It was a pretty good week, cooking-wise. The only major cooking mistake was Friday’s pork, which I overcooked (although the sauce was delicious, because I browned the meat and then simmered it for a few moments, it became quite tough). Also, the fettuccine I made on Saturday (June 6) wasn’t the best: I heated the cheese too quickly so it separated. Even that was still tasty.

Can you tell which two evenings my husband was out of town?

Saturday (May 30)

Mozzarella-Stuffed Meatballs with Pesto-Tomato Sauce; Baked Asparagus; and Mashed Potatoes with Cheese and Pepper

Sunday

Baked Pasta with Tomatoes

Monday

Chicken Pot Pie Stew and Buttermilk Biscuits

Tuesday

Cider-Braised Chicken; Braised Fennel; and Buttery Egg Noodles

Wednesday

My son had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner with butternut squash mashed in it. He never knew!

Thursday

Waffles and fresh fruit

Friday

Pork Chops with Sautéed Apples; leftover potato and leek gratin (from freezer)

Saturday

Fettuccini Alfredo with Sugar Snap Peas

I believe Sunday are meant to be a day of rest, including Sunday afternoons just before supper.

For that reason, I purposely don’t plan on cooking a big meat-and-potatoes supper. Instead, a simple pasta dish meets our needs: it fills our belly and is nourishing and tasty. And then we may have room left over for Sunday evening desert.

I found this recipe in a cookbook I got for my wedding called Favorite Brand Name Comfort Foods. It calls for Barilla brand Ziti pasta. I confess: I got a generic brand. I suspect it would also work fine with penne or a different cut pasta.

Two ingredients in this recipe might not need to be fresh. It called for four tomatoes, three of which were peeled, cut, seeded, and then diced. It took me forever! I suspect buying canned diced tomatoes and draining them very well would work just as well.

The recipe also calls for lots of chopped fresh basil. Because it was simmered with the sauce and then baked, I suspect using dried basil in smaller quantity would suffice; unless you grow your own basil, it would certainly would be cheaper.

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It’s not really the season to braise right now: standing over a hot stove doesn’t seem very springy. But Tuesday it was chilly and rainy, and I had bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs in the refrigerator.

What does one do with bone-in thighs?

I don’t like bone-in thighs, simply because it’s harder to eat around a bone. But bone-in meat does work much better for long periods of simmering: my cider-braised chicken ended up quite moist and tender. The oniony-cider sauce was sweet and tangy. I was delighted it worked so well.

I based my dinner off of this recipe at The Kitchen Sink Recipes. I didn’t put the chicken in the oven: I just kept it on the stove until the chicken was cooked and then I reduced the sauce. I also didn’t add cider vineagar and I did add a little bit of brown sugar to make the sauce a little more sweet. I also forgot to add the parsley I had chopped: I found it in my little dish when I went to clear the dishes. Oops. It still tasted very good.

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I am of the opinion that vegetables exist to be served with tasty sauces, and this recipe for braised fennel certainly lives up to that.

Maybe it’s the stick of butter. But I think the lemon juice helps it too. And then fennel smells and tastes like licorice, so how can that go wrong? Then there is the slow simmer while I finish the rest of dinner. In the end, I think it is just super easy to make and incredibly delicious. My toddler son wouldn’t eat it, though. Maybe in a few more years?

Because I only sautéed three rather small bulbs, rather than the 4 1/2 pounds the recipe calls for, I ended up with a lot extra butter sauce at the end. I poured that over my egg noodles. I also left it under the broiler a minute too long, so some of the cheese was burned. Easily avoided next time; the broiler time is not even necessary if you don’t want to do so.

I thought it was delicious, with its licorice flavor. My husband even asked me if I’d added flavoring. No, honey: this is just a naturally good vegetable. (more…)

When I was a kid and my family ate out at a restaurant, I always got “chicken pot pie.” It was the fanciest, most delicious thing. I love the combination of pastry and chicken and vegetable yumminess.

In reality, chicken pot pie is very easy to make and hardly fancy. It’s a great go-to week night meal, because even my 1-year-old son ate some of it. The only problem is that the few times I’ve cooked it, it felt time consuming simply because of the baking part. I don’t mind cutting vegetables and then stirring and simmering a stew for 30 minutes. But I don’t want to then have to wait another 30 minutes while it cooks further in the oven: I want to eat!

So last night I made the chicken pot pie recipe. And then I dipped buttermilk biscuits in it and enjoyed eating it. Beyond baking some biscuits earlier, there was no baking after all the simmering, but there still is pastry goodness along with it. I think it works well as a stew.

My husband admits that he added a dash of a secret ingredient to the soup at the end: Tabascos sauce. I didn’t notice a difference in flavor, so I guess if he’s happy, I’m happy to remain ignorant.

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