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October 11, 2011
Dooley's Birthday
For Dooley's birthday we made our first recipe from the ATK Slow Cooker cookbook. Doolia had gotten a great deal on beef roasts at Kroger--buy one get one free! So Dooley decided that the "Southwestern Style Pot Roast" was just the thing for his birthday dinner. We started early in the morning, before Doolia went to work. It was a little hard to start the day mincing three onions and EIGHT minced cloves of garlic! But we got everything into the crockpot and going by 7:15 am.
When I got home from work a little after 4pm, the condo smelled wonderful! I put some rice in the rice steamer and when everyone else arrived home, we served up this delectable roast--that was literally falling off the fork as I tried to pull it out of the pot to slice. It was so tender that I couldn't really slice it--it just fell into shreds with the least pressure. We served it thus: a bed of rice, the meat, covered in the sauce, and topped with fresh chopped onions and tomatoes, plus a tad of shredded cheddar cheese. It was fantastic!
Then for dessert, Doolia made another apple crisp (from Cook's Illustrated September/October 2010 issue) made from giant Jonagold apples our neighbors had given us. We invited the neighbors to join us in dessert, and we had a merry time celebrating Dooley's birthday.
Posted by jdooley at 09:35 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 10, 2011
Deep Dish Pizza vs. Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza
So Dooley and Doolia have made Deep Dish Pizza from the The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook five times now. It takes about 4 hours to make, mostly because of the slow rising time for the pizza dough. It's delicious and we love it so much that invested in a deep dish pizza pan from GFS--the only place we could find that could get one for us--even though it took three months to get it! So this weekend we decided to try Cook's Illustrated's recipe from the Jan/Feb 2010 magazine for Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza (page 15).
We used our deep dish pizza pan instead of two 9" cake pans, and added ham and onion toppings. Working together, it wasn't too difficult to make. But in the end, the family unanimously agreed that the ATK Deep Dish Pizza recipe is better tasting than the Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza. We actually prefer the fresh tomato slices over the tomato sauce. The kids thought that having the cheese under the sauce (Chicago-style) was too weird. And we all preferred the chewy bread of the ATK pizza over the biscuit-style crust of the Chicago style pizza. So we're glad we tried something new, but in the end, the ATK cookbook triumphs again.
Posted by jdooley at 09:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 08, 2011
Skillet Roasted Chicken and Potato Dinner
To celebrate our daughter's participation in an invitational art show, Dooley and Doolia made the Skillet Roasted Chicken and Potato Dinner from The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook
This recipe calls from bone-in, skin-on split chicken breasts, and medium-sized red skin potatoes. You basically brown the chicken in the skillet before putting it in the oven to cook the rest of the way, and then cook the cut up red-skin potatoes in the skillet. The final step is to whip up a dressing of lemon juice, olive oil and spices to serve atop everything.
We steamed some farmers market cauliflower to serve alongside, and everyone put the lemon dressing over that too. Another winning recipe, and worthy of a celebratory dinner! Mmmmm!
You may see our daughter's wonderful sculpture on Deviant Art.com. She won a "Daily Deviation" award for this piece.
Posted by jdooley at 06:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack