Sunday, January 16, 2011

Chicken Parmesan

 This worked out significantly better than the previous chicken dish (Apricot Chicken) but it was also adapted a lot more to add flavor.
 Here is the recipe as Oma documented it.  We didn't have any Italian Style Stewed Tomatoes, so instead we substituted...
 ...real tomatoes...
 ...and a bit of tomato paste to thicken the sauce, which we also flavored with...
 ...olive oil and red wine vinegar, as well as Italian seasoning, in order to better approximate the "Italian Style" of the stewed tomatoes.
 And here is the sauce in its early stages of cooking.
 While the sauce was cooking, we grated some Parmesan cheese. The fact that it wasn't Kraft brand "grated" cheese-like powder probably would have shocked Oma.  We also used significantly more than a 1/4 cup. We are the people of the cheese.
 The chicken, ready for baking. Not so exciting.
 But now the sauce is ready to be poured over the chicken, topped with cheese and baked.
 Result: the beautiful meal above.

Apricot Chicken

This was the extremely unimpressive apricot chicken.  As one might have guessed by reading the list of ingredients, the major flavor was sugar, followed closely by preservatives, so, unless you really look for those flavors in a chicken dish, this might be a good one to avoid.


 Here is the recipe, in the three forms included in the file.  It is unknown where Oma acquired this recipe.
Here are the apricot reserves and Russian dressing used in this attempt.
 And here they are just before being mixed with the onion.

 And the prepared chicken breasts. Its a good thing we only made two, since there is no way we would have been able to eat more.

 The fully prepared sauce. Very strange color.
And here is is just before baking.  The final product didn't look much different.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Mexican Wedding Cookies


The classic Oma walnut cookies. Here are the ingredients:Because the butter was unsalted, I added a pinch of extra salt. Put all the ingredients in a bowl:
Traditionally, the dough is then mixed by hand until fully combined. It is then rolled into 1-inch balls and placed on a baking sheet.


After baking, powdered sugar is sifted over the cookies, creating little sweet white balls of joy. Yum!