June 28, 2011 – Four Cheese Pizza

I’ve been thinking about pizza ever since I discovered there was a pizza pan residing in my house, and as it doesn’t belong to me I’d have to make the pizza prior to moving out.  I still felt pretty exhilarated from the weekend of cooking and delight, and I thought “if I don’t do it on Tuesday it won’t happen.”  I knew I had Romano cheese, and feta, and I figured that to make a pizza for just me would be kind of useless so I asked my roommate Sarah if she’d be interested in pizza for dinner. Hurrah! She was!

I found the dough recipe on allrecipes.com (of course) and it was a non-rising dough so it would be quick.  It called for:

• Flour - check
• Yeast - check
• White sugar – check
• Water – check
• Veg oil – check

The dough took about five minutes to make.  It got a little not sticky enough, and when I added water it got a little too sticky but I managed.  I also wish that I had a rolling pin (well to be fair I do but it’s packed away ready to be moved into my new apartment this weekend).  All in all I got the dough onto the pan without it slipping too much into the cracks, and then put together the sauce.  I used sauce out of a bottle, for convenience sake (much to the chagrin of VLynn) but added to it minced garlic, and oregano.  We topped the pizza with the Romano and feta, and Sarah added in parmesan and muenster.  FOUR CHEESES!  It only took about 25min in the oven and it baked up nicely!

I quite enjoyed it, even though it looked a little less like a pizza than I'd prefer.  Next time I’d try to spread the dough a bit thinner, and probably put more sauce and more cheese but it was still fabulous.  Roommate Gretchen declared “it tastes like I’m in Chicago!”  I will take that as a compliment.

This foodsperiment gets a +8 for taste, +5 for simplicity, +8 for roommate bonding, and +4 for decent cleanup.  I’d also give it a +8 for having leftovers I can eat tonight after the Phils game! Huzzah!

June 24, 2011 to June 26, 2011 – LBI Weekend Menu

Once upon a time I had a friend named Brookery.  Brookery’s family owned a beach house on LBI.  I says one day to Brookery, “Let’s go down the shore, I’ll make a menu, let’s bring Val”.  Brookery says to me “Ok, Leslie’s coming too.”  Dear friends you might note the posting time and the posting date are different.  As there is no interwebs on LBI and I’m currently sitting in Brookery’s dining room this entire weekend’s foodsperiments will be posted after I arrive back at my own humble abode.

Friday Dinner – Sesame Teriyaki Flounder

So the menu for this weekend is pretty stellar, but tonight is a recipe I got from my friend Robin, who got it from Better Homes and Gardens.  Oh dear, Brookery has just arrived!  As such, I’ll try not to be awkward.  I was going to prep tomorrow night’s meal while we waited for Leslie to get here tonight, as Val isn’t coming tonight and she DOESN’T EAT SEAFOOD (THE HORROR) I figured we could do some tonight.

Anyway, the recipe calls for:

• Fresh black bass (uhm, subbed Flounder bc Brookery doesn’t eat bass)
• Black pepper – check
• Soy sauce  - check
• Sweet Rice Wine – no dice but I’m subbing rice wine vinegar because womp womp
• Honey - check
• Cooking oil - check
• Sesame seeds, toasted – check w/out the toasting

So there were a couple of challenges on this cooking agenda. 1. Electric stove which I’ve never worked with and my sister has told me “back away from slowly so it doesn’t attack”.  It’s always challenging when you’re working in not your own kitchen, so it took me a hot minute (or ten?) to get used to the idea.  I set the sesame seeds to toasting, which it later occurred to me should have involved butter or oil of some kind and didn’t. 

Any who, got down to the cooking itself, put together the glaze and let it “boil”(which I forgot to turn up the heat so it took a while) and put the edamame (frozen) in a pot to boil, and put another pot on to boil the rice. WOAH BIG MEAL. 

I set the flounder to frying and then I realized that I have zero clue how to tell when flounder is done…good thing Brooke was there to help me out with that.  The “flaking” is basically the fish could fall apart easily (and tries to as you remove it from the pan). 

Long story short, the glaze eventually thickened, and the water for the rice boiled, the flounder cooked, and I plated the damn things and glazed them, the table was set, Leslie brought some wine…I waited in anticipation and…VOILA! 

This foodsperiment gets a +7 for taste, a +6 for the company, a +5 for being at the beach, and a +5 for being a quick put together.  I don’t know that I would change anything the next time, and the whole meal was enjoyed by all and they lived happily into the Friday night of a girl’s weekend. 

Saturday Breakfast – Eggs and Bacon

I admit that for the foodsperiment on Saturday breakfast, I can’t take any credit.  I’d gotten us eggs, and brought along my favorite Dubliner Cheddar (mmm Irish cheese) as well as bacon.  Brooke took the lead on this one.  I did take the morning to prepare and start the marinade on the evening’s speriment, Honey Chicken Kebabs.  It’s amazing how difficult it is to cut up chicken thighs into quarters (obviously I still had a lot of chicken thighs…) anyway, all the chopping, cutting, glaze putting together…well not the glaze putting together but the rest of it (more on that later)…took the usual amount of time between me waking up and Brooke waking up such that Brooke made breakfast while I showered.  Even though it technically wasn’t my foodsperiment, I gave the whole thing +10 for amazing cheesy eggs, +5 for the company, and +5 for the beach. YUM!

Saturday Lunch – Avocado BLTs and Guacamole

After a glorious morning at the beach, we tripped the two seconds back to the house and I set about putting together lunch!  I found the “Summery Avocado BLT” recipe on finecooking.com.  The ingredients were:

• 2 avocados – check
• Lemon juice – check
• Kosher salt – woops, regular salt will have to do!
• Tomato – check
• Bacon – check
• Onion – check
• Bread – USED THE AMISH WHITE BREAD!
• Lettuce? – uhm, I forgot.

So we got back and it was a pretty quick put together.  I had Brookery my sui chef do the bacon and onions.  I mashed together the lemon, salt, and one avocado, which was pretty simple, and cut up the other avocado.  Leslie helped toast the bread, and meanwhile I “somehow” got “coerced” into making the guac at the same time.  The tomato had already been sliced and prepped during my morning prep routine. 

If we remember, the last time I made guacamole I thought there was too much (ok not really too much) but a little more than enough garlic.  This time I used garlic, onions (not too much this time!) some lime juice, some lemon juice, some diced tomato…and mushed it altogether and put it on the table!  I put together the sammies as described…and we ate with relish (no relish was served). 

This lunch-foodsperiment I gave a +10 for taste!  I LOVE LOVE LOVE avocado, but also LOVED the BLT’s!  +7 for help in the kitchen, +8 for putting the excess avocados into more guac! (which we ate during evening snack!)

Saturday Dinner – Honey Chicken Kebobs, Grilled Potatoes and Onions, Grilled Corn on the Cob

Dinner on Saturday can be described as an extravaganza.  Luckily a lot of the work had been done earlier in the day, as by the time we set about to getting the grill hot and everything prepped to throw on it, I might have had a few margs…the better to feed you my biffles.  Also by this point we’d been out on the beach a few more hours and my back was looking extra burned!  AND our darling VLynn was available for discussion!

I used three different recipes from allrecipes.com.  They called for the following ingredients:

• potatoes - check
• red onion – check
• salt – check
• black pepper – check
• butter - check
• veg oil – check
• honey – check
• soy sauce – check
• chicken breast – subbed thighs for breasts
• garlic - check
• onions - check
• red bell peppers – check
• corn – check
• white sugar – check
• cumin – check

Putting together the potatoes and onions to grill was easy. And quick so I got that done asap.  It took a while to put the pre-marinated kebobs together…but at least I’d gotten the marinating done early in the morning!  The corn dressing (uh I mean seasoning…) didn’t take long either.  Eventually everything was constructed and I could put things on the grill.  The tricky part was timing how to cook everything.  The potatoes and onions needed 30min, while the kebobs and corn were supposed to take 15min.  I cooked the onions on the outsides of the grill, and when I flipped them over, I put the corn on the grill.  Finally I put the kebobs on, those took the longest and looked like they were burning or possibly not cooked, but I realized that the dark meat of the thighs (thanks to Brooke and Val for pointing that out) made it more complicated to see.  It was a little rough to tell about everything else (if it was done) based on anything other than time…which I discovered was a womp when one of the potatoe packets wasn’t exactly cooked right. 

But all told, the meal turned out really well (even the Veggie burger of our vegetarian friend Leslie!)  I give this meal a +8 on taste, a +5 for coming together at about the same time, and +7 for the tenderness of the dark meat, - 3 for getting the potatoes wrong.  Overall…I like grilling! Too bad my new apartment doesn’t have a lot of grilling opportunities.

Sunday Breakfast – Cheesy Eggs and Bacon

Breakfast on Sunday is another meal of the weekend I can take zero credit for.  I toasted some bread (rye bread) and ate the remaining edamame.  VLynn gets all the credit for the cheesy eggs and bacon.  She even had the genius idea of using the bacon grease and pan to cook the eggs! Brilliant! I did contribute the strawberries, and sliced and stored the ones I’d need for later.

Sunday Lunch – Feta and Strawberries Salad

After a good number of hours on the beach, and getting a little more burned, I stepped back to the house a bit early to start making lunch and cleaning up my things (boo to leaving the beach but responsibility raged on…) It would have been a better idea if I hadn’t found out at breakfast that Brookery doesn’t like strawberries (unnatural though it is, I wish I’d known.)

I got the recipe from the mother of all recipe sites, of course allrecipes.com.  It called for the following:

• Slivered almonds – check
• Garlic – check
• Honey – check
• Dijon mustard – check
• Raspberry vinegar – couldn’t find this so I used raspberry vinaigrette dressing instead.
• Balsamic vinegar – check
• Brown sugar – check
• Vegetable oil – check
• Romaine lettuce  - check
• Strawberries – check
• Feta – check

This salad was so easy compared to the prosciutto and gorgonzola fruit salad I made a couple weeks ago.  I stepped into the kitchen and I had already sliced the strawberries in the morning so that was one less thing.  I put the almonds in a pan on the stove to toast them while I put together the dressing.  The dressing took almost no time, just had to mince the garlic quickly (this I’m starting to become a pro at) and then threw everything into the bowl to wisk it with a fork.  By the time the dressing was ready to go, so were the almonds.  I still needed to shower from the beach so I did that real quick when everyone got back to the house.  Then dumped the bag of romaine into the bowl, in went the feta and the strawberries, followed by the dressing.  Tossed the whole thing and VOILA! A light, summer, at the beach meal.  Val and Leslie LOVED this one!  The toasted almonds and feta and strawberries were a fantastic combination!  And so easy to put together!

This foodsperiment I gave a +10 for taste, a +5 for easy get together, and a -3 for me not knowing that Brooke wouldn’t eat it….

\

Kebobs and Leslie's Veggie Burger on the Grill

Strawberry Salad!

The weekend beach menu was overall a success!  I was a failure at remembering to take too many pictures but womp.  The greatest part was the whole sha-bang only cost $20 per person, if we’d eaten out the whole time it would have been a substantially more expensive weekend. Huzzah for happiness ya know?  Anyway I’d call the weekend a success!  Happy eating!

June 21, 2011 - Steak Fries

Today was a very simple plan.  Get home. Reheat the last Gorgonzola Chicken Thigh.  Reheat the Edamame (made from frozen packet instructions last night).  Make Steak Fries.
I've made Steak Fries before, well french fries...but not in years and years.  I thought I'd just heat the oil in a pan or a pot, throw in the pre-cut potatoes (I cut them the other night when I made the mashed potatoes), and voila! French Fries!  Then I was chatting with the lovely VLynn today who said her mom used to make them in the oven.  Of course it then occured to me that they might be healthier in the oven.  So off to google I went to see some recipes, when I realized it would also be a lot easier clean-up in the oven.
Ingredients:

• Potato, cut to look like steak fries.
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt

It was pretty easy, as the potatoes were already cut.  It turns out I should have left them in a "cold water bath" for the few days, but they were still fine.  Anyway, so I cold watered them, rinsed them, threw them in a bowl with the olive oil and salt (you can use any spices you want but I just appreciate sodium).  Then onto the baking sheet and into the oven they go! Voila! Like magic in 25 minutes they're done!

And thus, at this point of course, my chicken and edamame was reheated, and using ketchup I ate the whole meal!

I give this foodsperiment a +7 for being so easy, +5 for being easy to clean, +5 for finishing my meal, and I give myself a -3 for eating them without taking a photograph.  Happy sperimenting!

June 18, 2011 - Gorgonzola Chicken Thighs

I’d been planning tonight’s speriment for about a week, ever since I still had gorgonzola.  So even though I’d already baked bread this morning, I couldn’t pass up this recipe.  Gorgonzola Chicken Thighs from food.com.  I have to say as I re-read the recipe, it seemed a little complicated. 

Ingredients:

• Gorgonzola – check
• Breadcrumbs – check
• Ground Black Pepper – check
• Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs – check
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil – check
• Salt – check

So the whole ordeal began with cutting up some potatoes, which were fully NOT involved in this dish specifically, but I made mashed potatoes too (I’m an old hand at that one, pretty much my family you have to be).  So anyway, I cut the potatoes and then put them in a pot with water to boil slowly while I prepped the chicken.

The recipe is a little complicated…but ok, so breading things with gorgonzola and trying to make it stick is NOT EASY.  Trying to roll chicken thighs into a semblance of wonder also NOT EASY.  Long story short I put the chicken together and got them into the oven.  I’m sure you can check out the recipe on google if you’d like.  While the chicken cooked, I cleaned up and mashed the potatoes. 

The first time I took the chicken out, I realized it really needed to cook longer, so this teaches me that I need to be better at understanding what looks “done” coming out of an oven.  Finally they were finished.  I had also attempted some gravy for the potatoes but that ended in an epic fail so I won’t document that here.

My take on this recipe: +5 for taste, they were really good!  I’m glad I’ll have some extra dinner items for this week.  Even though you couldn’t really taste the gorgonzola at all, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any different, -3 for complicated set up and cooking, -2 for too much cleanup.  I definitely enjoyed the end result, but I think I wouldn’t make it again in a hurry due to my lack of desiring to get so messy, or maybe I’d do it if I hadn’t made bread in the morning. 

June 19, 2011 - Amish White Bread

Sometime in the last couple days I kept thinking about what ingredients I had lying around so I could keep cooking and not spend a fortune.  And knowing my planned dinner tonight, I though well maybe I can make bread. It has a lot of the same ingredients as pretzels, which I typically keep on hand in case of emergency pretzels.  So I searched the ever open intrawebs to find a recipe.  Holy smokes, who knew there were so many different kinds of breads!  With so many different ways to make them! Bread machines, not bread machines, fruit breads, honey breads, braided breads….I guess it took me a while to find something “simple”.  It made me wish I had the recipe for the bread my sister used to make for holidays.  Regardless, I found this recipe which seemed simple enough and doable.  The other best part about allrecipes.com is that it gives you the servings for the original recipe, and will calculate the changes in ingredients if you want to half, third, double, or essentially change the serving size in any manner. HUZZAH one loaf!  So with music thanks to my itunes, now I’m really ready to begin.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm water - check
• 1/3 cup white sugar (this confused me until I realized its sugar…like regular sugar) - check
• 2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (or perfectly 1 packet of the rapid rise yeast! Perfect for pretzels too J)
• ¾ teaspoon salt - check
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil – check
• 3 cups bread flour (google assures me that bread flour is high gluten, and helps the yeast to work yadda yadda, while all purpose flour is a little bit different etc technical mumbo jumbo but all I have is all purpose flour so I’ll be using that)

Starts out pretty similar to pretzels (almost makes me want to make pretzels) with dissolving the sugar and yeast in warm water until the yeast “proofs” which is, I think, just a fancy way of saying bubbles to a frothy consistency. 

Once it has proofed, I put the concoction together with the salt and oil, and slowly mix the flour into my FABULOUS Cuisinart (specifically purchased for pretzel dough making…totally normal).  Wow I love my Cuisinart.  If I hand kneaded the whole thing together it would have taken a while.  Now for an easy cleanup (I’m utilizing my dishwasher while I still have one) while the dough rises in a “bowl” aka a large pot…resources.

When the recipe said “punch down the dough” I was concerned, but no really you have to punch it down and it goes “smoooooosh!” another half hour and then I can bake the thing! Woot woot!  It looks splendid…I do think I oiled the pot too much…womp.

350 for 30 minutes, jeez I can’t wait to eat this bread.  It looks and smells….like bread.

OMG TALK ABOUT DELICIOUS!  Crusty on the outside, soft and yummy on the inside!  Fabulous with that garlic butter I made earlier in the week.  YUM!  Can’t wait to eat it along with dinner tonight too! 

This recipe DEFINITELY gets a +8 for delicious.  +5 for quick clean up, +5 for the Cuisinart making great dough (always does), +5 for the garlic butter.  So happy!

June 18, 2011 - Omelet with cheese, onions, and garlic

I woke up this morning and first thing I went to the gym to get in a decent morning swim.  Glorious!  I’m still getting the hang of “sharing a lane” and my exercised induced asthma doesn’t like freestyle, but regardless it was good.  On my way home I declared “self, let’s make an omelet”.  So that’s what I did.

Ingredients:

• One Egg
• Splash of milk
• Dash of cheese (romano peccano shredded, since I use it for my mini pizzas)
• Onions, finely chopped
• Garlic, finely chopped.

I started to finely chop the onion, and I was doing a pretty decent job (I guess practice makes perfect) and I realized I was probably using too much so I stopped chopping, mid chop.  I used just one clove of garlic, and again realized it would probably be overpowering so I used half of it to make garlic butter for the toast I’d put into the toaster oven.  I melted a slice of butter with half of the finely chopped (and smashed) garlic, then I put it in the freezer to harden a little bit while I continued cooking.

I used my smallest frying pan, which for one egg was perfect.  I whipped the egg, milk, and cheese together and put them into the already hot pan.  I sprinkled on the onions and garlic.  Egg concoctions, I have realized, are a very artful science.  I’m not sure I’ve perfected it yet.  But basically I let it cook on low/medium until the I felt like I could flip half of it on top of the other half.  I was pretty concerned about the flip but it worked out alright.  I let it cook on one side then flipped the whole thing over and let it cook some more.  Then I plated the whole thing with the bread, and took the garlic butter out of the freezer, it hadn’t really set yet and the bread was not as hot anymore (and a little burned…woops) so that might have been a fail but I saved the rest in the fridge so maybe I’ll try it out later.

In any case, the omelet was ok.  There was too much garlic for sure, even though I could kill a vampire with the amount of garlic I typically consume.  I added a little Texas Pete hot sauce for dipping and the result was great.  I think the next time I’d try to add some more protein (i.e. ham?) or less onions and garlic.  I mean, for a post workout meal it was still ok.

This foodsperiment I give a +3 for taste, and +5 for easy cleanup.

June 13, 2011 - Guacamole

This morning I realized two things: I have an avocado that needs to be consumed, and I have garlic and onions.  I thought to myself that maybe these had something to do with one of my very favorite things to eat ever, guacamole.  So I looked up some recipes and they all needed tomatoes (yikes!) instead I searched for no tomatoes and found a couple so I decided to make a hybrid of these to see if it works out (FOOOODSPERIMENT!)

The ingredients:

• One avocado
• 1 clove garlic
• ¼ cup red onion (chopped)
• Splash of lemon juice
• Pinch of kosher salt
• Cumin powder
• Curry powder

Let the adventure begin! So I learned how to chop onions pretty finely, or not but it’s still a work in progress.  I was right, the avocado was pretty much at the exactly right place.  I cut it in half, pitted it, and cut it into square pieces right in the skin.  Then I spooned it out.  On top of the avocado delight I put in the chopped onion (actually a little less than ¼ cup) and the chopped garlic.  Then I sprinkled on the cumin powder, curry powder, salt, and mixed the whole thing around, being careful to smoosh but not thoroughly crush the avocado and mix well.   Then I splashed in the lemon juice, because that seemed logical (aka I forgot about it before…lesson learned put all ingredients out before you start cooking). 

I grabbed some Tostitos c/o my roommate Shady and dug in.  WOW what they say about Guac is correct, simple IS better.  I’m sure it could have used tomatoes but I also don’t have a fondness for them so it’s ok.  I LOVE it, I can taste the garlic, maybe I’d use less next time except I LOVE garlic.  My roommate liked it too, she liked the texture the most.

Overall I’m going to give this made up recipe +7 for being made out of ingredients I already had, +5 for being easy to clean up, and I’m giving my roommate Shades +5 for offering tortilla chips. It’s a good thing I’m going to go to dinner at a Mexican restaurant…so I can have a marg to finish this delightful dish off right!  Arriba!

June 12, 2011 - Apple Gorgonzola Frittata

I forgot to mention that this summer, in addition to being the summer of food, fairies, and moving, it is ALSO the summer of the margarita.  I can’t believe I’ve forgotten this because let’s be honest I REALLY love margs, and margsing outside in the sunshine and heat is a delightful afternoon pastime.  Anyway, onto the meal at hand...

Last night we closed the show (The Savoy Companies production of G&S’s Iolanthe) I will be finding glitter in and around my person, house, car etc for the next several months/year/eons.  It was a bittersweet ending, mostly because we didn’t get to perform the second half, but I digress.  Earlier in the week I’d discussed with my bestie and partner in crime Mairin (or Mai) and as she was coming to the show and staying at my house we decided to make an Apple and Gorgonzola Frittata (mainly because I still had gorgonzola from the fruit and gorgonzola salad).  Frittata’s originate in Italy and are typically an egg dish with at least one ingredient (thanks Wikipedia!)

The recipe is from tasteofhome.com and was submitted by Harry Renniger.  The recipe calls for the following:

• 4 eggs – check
• Heavy whipping cream – check
• Salt and pepper – check check
• Tart apple – check, well we used a Macintosh (harhar) apple which is actually more sweet than tart but nbd.
• Lemon juice – check
• Onion – check
• Celery – check
• Olive oil – check
• Garlic clove – check
• Gorgonzola cheese – check

With the ingredients in hand and a spectacular sous chef we were ready to begin.  I had Mai do a lot of the fine chopping, which was sort of a cop-out since I’m not terribly spectacular at fine chopping but it got the job done and after a night of dancing we were hungry so the quicker the better.  Everything went smoothly, and it was easy with this recipe to clean as we cooked so it was nice that at the end there wasn’t a lot clean-up left to do.  Next time I would use a smaller pan (I used my largest and that did the job but I’d use a slightly smaller one.)  I’d also probably leave the eggs to “set” longer before putting them into the oven to broil and finish. 

No music while cooking today, since I had the company of one of my dearest friends, that girl is funny, smart, wonderful, talented, can I gush anymore?

End result was great!  I’d really prefer better produce than Acme can provide (sort of makes me long for Wegman’s, or Trader Joes, or Wholefoods) but in a month I won’t be going to that Acme anymore.  Anyway, the apple and the gorgonzola played off each other lovely.  I couldn’t really taste the onions and the celery but I think that was part of the point of the whole thing.  It was a filling bruchfest.  I will definitely be making this one again.

I’m going to give this a + 5 for a delightful morning meal. + 8 for the amazing company of my best friend. + 8 for simple clean-up! Overall it was great!  It’s crazy how quickly I am falling in love with the kitchen.  

June 8, 2011 - Fruit and Gorgonzola Salad with Proscuitto

Here we are in the summer of food, well the summer of a lot of things. The summer of fairies (The Savoy Company’s Iolanthe), the summer of moving (July), the summer of food…ok it’s the summer of THREE things.   Alright, the summer of food means in laymen’s terms that it’s the summer I start to really learn how to cook/enjoy food and understand more about the whole process than my usual pasta and scallops with random Asian sauces mixture (and garlic, and red pepper flakes).  I’ve decided to start to cook, to learn what is so compelling about the kitchen and to get it right.

After acquiring my ingredients and throwing out the recently broken beautiful cookie jar I got while on a girls weekend with my three best friends Sarah, Heidi, and Mairin (henceforth referenced as GTR) and putting away the groceries which do NOT belong in the recipe…I’m ready to start.

Today’s Recipe:  Fruit and Gorgonzola Salad with Prosciutto (from Food Network Magazine/Foodnetwork.com)

The recipe calls for:

• prosciutto – check
• extra virgin olive oil – check
• sherry vinegar – mother of pearls…thanks Acme I’ll substitute red wine vinegar and hope it works out ok
• Dijon mustard – grey poupon check
• kosher salt – check
• freshly ground pepper – mother of pearls guess I’ll use finely ground but not freshly
• 2 peaches – check
• 2 plums – m.o.p./thanks Acme I hope California apricots are a close second
• Red onion – check
• Mixed salad greens – check
• Crumbled gorgonzola – YUMM and check
• Bread – I decided not to use the bread since it’s just served alongside and it’s just lil’ ol’ me for dinner.

Of course as soon as I started to “pit and slice the peaches ½ inch” I realized there was no music. And as shown in every movie I’ve ever seen, everyone who enjoys their kitchen has music on. Right? Thanks steromood.com for having a cooking time playlist. Pitting…how thick is ½ inch?

Well I really like steromood’s tunes for this evenings endeavor, and I’m awful at estimating.  So far so good, maybe because I ate some prosciutto while prepping everything, but that’s half the fun right?

I thought that the prosciutto frying was a fail, but end result actually ended up being COMPLETELY DELISH! I think I figured out (too late, aka while eating) that the   ½ inch slice for the fruit was meant to be “bite size” so that I could just fork the fruit and eat it.  I admit that while making the meal I was a little worried, there was some sputtering from the pan and I thought I’d totally over crisped the prosciutto but man oh MAN was that delicious!  The gorgonzola really complemented the peaches and the prosciutto brought a tangy crunch that was triple mmmm.  I can see why the recipe called for plums, the apricots were a little more tart than plums would have been.  

Overall I’m going to give this recipe a +5 for taste (even modified due to grocery store constraints) and a +7 for using the same skillet for all parts of the cooking!  I’m also going to give my roommate Gretchen a +5 for giving me some of her bread from dinner (since I didn’t use the Italian bread suggestion). Good first dish!