Anne Burrell's Roasted Pork Loin with Cider and Applesauce

While I wasn't sure we were going to love this, especially when things went south with my applesauce, we ended up really loving this.  I found this recipe on food network, and it is Anne Burrell's recipe.  Each serving was 267 calories for six servings, and the score was a 9 from everyone.  I didn't use nuts, and the apples ended up burning, so I supplemented with unsweetened apple sauce that I cooked down with the rest of the ingredients in the recipe, then followed the recipe normally.  This was a fun, easy to make recipe, and we enjoyed it.

Anne Burrell's Parmigiano Flan

This was another flop for us.  Anne Burrell's Parmigiano Flan from Cook Like A Rock Star was uninspiring, but at least it was easy :)  The recipe made 6 little flans, and they were each 395 calories.  These took much longer to cook than the recipe said, and I found them very unpleasant.  They were too, I don't know, eggy, or something, but the consistency was very off-putting.  Owen gave them a 7, he thought this was good, but Aaron and Noah gave it a 4 and I gave it a 3.  Here's the super simple recipe

2 c heavy cream
4 large eggs
1 c parmesan freshly grated
salt
cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 325.
Spray 6 ramekins and set aside.  Combine cream, eggs, cheese, salt and cayenne and whisk well.  Divide the mixture between the ramekins. 
Place the ramekins in a dish, and fill up the baking dish with hot water until the water reaches halfway up the ramekins.  Cover with foil, and bake for 30-35 minutes (I cooked ours for at least 45, and they could've cooked quite a bit longer).  Remove from the oven and cool.  Serve with salad.

Anne Burrell's Garlic Steamed Mussels

We tried something new tonight, which is always fun.  I bought some mussels from my local market and we tried steamed mussels tonight.  They taste very similar to crab, not surprising, but they were tender, not rubbery.  Maybe it's because they were fresh, or maybe it was the mussels I bought, who knows.  Anyway, I followed mostly Anne Burrell's recipe for garlic steamed mussels, but I didn't serve them with Aioli which is how Anne suggests serving them.  I instead made pasta, and then was lazy and didn't make a very good sauce, just used the cooking broth and added some cream to it.  It had good flavor, but I should've reduced the sauce so it wasn't so watery.  Oh well.  Aaron gave this a 5, I gave it a 6, Owen gave it a perfect 10, and Noah gave it an 8.  It wasn't fabulous, but it was super quick and easy, dinner on the table in 15 minutes.  The calories for the sauce (which we had very little of, but if you eat the entire sauce, this would be the calories), mussels, and pasta all together were 515.  Here's what I did:

1 lb fresh mussels
1 t olive oil
4 garlic cloves
2 sprigs rosemary
3 bay leaves
4 c chicken broth
1/2 c cream
1/2 lb pasta

Wash the mussels and discard any open ones.  Cook olive oil and minced garlic cloves in a large pan.  When the garlic is browned and flavorful, throw in the mussels and coat them in the garlic and oil.  Add in the chicken broth, rosemary and bay leaves, and cook for about 5-6 minutes, or until the mussels have all opened.  Meanwhile, cook the pasta in well-salted water until ready to eat.  Remove the mussels from the broth, then reduce the broth.  Add in the cream, and a little parmesan if desired.  Serve with the pasta.

Anne Burrell's Killer Mac & Cheese with Bacon

This was a disappointment.  I thought this couldn't get any better, bacon and macaroni and cheese, but there just wasn't enough cheese flavor.  Everyone loved the bacon, but the mac and cheese was uninspired.  Oh well.  We gave this a 5, and we cut the recipe in half, which are the amounts I'm typing in here.  This recipe was found in Anne Burrell's Cook Like A Rock Star cookbook, and the calories for a serving were 442 for 6 servings.

1 T extra virgin olive oil
3 slices bacon, cut into 1/2 inch strips
1 1/2 T butter
1/2 onion, diced
salt
1/4 c flour
2 c whole milk, plus more if needed (I added another 1/3 c in)
1/2 pound short pasta
1 c (3 oz) extra sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1 c (3 oz) Fontina cheese, grated
1/2 c (1.5 oz) Parmesan cheese, grated
1 T Dijon mustard
Dash of sriracha (Anne suggests Tabasco or other hot sauce, I used the sriracha)

Cook olive oil and bacon in a pan.  Cook until crispy, then remove bacon to a paper towel.  Add the butter and onion to the bacon fat, season with salt, and cook until onion is soft.  Add the four and cook, stirring frequently, for 4-5 minutes.  Slowly whisk in the milk, season with salt, bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer.  Cook over low heat for 8-10 minutes, until the mixture is slightly thicker than heavy cream.  Boil the pasta in salted water until al dente; drain and reserve.
Add the cheeses to the milk mixture and whisk to combine, then add the mustard and hot sauce and taste to check seasoning.  Add a little more milk if the mixture is too thick, then stir in the bacon and pasta.  Serve immediately or transfer to a baking dish and reheat in the oven at 375.

Farfalle with Broccoli Rabe Pesto and Sausage

This was an epic failure :)  We despised this.  It is called Orecchiette with Broccoli Rabe Pesto and Sausage from Anne Burrell's cookbook Cook Like A Rock Star.  So far, we have really enjoyed all the recipes from Anne Burrell that we have tried, but this one we did not.  I will post the recipe in the cookbook, not with the modifications I made, because maybe it would've been better if I hadn't made any alterations (mine were minor) but I doubt it, since I think the broccoli rabe was the problem.  We had never tried that vegetable before, and it was so bitter it was unpalatable for us.  The calories for 8 servings the way I made it were 457/serving and Noah gave this a 2, Owen gave it a 3, and I gave it a 4 because I was having wishful thinking since it was new and healthy.  Here's the recipe from the cookbook:

For the Pesto

Salt
2 bunches of broccolini (broccoli rabe), tough lower stems removed, coarsely chopped
1/2 c chopped pistachios
3/4 c freshly grated parmesan
1/4 c mascarpone
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (if needed)

For the Pasta

Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/2 lb Italian sausage, casings removed
1 lb orecchiette
Olive Oil
Parmesan

1. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil.  Drop the rabe into the water, give it a swish, and remove it immediately, saving the water to cook your pasta in later.
2. Reserve 1 c of the rabe.  Toss the rest in a food processor and pulse until you have a coarse paste.  Add the pistachios and Parmesan and puree until smooth.  If it seems dry, drizzle in a little olive oil while the machine is running (I didn't need this).  Add the mascarpone and pulse until combined; taste for seasoning.  It should be slightly bitter, nutty, and creamy at the same time.  Reserve.
3. Coat a large sauté pan with olive oil and bring to a medium-high heat.  Add the sausage, using a spoon to break it up, and cook until brown and crumbly, 8-10 minutes.
4. Bring your broccolini water back to a boil and toss in the pasta.  Cook til al dente and drain, reserving 1/2 c pasta water.  Add to the sausage pan with the water, the reserved broccoli rabe, and 2/3 of the pesto.  Stir to combine and cook until the water evaporates and the pesto is clinging to the pasta.  Remove from the heat, drizzle with some olive oil, sprinkle with more parmesan, and stir vigorously to combine.  Serve immediately.

Maybe our broccolini was super bitter, but we'll never have this again :)

Pork Milanese

This has been a pork week because I bought big pork loins when they were on sale, and didn't cut them into family sized portions like I usually do, so we have been eating a lot of pork to use up the big pork loin.  The recipes have been really good though, and I'm glad that I have convinced Aaron pork can be good :).  This one was probably his favorite of the pork recipes this week, he gave it a perfect 10, as did Noah, I gave it a 9, and Owen gave it a 6.5 because he said it was too crispy.  Silly kid.  We all gave the salad only a 7 because the escarole was too bitter for us, but it was nice and fresh, and even though the pork was fried, it was still a light meal.  Soooo good :).  The recipe for Pork Milanese was found in Anne Burrell's cookbook Cook Like A Rock Star.  We have really enjoyed everything that has come out of this book, it's a definite one to try.  The calories for the pork chop are approximately 359, but it's hard to know since I can never exactly figure out how much the frying oil adds to the chop.  The salad was huge, so we didn't eat all of it, but it came out to approximately 117/serving for 10 servings.  Here's the recipe with the amounts I used:

For the Onions:
3/4 c red wine vinegar
1 T kosher salt
1 1/2 t sugar
2-3 shots of Tabasco (I didn't use this, I didn't have any, I used some cayenne pepper, they would've been better with the Tabasco :))
1 red onion, sliced very thinly

For the Pork:
1/4 c flour
1 large egg beaten with 1/2 T water
1/2 c Panko
1/2 c freshly grated Parmesan
4 boneless pork chops, pounded lightly
Kosher Salt
Oil (Anne says olive oil, I used canola) for frying

For the Salad:
1/2 c Romano cheese
1/2 c toasted hazelnuts
2 T parsley
1 head escarole, cut into bite-size pieces
Pickled Onions
Extra-Virgin Olive oil (I used about 2 T)

In a medium bowl, combine the vinegar with 1/2 c cold water.  Add the salt, sugar, and Tabasco and stir.  Add the sliced onions and let sit for at least 1 hour.
Set up your breading procedure, 1 bowl for flour, 1 bowl for egg and water, and 1 bowl for Panko and Parmesan.
Salt the pork, then dredge pork in flour, then egg, then Panko mixture.  Place on a dish to sit in the fridge for an hour.
Pour 1/2 inch of oil in a big sauté pan.  cook the pork on both sides until cooked through and crispy and brown on the outside.
Put the Romano cheese, the hazelnuts, and the parsley in a food processor and blend until coarsely chopped.
Combine the escarole, the hazelnut mix, and the pickled red onions.  Dress this with the olive oil and some of the pickling liquid.  Serve with the pork.

I was so surprised how well breading an hour before cooking worked for these pork chops.  The breading stayed on the pork better than I've ever seen, and it was so crispy and even.  We really liked this.

Sweet and Spicy Sausage Ragu

I found this recipe in Anne Burrell's cookbook Cook Like A Rock Star.  This Sweet and Spicy Sausage Ragu was a good recipe, and I made it because my family, especially Aaron, love sausage.  They didn't love it as well as I wanted them to, but it still went over well.  The calories for 1/12 of the dish were 340, and Noah gave it a perfect 10, Owen and I gave it a 9, and Aaron gave it a 7.  This was not too much work, just took a lot of time to cook.

2 onions, chopped
1 fennel bulb, chopped
2 celery ribs, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 T extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
2 c tomato paste
2 c hearty red wine (I used beef broth with a little red wine vinegar)
1 lb sweet Italian sausage, casings removed (I used turkey)
1 lb spicy Italian sausage, casings removed
2 bay leaves
1 thyme bundle
1 lb spaghetti (I used shells)
1/2 c grated fresh parmesan

1. Put the onions, fennel, celery, and garlic in a food processor and puree to a coarse paste.
2. Coat a wide, deep pan with olive oil, add the pureed veggies, season with salt, and bring to a medium-high heat.  Cook the vegies until all the liquid has evaporated and they begin to stick to the pan--you want to brown these.  Stir occasionally to scrape up the brown bits, then let the crud form again.  It takes about 30 minutes.
3. When the brown crud has formed and been scraped down a couple of times, add the tomato paste, stirring to combine.  Let it start to brown a little and continue stirring for 2-3 minutes.  There's not much liquid at this point to keep things from burning, so be careful and move fast.  Add the wine, stir to combine, and scrape up any remaining brown bits; cook until about half the wine has evaporated, 4-5 minutes.
4.  Add both the sweet and the spicy sausage and using a spoon to break it up, cook until the meat is brown, 10-15 minutes.
5. Add enough water to the pan to cover the meat by about 1/2 inch.  Stir to combine well and add the bay leaves and the thyme bundle.  Taste, season with salt, and taste again.  Bring the sauce to a boil and reduce to a simmer.  Continue cooking, checking occasionally, for 3 hours, tasting, seasoning, and adding more water as needed.
6. During the last half hour of the cooking process, bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil.  Add the pasta and cook.  Drain, reserving 1/2 c of  the pasta cooking water.  Remove the thyme bundle and bay leaves from the sauce.  Then remove half of the sauce from the pan and reserve.  Immediately add the cooked pasta to the pan with the ragu and toss to combine, adding more of the reserved ragu or pasta water if needed; continue cooking for another couple of minutes, until the past and sauce cling together and the liquid has reduced.
7.  Remove the pot from the heat and add the cheese.  Toss the pasta and sauce together and serve.

Lemon Dijon Grilled Chicken

This recipe from Anne Burrell was a great one, and super easy.  I got this recipe from Anne Burrell's Cook Like A Rock Star cookbook.  Aaron and Owen gave it an 8, and Noah and I gave it a 9.  I like that I could do everything in the morning, and then just grill it at night, and we had a yummy chicken dinner.  Here's the recipe, cut in half, the way I made it.

1/2 c Dijon mustard
1 lemon juiced and zested
1 T rosemary
some red pepper flakes
1 clove garlic, smashed
salt to taste
a little splash of olive oil

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

Mix together all the sauce ingredients, then slather it all over the chicken.  Refrigerate for at least 8 hours.  Grill the chicken and serve.

I'll add a picture soon, just like with all the other recipes I've said that about :)

Chicken Roulades with Chorizo and Manchego

We had one delicious dinner tonight.  Aaron and I loved this.  It was so amazing.  It is called Chicken Roulades with Chorizo and Manchego from Anne Burrell, and although we couldn't find manchego, this was still so great.  Aaron and I gave it a perfect 10, Noah gave it a 9 because he said it was too spicy, and Owen gave it an 8.  The only changes I made to the recipe were to add monterey jack instead of manchego, and to add a lot less olive oil than the recipe called for.  My chicken isn't super brown all over because I didn't want to use more than 1 tablespoon of olive oil to brown the chicken in, but that didn't affect the flavor for us.  I also cut down on the flour and eggs for the breading, I never use as much as the recipe calls for.  The way I made it I made 6 rolls and each one with the sauce was 426 calories.  This is just amazingly flavorful, tender, moist, and really it's not very difficult.  I made the rolls earlier in the day when I had some energy, and then just had to cook them up and make the sauce at dinner time.  Great recipe!  We'll be having this one again for sure.

Tomorrow we're having some pumpkin pancakes, some of my favorite things in this world.

Braciole, Frozen Hot Chocolate, Snickerdoodle Truffles and Creme Brulee

We had lots of fun new food today, and we'll start with dinner. We had braciole from Anne Burrell, and this was a delicious meal.  I cut the recipe in half, except for the sauce, and we served it with pasta.  I cooked it in the crockpot, and so I'm not sure if that's why there wasn't quite enough flavor, or if it was the recipe, but I felt like the filling didn't have enough flavor.  We all gave this an 8, and the calories for one roll with lots of sauce are 451.  The sauce in this picture looks yellow/green and oily, but it was really yummy and not greasy.  Oh well.

Next we had the frozen hot chocolate we've planned on having a few days. This was a disappointment. It was too icy and not chocolatey enough. I gave it a 3, Aaron gave it a 5, Noah gave it an 8, and Owen gave it a 6.  I think we'll just have some cold chocolate milk next time and save the dirty dishes and work.  The calories were 167 for 1/4 of the recipe using skim milk.  Noah enjoyed it the most, as you can see from this cute picture :).

For dessert we had snickerdoodle creme brulee and it was divine.  Aaron only gave it a 6 because he said it was too rich, but man the rest of us really liked it.  Noah and I gave it a 9, and Owen gave it an 8.  The first picture is of the snickerdoodle cookie dough truffles, which you need for the creme brulee.  Owen and I gave them a 9, and Noah gave them a perfect 10.  The calories for 1 truffle, I made 28 of them, were 134/truffle.  The calories for the creme brulee, I made 8 of them with 1 truffle in the bottom of each dish, were 344/brulee.  Yum! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend, we're having a bread pudding tomorrow.

Roman Style Chicken and Heirloom Tomato Salad

Our dinner tonight was found at www.foodnetwork.com and it was Roman Style Chicken from Giada de Laurentis.  The boys really liked this, and I thought it had nice flavor, but it's not really my kind of chicken, nor is it Aaron's.  He gave it a 6, I gave it an 8, and Owen and Noah gave it a perfect 10, because they love eating their drumsticks.  The calories for a thigh were 297, with 1/4 of the sauce.  I cut the recipe in half, using only 2 drumsticks and 2 thighs.  This was a simple, quick dinner, and makes a great family meal.  This however, was not the highlight of the meal.
Anne Burrell's Heirloom Tomato Salad with Warm Goat Cheese was the real star.  The recipe I linked to is just a little different from the one I used in her cookbook, in the cookbook she uses basil instead of oregano, and she doesn't use the baguette, just smears the goat cheese that has been warmed in the oven for 8-10 minutes on the top of the salad, as you see in my picture.  The calories for a cut in half salad with four servings out of it were about 200/serving.  We LOVED this.  I can't tell you how much we ate of this.  Aaron said he wishes I hadn't made any chicken, and to have Aaron wish for no meat in our dinner has never happened, not once.  So yeah, make this salad.  Even the boys liked the salad, they thought the goat cheese was really good.  Aaron and I gave the salad a perfect 10, Owen gave it a 7, and Noah gave it an 8.  I didn't have any arugula, so I just used romaine, arugula would look prettier and taste great.

Tomorrow we're having a blueberry cake and some avocado enchiladas.