So I decided to brag about a reallly good dish I sort of created. I say I sort of created it, because I'm sure other's have had similar ideas. Well I made a lemon-garlic-parsley-pesto. tossed it with sauted mushrooms, and slightly warm grape tomatoes and goat cheese in some pasta my mom made from scratch. BTW this was for a nice dinner for father's day/my brother's birthday. If it hadn't been I would have probably just used box pasta.

for the Pesto

Put into a food proccessor.
A bunch of Parsley
about a half a lemon completely peeled (I did use the juice of the second lemon)
3 clove garlic more or less depended on how garlic you like (I used roughly 4, it was fairly garlicy)

blend, taste adjust accordingly

paramesean cheese as much or as little as you like blend again taste

while food proccessor is on slowly add olive oil, when you reach the consistancy you like turn off and set aside. You can also stop the food proccesor every now and then to check, and if you get it too thin add more parsley.

I didn't measure formally so use your judgement

Slice/chop fresh mushrooms depending on how you like them put frying pan on stove with minimum amount of olive oil. The pesto already has alot of oil you just don't want the mushroom's to stick.

While that's cooking. chop tomatoes in half for the last minute or so of cooking the mushrooms throw them in to heat them up a bit.

Somewhere between the pesto, mushrooms, tomatoes make the pasta. It's going to depend on whether you're using fresh pasta which takes less time, (about 2 minutes too cook) or boxed (6-10 minutes) when pasta is done drain put in bowl, pour pesto sauce add tomatos and mushrooms add goat cheese (I used to crumbles) toss and serve.

Serve with salad and bread. If you want you could even make a nice steak to go with it.

I didn' put measurements because it's one of those dishes that depends on personal taste, and you know you're own taste better then me. I also don't remember how much of what I used except it was good. The key is tasting frequently.

Anyone else have any recipes, I love trying new recipes and creating dished.

No fair! Now I'm going to have to mop the drool off my keyboard. :D

Oooo, sounds good. I'll have to try it. I have a really wonderful quick and easy recipe for Chicken Piccata.

Chicken Piccata

4 Chicken cutlets

I prefer breast but you can use thighs if you prefer dark meat. Also, if they are thick breasts I pound them out a little to get a more uniformed thickness. There will cook quicker and more evenly that way but it is not necessary.

2 T. vegetable oil
¼ cup dry white wine
1 t. minced garlic
½ cup low-sodium chicken broth
2 T. fresh lemon juice
1 T. capers (drained)
2 T. unsalted butter
Fresh lemon slices
Chopped fresh parsley
Salt and pepper to taste

Season chicken cutlets with salt and pepper then dust with flour.

Add oil to sauté pan and heat over medium-high. Sauté cutlets 2-3 minutes on one side. Flip and sauté the other side for 1-2 minutes with the pan covered.

Transfer cutlets to warm plate, pour off fat from pan.

Deglaze pan with wine. Add garlic and cook until slightly brown and liquid is nearly gone (about 2 min.). Add broth, lemon juice, and capers.

Return cutlets to pan and cook on each side for 1 minute. Transfer cutlets back to warm plate.

Reduce heat and add butter and lemon slices to pan. When butter is melted pour sauce over cutlets and garnish with parsley. Serve.

A quick hint, use plate to cover pan in the second step. It’ll warm it up for the transfer. Also I used about 1/2 cup of wine instead of 1/4 and added a little more butter and lemon juice to make more sauce. I was serving it with rice and wanted a little more to flavor the rice.

Like I said, very quick and easy and very good. Enjoy!

I should try that, the only thing we don't have is White Wine, since my mom refuses to drink white, and is the only real wine drinker in the house who can go out and buy wine legally. I'd probably make it for dinner, even though my dad hates Chicken, but I hate beef most of the time yet always get stuck eating it so, he will live.

I made this for my mom last night and she loved it. I put it over wild rice (left out the seasoning) and made a very nice presentation.

Cool! I'm glad she enjoyed it. Did your Dad try it?

I've got your recipe all printed out and plan to make it this weekend. I'd have tried it sooner but we had alot of pasta a couple of weeks back because I was feeling lazy and it's easy. So I thought I'd give the parents a break from that for a while. I'll let you know how it goes.

I have finally been getting consistant results on my ribs so here's another easy recipe that is pretty good. I know it looks complicated but it really is easy and great for a day when you are busy.

I don't do beef ribs so this is a pork recipe. You can try it with beef but I can't vouch for the results.

Select whatever ribs you prefer. I usually get the smaller racks or even baby back ribs if I can get them at a reasonable price. I look for meatier ribs because you really don't need the fat to keep these moist and the fat tends to make them fall apart too easily when you get to the grilling stage. So you may have to pay a little more and really look them over but it is well worthy it!

I am not putting measurements because it'll depend on your tastes and the amount of ribs you are cooking.

Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Pepper
Dry Mustard
Dry Thyme (or fresh if you prefer but I think the timing lends itself to dry better)
1 Medium to large onion finely chopped (ggod strong yellow onions give the best flavor. The sweeter onions don't add anything to this recipe so avoid them)
2-4 cloves of fresh garlic finely chopped (not that bottled stuff. It may be good for saute or frying but suck in a steam bath.)
1-2 cups of water
Liquid smoke (Most of that bottled soke is nasty but I've found a very nice one at a specialty shop. I'll get the name and post it back here over the weekend. It seems a bit pricey, $7+ a bottle, but you only use a few drops so it lasts forever)
It is Lazy Kettle Brand Hickory Liquid Smoke from Golden West Specialty Foods Inc. San Bruno CA 800-584-4481 www.honestfoods.com

Preheat oven to 250

In a roasting pan or dutch oven (something with taller sides)put in enough water to cover the bottom about a half inch deep. Or, if you have a rack that fits in to pan, add enough water so that it is just below the rack. Add two to three drops of liquid smoke, 2/3 of the onions and all the garlic. Set aside and prepare ribs.

Depending on the size of the pan you may need to cut slabs in half. I do it anyway because they are easier to handle on the grill and easier to serve.

Rinse your ribs. Pat off excess water. Don't dry them, it's best if they're moist so the powders stick and absorb.

On the underside (the side with little or no meat, You can clearly see and feel the bones.) in this order, sprinkle powders. Garlic powder, onion powder and pepper. These are all to taste so go as light or as heavy as you like (it may take you a few tries to get it just right). I usually give them a back and forth until you can tell there is powder on there but can still see the meat underneath. As you add each powder yuo should see less meat under neath but at the end you should still be able to see sme meat in spots. Let them sit for several minutes. Once the powder looks 'wet' it should stick when flipped. It's okay if some comes off.

Take one slab and flip it into the roasting pan. Now sprinkle top side with powders in this order (believe me, it really makes a difference), Onion, garlic, dry mustard, thyme (I do the thyme pretty lightly since you'll be putting it on all of them and the steam will help to spread the flavor. If you use fresh thyme just add it directly to the water don't put it on the meat it'll be too strong) and just a little bit more pepper. If there is room for another slab on the bottom, repeat the process. Once you have a layer in the pan sprinkle some of the fresh chopped onions over the ribs then do another layer repeating until you are finished.

Place lid on roasting pan or cover with foil. Place in oven for two to three hours. Turn off oven but leave rib in there. Preheat grill to a mediumheat with the lid closed.

Get your favorite BBQ sauce ready to go (I use one from a local place but Jack Daniels makes a nice range of sweet to spicy. For sweet tastes I recommend the Hickory Brown Sugar and for spicy I recommend their Spicy. The regular has a mild of a kick and not much sweetness if you want an inbetween)

Once the grill is heated place ribs on the grill meat side down. Best to run the tongs lengthwise to support the rack because they should be fall off the bone tender by now. You want to kind of sear the meat to seal in the moisture and keep them tender. I leave the lid open at this point. Lets the grill cool a little (which you want so the sauce doesn't burn) and allows you to keep the flare ups to a minimum or at least give you a chance to get your meat out of the way so it doesn't burn.

After about five minute check. The meat should be browning and look dryer. Turn grill down to low or if you are using charcoal move ribs to cooler area. Baste meaty side with sauce. Just a light layer right now.

Give it another five minutes. Turn and baste the underside with sauce. Give it only a few minutes now. Watch the edges and ends for that nice crisping. You really need to watch now because, especially the sweet sauces, it will burn very quickly.

Once it's crisped up a bit flip it and give them another light layer of sauce.

Again watch for that browning on the edges. At this point, they're done. Turn the grill off and one at a time flip them, give the bottom a nice coating of sauce then remove them to the serving dish putting the meaty side facing up. Then give that top side a nice slathering of sauce. This gives them all a nice coating of sauce without being too messy.

You can either serve them with a side of more sauce if you like them sloppy or I just set the bottle of what's left of the sauce on the table and let folks help themselves as they want.

I also like roasting sweet corn with this. Eliminates the use of silverware altogether. Cole slaw is popluar as well as potato salad, macaroni salad, three bean salad or just plain old lettuce salad. What ever strikes your fancy but I vote for full finger food in this case.

And when it comes to the ribs, if you like spicy you can add chilli powder , cumin and/or cayenne pepper to the powders when you are preparing the ribs for the oven.

Also, I do not add salt. You should never add salt to pork before you cook it, makes it tough. So if you want salt I'd recommend salting them just before you put them on the grill but I have never missed the salt on these. The sauces and the flavor from the liquid smoke seems to more than make up for it.

I make no promises how good mine is. I thought it was good and people at the table did too, or so they said. I'm wary of compliments. Is it too make me feel good about my self, or did they really like my food. If it's the first then that's an insult.

That's true, false compliments really don't so anyone any good. Even if you're trying to build up someone's confidence or self image it's just setting them up for a bigger fall. People in the real world who don't know them from Adam and could care less about their feelings will let them know the true in less than glowing terms and tehn you have trust issues to deal with as well. Best to just tell the truth in a polite tactful way.

Soo false compliments here, it sounds like it tastes good. All the ingredients would compliment each other and have a nice light fresh taste good for a hot summer day when you don't want a heavy meal.

I'm planning it for Saturday dinner so I'll let you know if we're all still alive Sunday morning :P

Even if it's the truth in a less then tactful way it's 10 times better then a lie complimenting me. At least I can later after I've sworn them to death realize that hey they're right and fix what ever they criticized. If someone lies about something like that then I hate them forever or at least until I get something from them (My love is conditional at least with competent adults). I get that people lie, but their's no need to lie about someone's work. You didn't like it be honest, I'm not going to come after you with a knife, but if you lie and I find out I might.

Prpl, that was absolutely delicious! :D :wub: When I first read it I thought that adding some pine nuts would be good, add a little crunch to it but it really didn't need it. The flavor combination was just right.

I only went with half a bunch of parsley just to make sure it wasn't too overpowering to start with. Once I had it all mixed I tried it and it was a little lite so I quickly chopped up about half of what was left and added that and it was just perfect.

Quick and easy too. I am definitely adding this to my regular dishes. Thanks Prpl! And I'm not just stroking you, I mean it, this was very, very good!

Well by bunch I meant however much looks good to you.

I do use pine nut's when I make traditional pesto/ I even toast them a little in a frying pan.

I thought about becoming a chef/I could be very succesful at it. Then I realized I enjoy cooking and for me I'd get sick and hate it if I had to do it all the time for people. My mom made me cook dinner one summer everynight. It's was fun but I had to have dinner done before I could go out and my inability to plan meant that it wasn't done until late. Half way through I'd realize I had forgotten a key ingrediant so I would have to substitute or go to the store.

I have no new recipes currently the only thing is I made lasanga last week. And my mom has a recipe for chicago pizza if anyone's interested.

I'm glad you're not dead, if you were I would have said she chose to try the recipe. I didn't force her/ not my fault she used bad ingrediants got food poisoning and died. I mean after I was done feeling bad.

Funny, I had a friend in high school who was just the most amazing artist. She was very good at all kinds of drawing and painting but was exceptional with cartoons.

Everyone was pushing her to go in that direction but she confided in me one day that very same thing. That she enjoyed it so much that she didn't want to do it for a living and grow to hate it. But she didn't want to disappoint everyone. I told her they'd get over it. It's rare that you find a passion like that in life, don't lose it to satisfy other people's dreams and expectations.

I'm still working on my vegetable lasagna recipe. It gets too wet and I'm experimenting with ways to fix that. I've found if I wash the spinach the day before and let it dry then while I'm preparing everything else soak it in the sauce it keeps it moist so it doesn't dry out but adds no extra juice.

Next I have to figure a way to do the zucchini. Salting it works okay but makes it too overpowering. When I rinse off the salt it just seem add the moister right back, or enough that it's a problem. So I've kind of put that on a back burner for now, until I get an urge for vegetable lasagna.

And I'd love a recipe for Chicago pizza! I rarely d opizza at home but that's more because I hate the ready made dough and I'm too lazy to make my own on a regualr basis.

Chicago Pizza (Using the Kitchen Aid Mixer with a dough hook)

Crust:(Note: this recipe makes enough dough for 2 pizzas)
2 pkg.Quick rise yeast)
1 c. water,luke warm
1 Tbsp. Sugar

*Stir Yeast, sugar and water in a pyrex container, sit until mixture bubbles.
*in a mixing bowl combine:
4 1/2c. all purpose flour
1/2 c. yellow cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 Tbsp. Olive oil
*Add yeast mixture and mix 5 minutes until dough clings to hook or pulls away from bowl, a satan look
*Remove dough from hook and place in a microwave safe bowl bowl that has been sprayed with pam.
*Turn dough to coat with pam, cover with cling wrap loosely.
*Microwave 1 minute on high,let sit for 15 minutes
*microwave 1 minute on high, let sit for 10-15 minutes until double in bulk.
*roll dough/or pat with hands to fit into a 8-10 inch spring form pan

Sauce:
2 Cans tomato paste (I can per pizza)
1 can Red or white Zifandel wine
Italian seasoning
1 tsp olive oil
Mix above ingrediants together.

Assembling Pizza:
*Place desired toppoin on pizza dough
*Cover with mozzarella cheese
*cover cheese with tomato sauce

Baking Pize
Heat over to 450
reduce to 375 when placing the pizza in the ove
bake for 40-45 minutes
remove from oven, relase spring form sides
let cool 5-10 minutes
cut into pieces and serve.


We usually make a whole recipe then freeze half the dough so we get two meals out of a recipe. My mom also uses a 9 in round cake pan.

rtlemurs & prplchknz -- Yeah, I know what you mean about not wanting to make your passion into a carreer for fear that you'll grow to hate it. I've always enjoyed writing, particularly non-fiction. Now that I have to write a lot as part of my job I don't hate it, but I do love it less -- it is work rather than recreation. Fortunately, there is still fiction writing, which I'm not good enough at to do professionally and thus can keep as a purely recreational pursuit.

Hmmm . . . I've never had a problem with veggie lasagna being too wet. But I tend to cheat and use the pre-cooked noodles; perhaps they soak up any excess moisture. For spinach, I've used frozen spinach -- thawed and squeezed out -- or bags of pre-washed spinach. I've never salted the zucchini -- just sliced it thin and put it in.

That's too bad that your work has taken away some of the enjoyment tpel. I'm glad you still have fun with the fiction writing though. :D I hope you never grow to hate it. That would truly be a shame because you are good at it whether you think so or not! So there! :P :lol:

And, I'd have to disagree with you on the "I'm not good enough at fiction to do it for a living.". You do have a talent there and considering some of the crap I've read that you are 100 times better than, I think if it were something you wanted to pursue you'd have no problem doing it. Especially in this day and age when you don't even need a formal publisher to get started.

I hear that alot! :lol: So I am beginning to wonder it I just like mine dryer than most. I like sauce to mop up with some nice crusty italian bread when I have spaghetti but I don't like things leaking out of the sides of my lasagna!

I generally precook my noodles but last time I just put the noodles in as they were right out of the box. That helped but then the noodles weren't quite right.

If I can just figure out what is putting out the moisture I'd be okay. I use all fresh veggies. Spinach, zucchini (sometimes summer squash if I can't get nice zucchini), mushrooms (regular and then I grill some portabellos to slice up), nice firm meaty tomatoes (Romas if I can find nice ones), and occasionally green beans.

I've tried leaving the tomatoes out because they really aren't needed, and it helps but it's still quite wet. It may be that I have to slice the zucchini thinner. That way there is less in there and therefore less moisture. Because I'm almost sure that's where it's coming from. Well that and the spinach. Since it's fresh I can't squeeze it out and I prefer the fresh spinach over frozen.

I've also considered the sauce. I just used bottled Prego and doctor it up just a bit with onions, basil, a bit more garlic and mushroom. I'm thinking if I made my own thicker sauce or found away to thicken up the Prego that would help.

And I have found that letting it sit for about ten minutes out of the oven before I cut it helps too. So I'm getting there

Maybe at one of the get-togethers we can have a little cook-off and you can show me your technique. :D :lol:

Do you seed the tomatoes? I know you'd lose some flavor but a lot of the moisture of tomatoes come from the seeds so seeding them may help a bit with the moisture problem.

Here's a recipe for a breakfast sandwhich

1. English Muffin cut in half
a patty of breakfast saugage smashed really thin (not to thick or else the sausage will over power every thing else but you want it to reach the edge of the muffin)
a slice of hard boiled egg (you want this thin but not too thin)
cream cheese
cheddar
ketchup
hot sauce

toast english muffin. while that's toasting fry the sausage. then on the bottom half of the english muffin muffin spread the cream cheese, take the sausage but that on next followed by the egg cover with cheddar heat just enough to melt the cheese. combine hotsauce and ketchup and put on top half of muffin put lid on muffin and eat.


Also does anyone else put mayo on their grilled cheese? if not and you like mayo should try it, it's good sounds gross but it's not. unless you hate mayo. my aunt made the perfect grilled cheese yesterday it was on oatmeal bread and had to slices of kraft singles with just the right amount of mayo the bread toasted to perfection and cheese oozing out.

I'll second that it really is good. I generally absolutely hate, hate, hate, mayonaise-- don't ask me why, it's just always grossed me out-- but there's a restaurant around here (The Training Table if you're ever in SLC) that makes grilled cheese on sourdough bread with mayo and tomatoes and it is seriously the best thing ever!

Of course I come from a family that has been known to put sugar on potato pancakes (they're a lot like Latkes from the recipes I've seen but we've always called them Kartofel Pfankuchen, which is just German for potato pancakes) and puts jam or sugar on plain omlettes, or puts blueberries in the middle (all of which also taste much, much better than they sound). The thing I don't get is why put catsup on cantelope? I've heard of people doing it, but I can't imagine what purpose that would serve--other than making me wince, that is.

Maybe I should hunt down the potato pancake recipe for you. It's not that complex, potatos, onion, a little salt, etc., mix it together and fry it, but I don't remember amounts at the moment. The only thing is you have to eat them fresh or they discolor. Granted they still taste good but don't look quite as appetizing.

I had the best tasting thing ever. It's shrimp stuffed with crab meat wrapped in bacon. It was so good. It was like I don't know. I can't describe it, but it was good. This is coming from someone who loves shrimp, crab, and bacon. I would eat this if pigs, crabs, and shrimp came endangered and were outlawed for killing and eating. It's that good, I would risk going to jail to eat this dish.If it were outlawed. I do feel bad when an animal goes extinct, well not too bad, other wise I'd quit eating meat. Meat tastes good, so I eat it. It's not like me not eating that burger is going to bring the cow back to life. I don't have anything to protest. I'm sure if you treated the animals humanely while they were alive might make them taste better. But that seems more sadistic, then treating them like crap. It's like if you were to go to your child and be like a love you, give them everything they ever wanted made sure they were happy, then picking them up from school, and slashing them open. I'm sure they'd be like WTF! I thought this person loved me. but if you kept them chained in a small pen they'd probably want to die, and then it's obviously ok to kill and eat them.

I do not condone the eating or torturing of small children.