Mushroom Chicken Sauce with Gnocchi

I'm not sure when I fell in love with caramelized onions - I've said that before I guess. I've never really liked onions but caramelized onions are out-of-this-world good. And I wanted to make a sauce with them for gnocchi. This sauce has it all - sauteed chicken, scrum-didly-uptious caramelized onions, mushrooms, cream, butter...I don't know how many calories it has and I don't care. So if you know, please don't tell me. ;) You can make your own gnocchi (search "Gnocchi Mario Batali" on Food Network and you'll come up with some great recipes - stick with a plain one), or you can buy it premade. I've found it at World Market, Super Target and Albertson's, so I'm pretty sure it's widely available now. I make my own and individually freeze them on cookie sheets, then keep them in a large ziplock in the freezer. You can make a huge batch, then only cook what you need at a time. This sauce isn't the most colorful (and actually, it's probably more like a ragout than a sauce), but it sure is delicious, if I do say so myself! It serves 2 but is easily multiplied to serve more. Enjoy!

P.S. I'm going to start just posting the download recipe (saves some time) - but please let me know if this doesn't work for you for some reason, and I'll resume posting the entire recipe here as well. Thanks!


The downloadable recipe!

Bittersweet: Tribute Cake

Luke & I don't really need a "reason" to make a cake like this. It would probably be better for us if we did need one, but oh well. "Bittersweet" is probably my favorite dessert cookbook, and that makes sense: it's a book about chocolate. (The cake on the cover is the Tribute Cake, although hers looks much better than mine!) This cake was originally made as a birthday cake for Chuck Williams, the founder of Williams-Sonoma, and I would definitely say it's worthy of that. It has three rich chocolate cakes, with whipped chocolate ganache filling, and dark chocolate glaze. It's topped and circled with chocolate "fans," which are made by scraping thin sheets of chocolate. It took a while to master but I was so excited when I did!

"Panda Express" Orange Chicken - Copycat recipe

This is a shameless copycat recipe. I love copycat recipes - my favorite foods that I can't get all the time from my favorite restaurants, made so I can cook them at home! For those of you who live in the vicinity of a Panda Express, this recipe doesn't need a drop of explanation. I'm pretty sure this is one of their most popular entrees, at least at our house anyway! For those of you that don't, Panda Express Orange Chicken is a sweet, spicy, crunchy, covered-in-sticky-sauce chicken dish. We always buy a big container of it every time we go...it's definitely our favorite and there's usually not any left over! Serve it with rice and stir-fried veggies and you're good to go!

Chinese food can be a little intimidating to cook, mostly because there are usually lots of ingredients and it's time consuming. I usually make several kinds of Chinese food at the same time so that makes it even harder. Everything always seems to happen so fast and you're scrambling to get things ready to go in. I've found that the key to making it is to prep all the ingredients. Separate them into bowls and have them arranged in the order they'll go in. Yeah, it'll make a few extra dishes, but that's all right with me if it keeps my sanity intact.

I also simplified this recipe a lot from the original I found (somewhere online, just searching for a copycat recipe), and tweaked the sauce to taste more like Panda Express'. When I make this and my other recipe that calls for breaded chicken, General Tso's Chicken, I make all the chicken at once, with the Orange Chicken breading, fry it all at once, and then separate it into two bowls for the two different kinds of chicken. Sorry there's no picture, I meant to take one last night but we always eat it too fast. I hope you all enjoy this recipe, we certainly do!

"Panda Express" Orange Chicken

2 lbs. chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 egg
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
1 T. oil
1/2 c. cornstarch
1/4 c. flour
Oil for frying

1 T. gingerroot, minced (or 1 t. dry ground ginger)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 t. crushed red pepper (adjust to taste, this is pretty spicy for me and fairly mild for Luke)
1/4 c. green onion, chopped
1 T. rice or white wine vinegar
1/4 c. water, mixed with 1 T. cornstarch
1/2 t. sesame oil

Sauce: (Mix together in a bowl)
5 T. soy sauce
5 T. sugar
5 T. rice or white wine vinegar
Zest of 1 orange
Juice of 2 oranges



Coat chicken in egg, salt and pepper and 1 T. oil; mix well. Stir cornstarch and flour into the chicken. Heat oil in a wok (about an inch deep in a wok) over medium heat, and add chicken in batches, frying until crisp and browned on the outside. (I usually cut open a piece from the first batch to make sure it's cooking through.) Remove chicken as it finishes, and put in a bowl lined with paper towels to drain. Clean out the wok; add 1 T. oil and heat over medium-high heat. Add gingerroot, garlic, onions, crushed red pepper, and rice wine vinegar, stir until the onions begin to soften and garlic turns golden. Add the orange sauce and bring to a boil. Stir in the 1/4 cup of water mixed with the cornstarch, and heat until it starts to thicken. Add the chicken to the sauce and cook until the sauce is thick.

Downloadable recipe!

Cooking in a small kitchen: what you need & what you don't

I've been asked a lot how I manage to cook "gourmet" type meals with two small kiddos and a pretty small kitchen. The kiddos part is easy. Most of my cooking is done when they're napping or sleeping! Cooking in a small kitchen definitely has its limitations and difficulties though, but hopefully I can show you all that it can in fact be done, and hopefully inspire those with kitchens as small or smaller than mine to start cooking up a storm!


Here are a few photos of my kitchen, minus my table, which is opposite the sink. I LOVE my dining room table; my husband bought it for me on my 19th birthday, the same one he proposed to me. I had fallen in love with it at my grandparents' antique show and when I went back it was sold - Luke had bought it! It's the perfect height for working on, and that's where I do most of my mixing and rolling out.


(If you're curious about where I keep everything, click on each picture and you'll find notes of what everything is & what's in my cupboards)

Don't mind the pan and bowl on the stove. That's a pan that stays out a lot, since I use it a lot. And the bowl is filled with rising bread dough - a safe and easy place to rise it is on top of the stove. My kiddos can't get to it and it's a little warmer than other areas, usually.



So, what do you absolutely need in a small kitchen, and what can you live without? And why does this even matter? First of all, it matters because it can make your life so much easier if you have everything you need in your kitchen, but not too much. There are probably even a few things I could do without. My espresso maker, for example, isn't exactly necessary, but it's probably my favorite thing in the kitchen. (Christmas, this past year, from Luke. It's something I've always wanted but would never buy myself, being too practical. Luke is awesome at picking out presents like that for me!) But back on track, if you have just what you need and everything you need, you'll be more inclined to cook and happier about it! So here are my "basics of a small kitchen," not everything I have and use, but the basics of the big things like pots and pans that take up lots of room.

- 2 baking sheets (large & small)
- 1 standard muffin pan
- 1 cooling rack (2 would be nice)
- 1 round pizza stone (use this for pizza & baking bread)
- 3 serving platters, different sizes
- 1 large skillet (14")
- 1 medium skillet (10")
- 2 small skillets (6")
- 1 cast iron skillet (10")
- 1 large stock pot
- 3 nesting saucepans
- 1 small-size roasting pan
- 1 small-size crock pot
- 1 blender (would love to have a food processor)
- 1 bread machine (could do without, but use for pizza dough)
- Nesting bowls of different sizes, kept on the counter for prep work
- 5 cake pans of the same size (9")
- 1 pie pan
- 1 cheesecake/springform pan
- 1 tart pan (9")
- 1 bread loaf pan
- 2 large Pyrex glass baking dishes (9x13")
- 1 small Pyrex glass baking dish (8x10")
- 1 medium cutting board (need a few more)
- 1 small coffee grinder for spices (another for coffee)
- 1 set of nesting mixing bowls

Those are my absolute basics. I also keep a knife block with various size knives, and my favorite knife which is not from that set; as well as a canister full of utensils, such as a rubber spatula and whisk, etc.


My main rule for keeping the clutter and too many gadgets and gizmos under control is to not buy items that can't multitask, with a few exceptions. My bread machine is one of these exceptions, although as I said, I could live without it. I've never found a need for a citrus juicer, garlic press, mango pitter, avocado slicer, or anything else of that nature. If I can manage it with my hands or knife, that's what I do. I do have a Pampered Chef chopper, but I'm so much faster with a knife than that, and a knife is so much easier to clean, that it's usually at the back of my cupboard, and I forget I have it until it's too late to get it out.

Keeping smaller amounts of everything is what helps, I think. Sure, I'd love to have 10 baking sheets, all different sizes for each specific task, but that's just not practical. So 2 is enough for now. Yep, I'd love to have 12 of my favorite knife, but that's just not practical. I might have to wash things a little more often, but it keeps the clutter down and makes it easier for me to work in my kitchen.




Do any of you guys have tips for working and cooking in a small kitchen? What is something you can't live without?

Caramelized onions, and a new recipe

Caramelized onions. Where have these been all my life? I have always hated onions - not the flavor they give to a dish, but eating them. It must be a texture thing, but all my life I've been avoiding eating onions. I never even bought onions that much. Until now. I decided that caramelized onions would be good in a sauce I made a few weeks ago, and that was the end of it. Who knew a couple of onions, slowly cooked in butter until they are golden brown, could be so daggone GOOD? A friend (hi Heather!) gave me the idea of putting them on pizza too - bye bye boring pepperoni for me! Hello prosciutto & caramelized onion!


----------


Ok, enough about the onions. The recipe I have to share with you guys today is simple, but a quick side dish that is very adaptable. I made these Mini Potato Gratins the other night along with roast chicken, sauteed fresh green beans, and of course, caramelized onions. Why not make just one big gratin? First of all, these cook way faster. Second, you can make totally different gratins all in one muffin pan. Which is great, if one of you wants to put capers in them, and the other won't even come in the kitchen while you have capers in plain sight.

[Side note: capers are sort of like tiny, brined olives. I have no clue why I like them & Luke doesn't, since I hate olives and he loves them. They're very good as an accent to a dish but I don't like them whole, they kind of pop when you bite into them, and I find that disgusting. So I chop them.]

I made 9 mini gratins in a muffin pan, and that was more than enough for 2 people. For three or four, just fill the whole muffin pan. Another thing you can change up is the cheese - I used sharp cheddar, but plan on making these with Parmesan, Asiago, really just about any kind of cheese would work!

Mini Potato Gratins

3-6 small potatoes (I used red potatoes, new or gold potatoes would be fine too), thinly sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
About 1 cup shredded cheese (I used sharp cheddar, but almost anything would be good)
About 1 to 3 teaspoons of capers, finely chopped (optional)
Cream


Grease a muffin tin with butter and put a slice of potato in each cup. Add a sprinkle of cheese, a little bit of garlic, and capers, if desired. Continue layering until the muffin cups are filled. Top with a sprinkle of cheese and pour about 1 to 2 teaspoons of cream over each stack of potatoes, letting it drip down into the cups. Bake at 350 F (or whatever you have your oven set to, I had mine at 375) for around 20 to 30 minutes, until cheese is crispy on top and potatoes are fork tender. Run a knife around each muffin cup to release them and serve.

Luke's Birthday Dinner & "Julie & Julia"

Usually on birthdays and anniversaries and holidays like Valentine's Day I cook a slightly more elaborate dinner, a "special" dinner, than usual. Sometimes we will go out for those occasions. Except Valentine's Day. It doesn't matter what day of the week it falls on, all the restaurants are WAY too busy! We'll get a nice bottle of wine and I'll go crazy (sometimes literally) and try all new recipes. Luke's birthday was the most recent occasion and every single recipe I made was a new one, with the exception of the salads. I thought I'd share the menu and where I found the recipes for each.

The first course was a salad and these absolutely divine cheese straws from Smitten Kitchen. I honestly think those cheese straws were my favorite part of dinner. They came pretty close to being better than dessert! Basically they are like glorified cheese puffs. I honestly ask you to try to find one person in the world who doesn't like cheese. Ok, so maybe there's one or two but we all know they're crazy. These are made "grown up" a little bit by looking like fancy breadsticks and by adding in some red pepper flakes.

For the main course we had what the Pioneer Woman calls Potato Bundles, and a recipe I copied from a library cookbook (I'm thinking written by Gourmet Magazine?), Shrimp, Asparagus and Pesto Fettuccine. The Potato Bundles, in true Pioneer Woman fashion, didn't let me down. I honestly can't say I've ever tried a recipe of hers that didn't work and that wasn't fantastic. The pasta though, I was disappointed.

For starters, I wound up not having any pesto. That was probably the biggest problem with it. I bought a nice pesto (since it would cost me more to make than to buy and I don't have a food processor anyway), but didn't realize that the jar was cracked under the label. When I opened it up the lid seal had already popped and about 1/4 of the jar's worth had already leaked out. So out with the sauce. The best part of the pasta was the roasted red peppers. It said to use canned red peppers but since I was already spending $$$ on pesto, I decided to roast my own pepper. I sat it on a gas burner turned to med-low, and turned it until it was charred on all sides. Then I popped it into a plastic bag and let it sit until I was ready to use it. Then I just removed the seeds and chopped it up. I had never had roasted red pepper before and I almost couldn't resist eating the whole thing before even putting it in the pasta! The asparagus and shrimp were fine but without the sauce it wasn't as good as it could have been.

For dessert I made another Pioneer Woman recommendation, Molten Chocolate Cakes, although it wasn't her recipe. It was from her recent recipe site launch of Tasty Kitchen, and this recipe definitely is worth keeping and making over and over! I was a little confused at first because some baking chocolate squares are 1 oz. and some are 2 oz., but reading the comments it was 1 oz. squares. Also, I don't have any custard cups but I used a muffin tin and only cooked them for 10 minutes. They were a little smaller but just as good! Serve them with whipped cream - oh. my. gosh.

I think Luke's dinner was a hit, he usually likes what I cook though. =) I'm really blessed that he likes so much of what I make.


----------

Luke took me to see "Julie & Julia" today! I've been waiting to see it and he kept teasing me, saying "I'm sure it'll be on DVD by Christmas." I really enjoyed it but first I have to say it's definitely a PG-13 movie at moments. There, you've been warned. That said, I loved Meryl Streep as Julia Child! She really had her down and for several moments you really thought you were watching Julia! The best thing for me about the movie was seeing how Julia & her husband Paul were so close and how Julie and her husband Eric became so close. Anyway, watch with caution but I did love the movie. (Why do they even feel the need to put that stuff in sometimes? Really.)

Cherry Sauce

Luke asked me for chocolate cheesecake with cherry topping a little while back and I just happened to have about a pound of fresh cherries that were going to go bad if I didn't use them. He was a bit skeptical about me improvising a recipe for homemade cherry topping, or sauce, but by the time it was finished he decided it was all right and we should do it again for a pie sometime!

This is a really easy recipe that you can do with tons of different fruits. You can also adjust the spices or alcohol for different flavors! I used it on top of chocolate cheesecake, but it would be great in cherry pie or turnovers as well. I've made it with blueberries and used nutmeg, ginger and cloves and then mixed the blueberry sauce with peaches and baked it into a pie. Just adjust the amounts for different weights of fruit. (For example, when I did it with blueberries, I had about 6 oz. and used 1/8 c. sugar instead of 1/3 c.) The measurements are semi-approximate, because you can adjust depending on taste. Enjoy!

Cherry Sauce

Pit 1 pound of cherries. (See below for a tip!) Put in a medium saucepan and add 1/3 c. sugar, 2 to 4 T. rum, about 1/3 to 1/2 c. water and pinch of nutmeg and a pinch of salt. Bring to a boil and simmer vigorously until the sauce has thickened and reduced.

Cherry pitting tip: I don't have a cherry pitter and I really don't like buying kitchen tools that only do one thing. I tried using a knife and it didn't work too well, and then I remembered something I'd seen on Food Network (pretty sure it was Alton Brown) that said to unbend a paper clip so that it has two bent sections and use the bigger side of the paper clip to go around the pit of the cherry. It pops right out! Oh, and make sure the paper clip is clean, of course.




Downloadable recipe!

Gnocchi with Prosciutto and Vegetables

This was a super simple, super delicious easy meal! You can use any gnocchi (you can even buy gnocchi in some grocery and specialty stores now, I've seen it at Super Target and World Market). I made a giant batch of it homemade, and flash froze them on cookie sheets individually, and keep them frozen in a Ziplock. There are lots of great recipes out there, try searching Food Network.com for "gnocchi + Mario Batali," and you'll come up with quite a few.

So this isn't really much of a recipe even. You cook the gnocchi for just a few minutes in boiling water (according to recipe or package directions), while cooking frozen vegetables in a skillet with olive oil (I used green beans). When the gnocchi are almost done, take them out and put them in a medium-high skillet (make sure it's HOT) with olive oil to give them a nice crust. It took me a few times to get this right. Add some prosciutto and the cooked vegetables and season. I like lemon pepper and garlic salt but you can use whatever you want. Enjoy!

Recent Recipes I've Tried

This is kind of a review post - I thought I'd share some of the recent recipes I've tried out and what I thought! Do you have any you've tried out recently? I'd love to hear in the comments!

Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls were SO delicious! Definitely start the day before if you're making these for breakfast, and I quartered the recipe and we still had some left over! Actually, I've really enjoyed everything I've cooked from her site is fantastic - one of Luke and my favorites is her enchiladas.



Something we've both been enjoying is my new ice cream maker Luke bought me for Mother's Day. This recipe by Paula Deen for Butter Pecan Ice Cream was amazing - and this coming from a chocolate-lovin' girl! It's a little difficult to half but I had to because my ice cream maker only does 1 quart at a time. (Sorry, no picture, we ate it too fast!)

The last recipe for now was of the Olive Garden Breadsticks in Food Network Magazine. It's a clone recipe and I have to say, it was pretty close! I did bake them a tad too long and I have dark non-stick pans which tend to overcook stuff like this but the seasoning was spot on! I also really need a pastry brush because I think it would really help with getting more butter onto the breadsticks. Unfortunately I can't share the recipe because it's not on the website but you can pick up a copy of the magazine at places like Barnes & Noble or you can subscribe here!

Favorite Chinese Recipes

Luke and I love Chinese food, especially when I make it myself. These are a few of my favorite recipes, including ones I just tried last night - Wonton soup. I usually either make two chicken dishes with a vegetable stir-fry and rice, or do the soup and one other chicken dish. Eventually I'll post another recipe for a Panda Express Orange Chicken clone, but I'm still working on making it taste just like Panda Express.



First up, a really old recipe of mine that I make all the time. It was adapted from a family friend's recipe that cooked in the oven. I wanted something that was a little bit faster and that tasted more like the sweet Sesame Chicken from a local restaurant back in Delaware. So here you have it, my Sesame Chicken:

Sesame Chicken
1 lb. chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces
Sesame oil for frying
2-3 cloves minced garlic
1 T. sesame seeds

Sauce (Note that I NEVER measure when I make this, so these are approximate. Taste the sauce as you go along to get it right!):
1/4 c. honey
2 T. white wine vinegar or rice wine vinegar
1-2 T. soy sauce
1/2 t. dry ground ginger
1/2-1 t. Szechuan sauce (to taste, it's a Chinese hot sauce)
2 T. cornstarch


Mix up the sauce and taste as you go along. It should be sweet with a tiny bite. Heat around 2-3 T. sesame oil in a medium skillet. Cook the garlic for around 1 minute then add the sesame seeds. Cook until the garlic starts to brown, then add the chicken and toss to distribute the garlic and sesame seeds. Cook until the chicken is completely opaque, then add the sauce mixture to the chicken. Continue cooking until sauce has thickened, around 3 minutes. Serve over rice.

This next recipe is one of Luke's favorites. It's supposed to be a little spicier than I make it so you can add dried chili pepper or fresh chilies to the sauce.

General Tso's Chicken
Combine for Sauce:
1/3 c. soy sauce
1/3 c. rice vinegar
1/3 c. water mixed with 2 t. cornstarch
2 t. sesame oil
2 cloves of minced garlic
3/4-1 t. dry ground ginger

Beat 2 eggs with 2 T. cornstarch and coat 1 lb. bite-sized cut chicken in the mixture. Fry the chicken pieces in a wok with vegetable oil, removing pieces as the chicken finishes cooking. Drain most of the oil and add the sauce to the pan and cook down until thick, adding the chicken back towards the end to glaze.

Wonton Soup is one of my favorite things to order from a Chinese restaurant but the places out here (at least the takeout places) don't have it! So I found this recipe (I have NO idea where it came from, possibly a really old issue of Everyday Food?) and tried it out last night. I have to say, this is probably even better than what you get in the restaurants!

Wonton Soup
24 Wonton wrappers
1/2 c. finely chopped napa or Savoy cabbage
coarse salt
6 oz. ground pork, not all lean
3 scallions, finely chopped
1 T. finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
1 t. soy sauce
1 t. toasted sesame oil

Toss cabbage with salt. Let stand 10 minutes, then wrap in paper towels and squeeze out excess liquid. Return cabbage to bowl and add other ingredients. Mix well with a fork.

Work with one wrapper at a time, keep the rest covered in the package. Spoon one rounded teaspoon of filling in center. Wet the edges of the wrapper and fold in half in a triangle, press edges firmly to seal. Moisten one tip on the long side and bring tips together, overlapping. Press to seal. Fold top corner back. Place wontons on a oiled plate, cover with a damp towel to keep moist.


Soup:
2 c. chicken broth
4 c. water
coarse salt
3 scallions, thinly sliced
2-3 t. rice vinegar
1/2 t. toasted sesame oil

Combine chicken broth, water and 1 t. salt in a large pot; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and add wontons. Simmer until wontons are just cooked, 4-6 minutes. Add scallions, vinegar and oil, season with salt to taste.

Downloadable Sesame Chicken Recipe

Downloadable General Tso's Chicken Recipe

Downloadable Wonton Soup Recipe (with a bonus, potstickers!)