Steak with Pasta and Carrots

Okay, I'll be honest, I wasn't really paying the most attention to cooking this dish. I was running late for an event and simultaneously trying to cook and get ready (shower and everything) so I may have fudged some of the things.

Steak with Pasta and Carrots

First, the night before I marinated my steak (don't ask me what cut it is, I went for something thin and inexpensive at the supermarket) using the best steak marinade in existence. However, I didn't quite measure out the ingredients, just kind of eyeballed it and called it a day. Don't. I ended up adding entirely too much Worcestershire sauce and turned my steak a disgusting brown color. It also didn't taste like much else. So moral of the story: be cautious with the Worcestershire sauce - that stuff is potent.

I cranked the heat on the skillet, and then seared both sides of my steak, cooking on 2 minutes on each side. Honestly, this is probably good enough, since the meat was only about an inch thick. But then I threw it in the oven while I showered, and added some carrots to roast as well. The carrots were cut into half inch thick rods (for lack of a better term) and coated with salt, pepper, a little herb seasoning and olive oil. They baked in the oven at 350ºC for about 10 minutes. I whipped up some simple pasta, dressing it with a sauce made from the drippings left in the pan from the steak and some cream. And bam, a new homemade meal in less than 20 minutes! I ended up making my steak well-done and my carrots a little undercooked, but at least it was still edible! I made another piece of steak done in the same marinade the next night and only seared it on the skillet and it was pretty kick-ass!

Baked Chicken Parmesan

I want to preface this post with a couple of things:
1. I am not a foodie. As a college student on a budget, I don't have the time, or the burning desire to make everything from scratch. I'll use canned tomato sauce instead of making my own, use premixed seasonings like garlic and herb seasoning because it's easier, faster and I honestly don't care enough to make my own.
2. As I said, I'm a college student on a budget, so a lot of my ingredients and substitutions are going to be because that's simply what was in my pantry or refrigerator that day, or was on sale at the supermarket that week. So by all means, if you have better ingredients, please use them! I'm sure it'll come out a lot better than my creations.
3. I'm not a good cook. Not terrible, but not great. I am definitely not pretending I know how to do anything in the kitchen, haha.
4. I suck at taking pictures of the food I make, help!

Okay, so last week, following in the Italian vein, I made chicken parmesan, adapted from the recipe found here.

I modified this recipe modified from an America's Test Kitchen recipe mostly because I used what I had instead of trekking out to the supermarket in the cold. Lazy, I know. Directions are as follows!

Ingredients:

- two boneless skinless chicken breasts

- 1 cup Progresso Garlic & Herb breadcrumbs

- 2 egg whites

- 1 teaspoon water

- 1/2 cup flour

- 2 teaspoons garlic salt

- 1 cup tomato sauce

- 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella 

- salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Place chicken breasts on cutting board and cut the breast horizontally to create two thinner cutlets. Pushing down on the breast with your other hand (the one without the knife) tends to help evenly cut the meat in half.

2. Lay out 3 shallow bowls - here I just use plates. In the first, mix salt, pepper, garlic salt and flour. Mix well to make sure there aren't spots of salty regret. In the second, beat the two egg whites with 1 tsp water until it becomes homogeneous and frothy. Lastly, in the third, lay out a nice even layer of breadcrumbs.

3. Pat each chicken cutlet dry, then dip in flour, egg and breadcrumbs in that order. Make sure to shake off excess flour before dipping in the egg mixture to create a lighter crust. 

4. Place chicken onto a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet. Bake at 475ºF for 10 minutes. Then top each piece with a spoonful of tomato sauce and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.

5. Bake for another 5 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and golden brown. Serve on a bed of spaghetti if desired.

Baked Ziti

Sorry for the late post - things have been hectic with the start of the new semester and I haven't had a chance to sit down and properly write out a post. This one will be short and sweet, and hopefully I'll have another one up soon for this week.

So last week my friend and I decided to come back to campus a week early to catch up on some lab work, and made a huge pan of baked ziti, which lasted us about 4 days. We're lazy, I know. I take absolutely zero credit for this recipe, this one goes to Brian. The recipe is (sort of) as follows:

Ingredients:
1 pound of ziti
1 pound of ground turkey
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon Adobo seasoning
8 ounces shredded mozzarella
8 ounces shredded colby jack
8 ounces cottage cheese
1 jar (25 ounces) pasta sauce

Directions:
1. Cook pasta in salted water as directed on the box.
2. In a large skillet, add ground turkey, salt, pepper and Adobo seasoning and cook for 10 minutes on medium-high heat. Add the jar of pasta sauces to the pan and let simmer.

3. In a large casserole dish, add a layer of pasta across the bottom (about half of the pasta). Layer half of all the cheeses on top, and top with half of the sauce. Repeat the layers, and save a small amount of cheese to add to the top of the ziti.

4. Bake at 375ºF for 20 minutes or until the cheese is melty and golden brown on the top

And voila! It's delicious, can feed a crowd and stores well. I know I'm going to fish this recipe out a couple of times throughout the semester when I'm in a pickle and need something in my fridge I can pick at for a while. 

Pan Roasted Chicken with Lemon-Garlic Green Beans and Potatoes

I don't generally believe in New Years Resolutions. They seem like empty words half-heartedly enacted for about a month or so until forgotten. At least that's what it seems like to me. We shouldn't need New Years Resolutions as motivations to change our lives, but this year I decided to try it out and see what all the hype is about. My New Years Resolution for 2013 is to cook, make, bake, grill, and/or fry at least one new dish every single week. That makes for at least 52 new foods and recipes. It'll be an interesting year and I can't promise that everything will taste good, but I'm hoping it will at least be edible. Hence, My Almost Edible Year.

For my very first meal this year, I decided to make Pan Roasted Chicken with Lemon-Garlic Green Beans and Potatoes, served on a bed of parmesan couscous, a slightly modified version of the recipe found on Real Simple (http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/pan-roasted-chicken-lemon-garlic-green-beans-10000000780291/index.html) for me and my parents on my last day at home before returning to college.

My modified recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

Half a lemon

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

1/4 cup wine

3/4 pound trimmed green beans

3 russett potatoes, cubed

3 chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)

1 box parmesan couscous

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375ºF. In a medium bowl, combine chicken, salt, 1 tsp pepper, and wine and toss to coat. Leave to marinate for at least an hour, and up to 24 hours. 

2. Set a small saucepan on the stove to boil. Add the green beans and a pinch of salt to the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes. Immediately remove and wash with cold water.

3. In a medium bowl, combine the olive oil, garlic, 1 tsp pepper, and the juice of half a lemon and whisk to combine. Add the potatoes and green beans to the olive oil mixture and toss to coat. Arrange the vegetables on the bottom of a large baking dish and bake at 375ºF for 15 minutes.

4. After 15 minutes, add the chicken to the top of the vegetables and pour the rest of the marinade over the chicken and vegetables. Roast for 45 minutes. Cook couscous as directed on the box and divide chicken and vegetables equally among 3 serving plates. Serve warm. 

I have to say it was a solid start for the new year! The chicken was moist and lemony, with a very mild and delicate flavor. The potatoes and green beans were soft, but still had bite to them and the couscous paired well with the lemon flavor. The most nerve-wracking part was staring at the chicken through the small oven window, wondering if it was leathery and dry or still raw in the middle. When we finally pulled it out, I had to cut a slice just to make sure it was done (you can see the cut on the first image of the chicken up close). One down, 51 more to go!