankful that we were in the place to be able to eat until we're full and have leftovers, be withour friends and especially in this weather, stay warm. KUMBAYA.







Happy as a clam.



3-DOG-ORANGE POWDER DRINK

And a revisit to the 3-dog-orange powder drink, otherwise known as Samgyetang. Anna and I cooked Samgyetang for our husbands on saturday afternoon. It was freezing that day so it made for perfect timing. It was Anna's first time making Samgyetang and we got our hands into it right away...it being the chicken.



This was not Anna's favorite part, but what a trooper! We put two in a pot, each with a big and a small one and when it was time, we scooped them into smaller pots for serving because we have no big bowls at our house.




Tastes better that way anyways. :)
An hour and a half later, this is her perfect first chicken.



Mitch had his own idea of "samgyetang". He was enjoying the soup like all of us, but after we were all done eating, we peered into his pot and he had shreds of chicken and rice...no bones! He took them all out first and his chicken soup looked delicious .





TLC BBQ CHICKEN

More chicken! but this time, it was for dinner this week which turned out successful on the husband approval scale. It was a slow cooked bbq chicken which was simmered in Coors Light from 11 am till when Kee came home which left the meat was falling off the bones and so tender. The beer acts as a tenderizer and burns off by the time it's eaten. Coors Light, Bar B Q sauce from Texas (Saltlick), a few veggies and some other goodness to spice it up, and you got yourself a happy camper who has three servings! When things are made with some TLC, you can never go wrong. This bad boy was served up with some jasmine rice, chipotle spiced kidney beans and homemade slaw. :)








CABO CAKE

and of course, we want to wish a very happy birthday to Janet Paik! We had some excellent Indian Food in hackensack and went to her house. Anna, Mitch, Kee and I worked on whisking some whipped cream by hand together earlier in the day and iced the cake with some homemade whipped cream, the cream of janet's choice. :) In the last posting, Janet and Jason were off in Cabo so the cake was Cabo-themed to draw out their vacation a little longer. So in honor of that, we had crashing waves, a sandy beach and a sunset. The original idea was to write "Happy Birthday Janet" in the sand like someone would with their finger, but it wouldn't hold, so we used the whipped cream to write, and of course a tropical vacation is not complete without the sunset! So for the cake inside, it was swirled with sunset colors, so when it was cut, WALLAH!...sunset.





Coming up next, we're going out to Flushing,NY this saturday with some friends to a place called Nan Xiang which is known for soup dumplings. This place was featured on Anthony Bourdain and these things are supposed to be better than Joe's Shanghai. I hear that these will get ranked higher than my husband on a list of most importants like this:

1. Jesus.
2. Nan Xiang
3. husband

but I don't know, my husband is pretty up there. Stay tuned!

Bon Appetite!


FY

Chicken Cacciatore and TiRUMisu

(Friday, January 29, 2010 )

Today we had our friend Tammy and my brother-in-law Sung over for dinner. We love having people over in our cozy place! My husband and Tammy were getting home a little later today so the timing was great for all of us. I made a few preparations before they came, almost burning the bread in the midst of multi tasking and welcoming my husband home, but luckily it was saved and made to have a fading shade to the bread but somewhere in between, it was lost. =P

When our guests came over, we started with some Hummus and Bruschetta in our freezer-chilled bowls along with some wine (except Sung who is diligent to his alcohol fast). To keep a mind on our health while eating things that are good on our palate, we got red bell peppers and cut them up in to nice "scoops" to eat with the hummus instead of pita bread or a different carb. So while eating the already healthy garbanzo beans, garlic and lemon in our hummus, we took away the empty calories and infused it with something that gives us 300% of our daily vitamin C! You can really tell red bell peppers are good for you because it has a vibrant red color, but the best part has to be the taste. It tastes nothing like the popular guy, the green bell pepper, but it's actually juicy and sweet! Refreshing. Guiltless. Awesome. For those price conscious folks, yes a red bell pepper is more expensive than the traditional green, but it's cheaper than pita bread. You win! It's all relative. Note: yellow bell peppers are more similar in taste to red than green. Reach for those in the Veggie isle too. :)



and for those who have waited a life time to see cartoon bell peppers, this is your lucky day.



So our menu for tonight was CHICKEN CACCIATORE. In Italian, Cacciatore means "Hunter" so Chicken Cacciatore means Hunter style chicken which involves tomatoes, bell peppers (we used yellow), onions, baby bella mushrooms,capers, a few good-for-your-body fresh spices and sometimes wine. There are two wine options to chicken cacciatore. One, a white wine can be used which is characteristic of cooking in Northern Italy or a red wine can be used which is what I used and this is a cooking characteristic of Southern Italy. I believe the type of wine varies because each region has certain grapes that are best for the type of wine. We had red wine available since Kee and I drank our "white cooking wine" the other day, so naturally, we came to pick the red wine. Though chicken is a white meat and is usually taken with white wine, we had red wine today because the dish was cooked with red and you should drink the type of wine you used in your dish with the meal.

Chicken Cacciatore used a combination of dry and wet cooking to sear and cook the meat and after a process of separating the chicken from the meat, it was brought back together later for a 30 minute simmer in the hot tub. Simma those bad boys ... After the 30 minutes, the chicken came out again and the flame went up to reduce the "soup" down to a more concentrated sauce. When it came time to serve, it was served on top of a bed of garlic linguine. This garlic linguine is really amazing. It has garlic IN the pasta and the garlic flavor is very flavorful and present. Guaranteed, it will leave you pleasantly surprised. We found it in the pastas at our neighborhood Shoprite and we tried looking for other types, but there is only one type and in linguine. We did find a tri colored pasta that we bought and have yet to try. It has tomato, carrot and spinach in it. So, these give the benefit of eating a nutritional pasta instead of just a carb filled noodle. Even if it has all the nutrition added to, it's the same price so you get more bang for your buck! Chaching. :)

After the appetizers, we took the clean hot plates that were warming in the oven and put some garlic linguine on the plate. Then came the heaping spoonfuls of the hot, aromatic, spice-filled Chicken Cacciatore that were piled on top of the pasta which was accompanied by slim spears of asparagus dressed with Hollandaise sauce. Done!


And what did our guests think of it?



Score! It's so fun to cook for guests like this. We love you guys and you are always welcome over anytime!


And for dessert? A homemade TiRUMisu!... that you should not let 10 years olds eat.


Bon Appetite!


FY