I AM A DOMESTIC DIVA!

An Italian-American Classic, and easy to make.

Hello Fabulous Readers!

Yes, I am blogging!

And today, it's all about foooooooddd!

I've mentioned this before, but I love to cook! And it turns out that I'm not too shabby at it  :)
So over the course of these last few months (happy 6 months in the UK to me!)  I've gotten into a nice routine with quite a few friends where I do the cooking, they provide the kitchen and utensils, we split the costs evenly among everyone eating, and a quality evening is spent with good food and good friends :)  So far I've cooked for 3 different households, and anywhere from 3 to 10 people at a time, and I've got plans to cook for a few more friends when our schedules will allow it.  A few people have asked me to write down all the crazy meals I've made, so today, "Seeing the Sights with Sierra Schwartz" is now "The Kitchen Conquering Cooking Blog"! All of my recipes are completely thrown together and usually aim for the least amount of actual work involved. Unfortunately, I don't have pictorial evidence of my own magical creations,  but I'll show you the basic gist of what they looked like through the cunning use of google images!

So, let's get cookin!




Chicken Parmesan, Angel Hair Pasta, and Garlic Bread


Ingredients
4 chicken breast fillets
Breadcrumbs
2 eggs
Olive Oil
Fresh thyme, or coriander, or basil, whatever you can find.
Pasta sauce
Angel Hair pasta (or just normal pasta...cuz Angel Hair doesn't exist in the UK...)
Mozzarella Cheese, grated
Butter
Garlic
Crusty Bread

Before you even start on the chicken, you make the garlic bread!
very simply, here's what you do:
Preheat Oven, and heat a bit of oil in a pan
Slice your crusty bread longways, and make some hashmarks into the openfaced side of the bread (so the garlic butter seeps in)
mince up a gazillion cloves of garlic
add garlic and a copious amount of butter to the pan
saute everything for a minute or so
drizzle the garlic/butter/oil combo onto both halves of the bread, then add even more butter (yes, heartache inducing, i know) and mix it all together
close the 2 halves of the bread, wrap in tin foil, and pop into the oven
Note - DON'T CLEAN THE PAN!! anything that's left in the pan will just make the chicken extra tastey!

Now for the chicken!
beat the eggs
Chop fresh herbs up finely and add them into a bowl of breadcrumbs
dip the chicken into the eggs, then into a bowl of breadcrumbs
fry on medium heat, turning over once or twice
Once chicken looks mostly cooked, place them on a baking sheet, pour a small amount of pasta sauce over the top, then generously top with mozzarella
Place into the oven for about 30 minutes

While all of that is cooking, get the pasta going.  Then, 30ish minutes later, check that the chicken is cooked in the middle, the garlic bread is melty and saturated, and the pasta is made to perfection.  Then serve!





~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~






Pesto Pasta and Chicken


Ingredients
Chicken,
   in cubes, or you know, whatever shape you want
Pasta - again, whatever shape you want,
      I like Rotini (corkscrews) or Farfalle (bowties)
Mozzarella, in cubes
Cherry Tomatoes
Sweetcorn
A jar of Pesto (cheating, I know)
Fresh Basil
Mushrooms (totally optional, like everything else here


So, ready?  Here we go

Cook Pasta, drain it, put it in a massive bowl
Cook the chicken in some olive oil in a pan (throw those mushrooms in now and let it all cook together)
Drain the excess liquid from the pan and throw the chicken and mushrooms in the bowl with the pasta
Chop up the cheese, tomatoes, and basil, (and corn if its not already in bits)
throw EVERYTHING into the bowl
add copious amounts of pesto and a pinch or 2 of salt
 MIX AND SERVE! Tadaa!
(tastes good hot AND cold!)

See?  Aren't these easy?  Let's keep going!





~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~





Teriyaki-Glazed Salmon

Ingredients
Salmon Filets (or... a whole fish...I cooked for 10 people)
Teriyaki Sauce (again, a cheat, I know)
White Rice
Spinach
Potatoes, chopped up into little pieces
Olive Oil

So simple, but SO good!

Preheat Oven
Place salmon (skin side down) on tin foil on a baking tray
slather in teriyaki sauce (if you have time, marinate for 2 hours before hand... I NEVER have time, so doing this on the fly works too)
create a "tent" by folding the tin foil up over the fish, but leaving plenty of room at the top
Place in the oven for at least 30 minutes (the packaging on the fish will tell you how long it needs to cook for), occasionally check on the fish, and keep adding more teriyaki to the top with a spoon
Cook the potatoes for a while (not to the extent you would if you were going to mash them, but enough so they are actually cooked)
Cook the rice so its ready when everything else is
Sautee the potatoes and the spinach in olive oil until the excess water from the spinach cooks off
Take the salmon out, make sure it's properly cooked in the middle, then add it all together!

told you it was easy!






~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~



And now, my piece de resistance!

Bacon-Wrapped Herb-encrusted Pork Tenderloins with Apple Sauce and Garlic Mashed Potatoes



Ingredients
Pork Loin
Bacon
Dried Herbs
BreadCrumbs
Honey
Olive Oil
Apples
Cinnamon
Sugar
Potatoes
Garlic
Butter
Milk


Start by peeling the apples and potatoes and preheating the oven
Fill 1/3 of a pot with water, add the Apples, and Boil (add cinnamon and sugar to taste)
Fill 2/3 of a pot with water, add the Potatoes, and Boil

In a frying pan, heat oil, mince garlic, and sautee the garlic with some butter
When the potatoes are done (they will fall off a fork if you try to stab them), mash like mad, add the garlic/butter/oil combo, and splash in plenty of milk

When the Apples are done, you should mash them with a spoon, then set the sauce aside to cool

Place Pork in a roasting pan
Coat the pork generously in the following order
 - honey
 - dried herb and breadcrumbs mixed together
 - bacon (either laid across the top, or wrapped around it, like a bandage)
 - honey
 - dried herbs
 - olive oil

Place in the oven for 35 minutes, then turn off the heat but let the pork "rest in a warm place" hehehe.
Once it's "rested" (hehe) slice into medallions, and serve it with the apple sauce, mashed potatoes, and then include some steamed asparagus and cranberry sauce for  good measure :)  There should be some pretty fantastic tasting juices at the bottom of the pan, so pour that over the pork if it looks like it's missing a little something-something.






~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*




And there you have it, ladies and gentleman,  I CAN actually cook!  Amazing, I know!!  Be on the lookout for bigger and better Culinary Creations coming from me!  I'm still determined to perfect my Corona-Battered Fish with lime juice and avocado sauce, and I have yet to properly tackle a steak, so watch out!

I hope you enjoyed this little cooking detour, but hopefully the travelling will resume soon!  After all, April Break is just around the corner and I have a few ideas in the works!



As always, thanks for reading!



~ Sierra
(The Kitchen Conqueror!)