Wannabe

I love to try different recipes and would say that I can follow most recipes for breads and desserts fairly successfully which makes me more of a baker than a cook . But I WANT to be a cook, I want to be able to whip together a sauce like little Remy and automatically know what goes together to serve up a superb meal.

I like the cooking blogs and peruse them regularly for dinner ideas and I ran across the blog of the sister of my friend Katie. I am a secret lurker but I am coming out of the closet on this one because it has some GREAT ideas and I want to share one here since it was so successful and fun too.

Tin foil dinner! The kids loved the idea of opening dinner "like a package" and I could control portions to equalize the meat available. Here is a photo of the makings:



It is sooo easy- just chop up some carrots, potatoes, and chicken pieces. You could add anything you like and I would have added some broccoli but I didn't have any on hand. My only regret is that I made the portions small (one chicken breast for the whole family!)

Instructions:
1. Cube up pieces of veggies, etc.
2. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and whatever spices/herbs you want (I did thyme from the garden, s&p, and a minced glove of garlic)
3. Sprinkle with olive oil OR stick 1 T of butter on top (I sprinkled parmesan on top for fun too)
4. Double foil it-- wrap it once and then wrap the outside too
5. Cook for 20 minutes at 400 and then flip it over to cook for another 20

EDIT:: Vivian claims that 40 minutes is not enough time for these dinners (says it is my fault my oven runs so hot) so you might want to consider adding another 20 total. I was worried about that myself because it always takes longer to cook the potatoes than recipes state so I cubed up the little veggies into teensy squares and the time was just right)


Yum.

Also ran:

Whole Wheat Foccaccia Bread

The kids school sadly does not allow for treats so we had to settle with cutting out foccaccia in the shape of pumpkins. This would have worked out really well with white flour but with whole wheat I honestly hurt myself with the cookie cutter. Tragic, really.







Lastly I made a fun little dessert with phyllo--chocolate purses?




Instructions:

Melt together in double boiler (or micro if you are way lazy):

-2 big scoops chocolate chips (maybe 8 oz or so?)
- 4 T butter
- 2 T sugar
-1/2 c milk

It should be about the texture of brownie dough (thanks for the analogy Katie!) so if it is too runny, add more chocolate. If you add more milk it makes a nice smooth sauce for desserts or for garnish (do you call it garnish if it is a dessert?)

Then take the phyllo dough and make purses, triangles, or whatever other shape you want. If you need help, here is a little video I watched on how to do it--> Phyllo purses

I didn't take a picture of the whole tray but here is an individual one. They were fun (a bit time consuming but definitely a repeat for other such events.)

If you want the flavor but less work, then just brush the phyllo, throw some chocolate on it, and then bake it.

EDIT: Lyndsi says that there were nuts in the bottom, which I forgot to add in this recipe. I took a handful of almonds and toasted them, then chopped them up in my handy nut chopper until they were pretty small (think the kind on the nutty buddy ice cream cones) and then I put them underneath and on top of the chocolate. My tip on that is that I took a round teaspoon (shaped like a melon baller) of chocolate and dipped it into the nuts, then put the spoonful in the phyllo. I then sprinkled a few nuts on top as well. Sorry I was negligent before!

Oh yeah, bake 450 for 10 minutes.