Parmesan Risotto

I've recently discovered how much I love making risotto. I always thought it was something that your order out, not make at home. But I got daring one night and now it's my new favorite side dish to make because A) It's easy and B) It's just plain delicious!

I found this recipe from the Pioneer Woman's website and adapted this risotto from that one. Here is my take:

Ingredients

1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 tbsp butter

2 Cups Arborio Rice

6 1/2 Cups Chicken Stock, warm

1/2 Cup White Wine, heated

1 Garlic Clove, Minced

1 very small onion, chopped

1/2 - 1 cup half and half

Salt & Pepper to taste

1/2 - 1 cup Parmesan Cheese

Directions

Melt butter and Olive oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Add Garlic and Onions. Cook 2-4 minutes until Onion is translucent. Add Arborio Rice and stir until coated with olive oil. Add warm wine into rice mixture until absorbed. In a seperate medium saucepan next to your risotto sauce pan, add Chicken Stock and heat through. Now add 1 ladle of chicken stock. When one ladle has been absorbed, add the next. (You can also add the chicken stock in 1-cup incraments but I find that just using a ladle works best for me.) Keep stirring! You can walk away from the stove, but not for too long. You don't want the rice to burn or stick to the bottom of the pot. This process should take about 30 minutes and you want to constantly be stirring your risotto.

When all chicken stock has been absorbed, add your half and half and keep stirring until thickened. Then, add your salt, pepper and parmesan cheese. Serve with some chives and enjoy!

Chicken Cordon Bleu

As I was looking through chicken recipes from http://www.allrecipes.com/, I came across Chicken Cordon Bleu. This is something I know my husband likes and I've never made. I sort of based this dish loosly on 2 different recipes from http://www.allrecipes.com/: this one and this one but I mainly just put it together myself and it came out really great.

Ingredients

2 Chicken breasts, pounded thin and very dry

3-4 tbsp. butter, melted

4 slices of very thin ham

2 slices of thick swiss cheese

1/2 - 1 cup Italian style Panko Bread crumbs

salt

pepper

aprox. 1 tbps flour

Sauce

1 tbsp. butter

1-2 garlic cloves, chopped

1/2 cup half and half

1/2 tbsp. cornstarch

splash of white wine

salt

pepper

Shredded Parmesean Cheese

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place 2 slices of ham on one side of thin chicken breast. Add swiss cheese in the middle of the ham. Roll up chicken breast and secure tooth picks. Do this with both Chicken Breasts. Make sure top of chicken is very dry, and season with salt and pepper. Spread flour all over Chicken "roll", then dip in butter until coated, then roll in breadcrumbs. Place in a greased baking dish and then cover with foil. Bake for aprox. 40 - 50 minutes until chicken is no longer pink.

While chicken is baking, melt butter in small saucepan or skillet. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes. Add a splash of white wine and cook another minute or two. In a small bowl, whisk together half and half and cornstarch then add it to the wine/butter mixture. Keep whisking everything in the pan until thickened and smooth. Add salt, pepper and a little bit of shredded Parmesean Cheese. Drizzle over Chicken Cordon Bleu just before serving.

Crash Hot Potatoes

I got this recipe from http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/06/crash-hot-potatoes/. After reading many rave reviews, I decided to serve them with my Chicken & Wine. They were really good, but I'm not going to "rave" over them. They were seasoned potatoes. They were good, but nothing to write home about. My husband enjoyed them. I served them with some low-fat sour cream.

Ingredients

Small, red potatoes (as many as you want to serve...I did 6 for 2 of us and my husband ate 4 and I ate 2)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt

Pepper

Any herbs you want to use...I used an italian seasoning herb mix

Directions

Cook potatoes until fork tender. Generously drizzle Extra Virgin Olive Oil over a large baking sheet. Place potatoes on sheet giving room between each potato. Using a potato masher, press down on the potato. Drizzle olive oil over potatoes, and sprinkle with salt, pepper and herbs. Bake 450 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until crispy and starting to brown.

Quick Chicken & Wine

I found this recipe on www.allrecipes.com. I was a little hesitant at first because I wasn't sure how the breading would work out or how it would taste after simmering in wine but it was really fantastic!!! I think it's my new favorite chicken dish! The chicken was SO moist and the flavors were really great....the Parmesean added such a great bite and you could really taste the flavors of the wine. I would highly reccomend this for a great, simple weeknight meal.

INGREDIENTS
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into strips (I used 2 chicken breasts and pounded them thin...did not cut into strips)
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (I don't measure anything when I cook, but I'm positive I used more than 1/2 cup of Parmesean. I used more like 1/2 c. per breast)
1 pinch salt
1 pinch ground black pepper
1/2 cup white wine (I used a Lightly Oaked Chardonnay)
4 tablespoons butter

DIRECTIONS

Make sure chicken is VERY dry before starting...otherwise the breading won't stick. Additionally, I coated my chicken with flour before proceeding which also helped the cheese stick.
Season chicken with salt and pepper to taste. In a shallow plate, spread Parmesan cheese. Divide chicken into three parts and dip seasoned and floured chicken in eggs, then coat well with Parmesan cheese. Repeat until all of the chicken pieces are well coated (if you run short on egg and Parmesan, add one more egg and more Parmesan as needed).
In a skillet, melt butter or margarine over medium high heat. Cook chicken, stirring frequently, until golden brown.
Reduce heat and add wine. Cover and simmer over low heat for 20 minutes.

You could very easily serve as is. However, I then took the chicken breasts out, put on a baking dish (sprayed with non-stick spray) and spread panko bread crumbs over the top. I then put the chicken in a 450 degree oven for about 5-10 minutes until browed. It gave the chicken a nice crunch. I then drizzled the remaining butter from the skillet over the top of the chicken.

Pierogi

Ahhh pierogi. What can I say? These little dumplings of happiness might possibly be my favorite food ever...thus my blog's name (and I'm just about 100% Polish and what's more polish than pierogi?). I should have made this my first post but didn't get around to making my little pierogi until this past weekend. I play around with recipes/ingrediants quite a bit in an effort to find "The best pierogi recipe ever" and I may have found it with this one. The dough was fabulous...and the potato "stuffing" was great. This one is definately for the archives. My husband devoured these little pierogi! Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from http://www.allrecipes.com/

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pierogi-Polish-Dumplings/Detail.aspx

(Comments in italics are my notes!)

INGREDIENTS
Sauerkraut Filling (I didn't make the sauerkraut filling this time around...My husband and I perfer potato!)
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 cups sauerkraut, drained and minced
salt and pepper to taste

Potato Filling:
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 cups cold mashed potatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon white pepper

I also added quite a bit of chopped sharp cheddar. Adds a nice bite!

Dough:
3 egg
1 (8 ounce) container sour cream
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder

DIRECTIONS
To prepare the sauerkraut filling, melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the drained sauerkraut and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, then remove to a plate to cool.

For the mashed potato filling, melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Stir into the mashed potatoes, and season with salt and white pepper.

To make the dough, beat together the eggs and sour cream until smooth. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder; stir into the sour cream mixture until dough comes together. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until firm and smooth. Divide the dough in half, then roll out one half to 1/8 inch thickness.

Cut into 3 inch rounds using a biscuit cutter... I find that the large end of a drinking glass works just as well, if not better!
Place a small spoonful of the mashed potato filling into the center of each round. Moisten the edges with water, fold over, and press together with a fork to seal. Repeat procedure with the remaining dough and the sauerkraut filling.

You can now freeze your Pierogi. I put them on wax paper on a baking sheet and freeze for about 20 minutes or so. Then I put them in a larger air-tight container and layer them between wax paper. They freeze very well.

To cook pierogi (frozen or not) Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add perogies and cook for 3 to 5 minutes or until pierogi float to the top. Remove with a slotted spoon. In a seperate pan, melt about 1/2 stick of butter. Add about 1/2-1 cup of chopped onions and cook until traslucent. Add boiled pierogi to pan and fry until golden brown on each side. Serve with sour cream or just eat them plain! Enjoy!

Pierogi Education

You might be wondering why I'm refering to Pierogi in what appears to be the singular when it really should be plural. Well I was brought up in a Polish household always referring to pierogi as pierogi..never "Pierogies". While my parents aren't from Poland, their parents are. My parents both speak Polish but never taught it to my brother and I....so i'm not Polish-speaking wiz. I just know a few basics. But to help me explain the plural vs. singular for Pierogi, I went to Wikipedia which explains it as follows:

"Pierogi are usually small enough to be served several or many at a time, so the singular form is rather rare; people usually talk about several of them. This has affected forms of the word in different languages. In Polish, pierogi is plural, pieróg being singular. Other Slavic languages follow the same scheme, with Russian vareniki the plural of varenik and Ukrainian varenyky the plural of varenyk (both derived from the root varit', "to boil"). --Wikepedia under "Pierogi".

So, this being said, the title of my Blog doesn't make much sense...Le Petit being Singular and Pierogi being plural. However...I didn't think it made sense to have an American blog entitled "Le Petit pieróg" when most (if not all) Americans call a pierogi a pierogi. In addition, "Les Petits Pierogi" sounds odd to an American reader, in my opinion. Plus I'm combing French and Polish which makes absolutely no sense at all....so my blog title is a little quirky and gramatically incorrect, but hey, it's my blog and I can do what I want!

Hopefully this is all you ever wanted to know about pierogi!

Blondies

I've never made blondies before but I have heard a lot about them. So on a lazy Sunday afternoon I decided to give them a try! I found the recipe here: http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/blondies-for-a-blondie/

They were really good, but I definately prefer a chocolate brownie. My husband loved them however, and devoured them!! It was just such an easy recipe, I might make them again to give out as gifts for the holidays.

Ingredients
8 tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Pinch salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions

Butter an 8×8 pan
Mix melted butter with brown sugar - beat until smooth. Beat in egg and then vanilla.
Add salt, stir in flour. Mix in any additions (below).
Pour into prepared pan. Bake at 350°F 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle. I always err on the side of caution with baking times — nobody ever complained about a gooey-middled cookie. Cool on rack before cutting them.

Further additions, use one or a combination of:
1/2 to 1 cup chopped nuts, toasting them first for even better flavor
1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon mint extract in addition to or in place of the vanilla
1/2 cup mashed bananas
1/4 cup bourbon, scotch or other whiskey; increase the flour by one tablespoon
2 tablespoons of espresso powder with the vanilla
Stir 1/2 cup dried fruit, especially dried cherries, into the prepared batter
Top with a vanilla butter cream or chocolate peanut butter cream frosting

Tomato & Garlic Pizza

I make this pizza once every 2 weeks or so...it's fabulous and I love it!The toppings on this pizza are amazing...light, fresh and oh-so-delicious!!! There's no recipe, a lady at work said her husband's Italian grandmother made it this way so that's where it came from!

Ingredients

pizza dough

1-2 fresh tomatoes, very thinly sliced

3-5 garlic cloves, minced

salt

pepper

Motzerella cheese

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll/Toss pizza dough and lay it out on your pan or stone. Drizzle Olive Oil over dough and spread to coat evenly. Add a little salt and pepper. Then add your minced garlic over that and spread it around the bottom of the dough evenly. Arrange tomato slices over pizza. Top with Motzerella cheese. Place in oven for about 20 - 25 minutes and enjoy!