This week we tried our hand at an updated version of Chicken Cordon Bleu.
I used the RecipeTin Eats instructions, and they turned out beautiful. These cuts were a little large, so they took some additional time in the oven. Otherwise, I followed the “super easy method” to the letter. The mustard sauce was especially good.
Claudia made mashed potatoes and salad for sides, and I baked a green bean casserole. Wine was a Coloma Zinfandel.
Claudia made one of our favorite dishes for Sunday Dinner this week.
Aunt Pat is back with us from her trip out west, and we also were happy to have our son, James, visiting this weekend. Claudia made Fettuccini Alfredo, with marinated artichokes, roasted red peppers, tomatoes and chilis. It’s been a family favorite for years. She also cooked broccoli with garlic butter, and made a beautiful green salad.
We started with some antipasti (cheeses, salami, olives, etc.). The wine was Jacqueline Bahue’s delicious Sauvignon Blanc. Aunt Pat provided dessert, a lovely lemon pie from Baker’s Square.
Recipe for the pasta dish to come, if I can talk Claudia into it. 🙂
We roasted another chicken on the Weber Kettle rotisserie this week.
This was about a six pound bird. I dry brined it, seasoning with course salt and black pepper Saturday night. Sunday morning I also hit it with garlic powder, onion powder, Herbs de Provence and a little MSG. Hickory chunks added the fire spice. Since it was largish, it took about an hour and a half to get the temp up to 165 °F in the center of the breast. I also par cooked three pounds of potatoes in the microwave for about ten minutes before putting them in the drip pan. There’s really nothing like potatoes that have roasted with chicken drippings.
Claudia made a nice salad and cooked some fresh green beans. We also had radishes and cornichons. The wine was a deliciously bracing Bokisch Andrus Vineyard Albariño from Lodi.
Claudia also baked cupcakes for dessert.
Every now and then I get a craving for corn relish. It doesn’t happen often, but it happened last weekend. I looked around the condiments, pickles and salsas in three different grocery stores and wasn’t able to find any. So I decided to make it myself.
It wasn’t that difficult. The canning jar that I used was big enough for a double batch, so when it was safely in the fridge, it occurred to me that we could have it for a side dish at this week’s Sunday Dinner. Then the question became what to do for a main.
Pork burgers came to mind, and my memory went wandering back to the first time I ever ate them as a child. I can still vividly remember the smell of the charcoal, and that first amazing umami bomb bite. It’s my first memory of charcoal grilled food, and I remember it being the most delicious thing I had ever tasted at the time.
The way I remembered it, my brother-in-law, Berwyn, had grilled them, and he had used a special seasoning from the Illinois Pork Producers Association. This was fifty years or so ago, though, so I wasn’t sure. After researching online to no avail, I fired off an email to my sister, which began “This may sound crazy…”
Turns out that the memory was correct, and that their family still uses the spice to this day. Vicki was able to give me an Amazon link, and even went so far as to contact the Pork Producers to find out if it was the same spice recipe as the one made in the 1960s. They said that it is. It’s made by the folks from Custom Culinary in Oswego, Illinois.
So I was all set to relive the taste this weekend, except that the shipment of the seasoning wouldn’t arrive in time.
I improvised, after looking at the ingredients label, with a mix of onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, dry mustard and MSG. I also seasoned the burgers with salt and pepper. They turned out great. Mrs. Noe said “I like these better than hamburgers.”
I also made potatoes with vinegar and salt, which was a hit.
Claudia made a terrific salad, as usual, and she and our daughter, Caroline, made apple crisp for dessert.
Wine was a Columbia Valley Riesling from Aldi’s that was really quite nice.
I still have some of the Custom Culinary seasoning on the way, and am looking forward to trying that before long.
And we’re counting down two more weeks until Aunt Pat joins us at table again. 🙂
We attended a performance of our local theater company this afternoon, so we wanted to prepare a crockpot meal for Sunday Dinner.
Louisiana Red Beans and Rice is one of our favorites, and couldn’t be simpler. I gently sautéed some Cajun Trinity (onions, bell peppers and celery), adding some minced garlic towards the end, then added it to a crock pot with red beans, Worcestershire Sauce, black pepper, a couple of bay leaves, some dried parsley, Tabasco Sauce and liquid smoke.
This turned out delicious, as always. Claudia made a lovely banana cake with chocolate frosting for dessert. In keeping with the Louisiana theme, I had a Sazerac cocktail before dinner, and we opened the last bottle of one of my favorite French wines (a Côtes Catalanes) to drink with the meal.
