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Recipe

CHICKEN CAESAR SALAD WITH GRILLED CHICKEN

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I did go into the city (NYC) to see the Van Gogh Experience. We hired a car to drive us back and forth which eliminated some stress. However, Jennifer is still in a lot of back pain and I was worried about the drive and all the walking around. The drive went okay and the driver was really good about trying to keep the ride as smooth as New York streets today will let you.

When we arrived, we were dropped off right at the door. That was perfect. We also walked right in. There was no long line to stand in and wait, which was also good. When we all got inside, Jenn managed to walk and stand around for a little while before the pain became too great. The nice people at the show quickly got her a chair to sit down. She sat for about an hour until we were all ready to leave and go to lunch. I had hoped there would be lots of restaurants close by, but unfortunately the South Street Seaport was a mile away.

When we left the Van Gogh Experience, we started for the South Street Seaport, but after watching Jennifer walk for only a short time, realized she would never make it all the way there. We turned up Rutgers Avenue and found ourselves in the area of China Town. “YUM”, I thought, but my hopes were soon dashed. None of the restaurants close by were open for dine in eating.

By the time we hit Canal Street, Jennifer could no longer walk and she sat down on a stoop in pain. I made the decision to car the driver and give up on lunch. Jennifer felt horrible not just because of her back now but before she was keeping everyone from having lunch in the city. I felt terrible too seeing her in so much pain and now upset over not be able to walk.

When we came home, she laid right down and took more pain medicine. We all went to Panera. I do enjoy their coffee at least. Maybe next time I go into the city I will have a better food adventure for you.

Now I will switch gears and tell you about lunch at work yesterday. I decided to make Caesar Salad with grilled chicken for my next meal.

First, we need to start by marinating some chicken. It was an early morning trip to the market to get what I needed. Luckily, I remembered two cutting boards and a zip top bag. One cutting board for chicken and one for salad. You will see what the zip top bag is for soon.

GRILLED CHICKEN RECIPE

GADGETS

Vegetable peeler

chef’s knife

cutting board

Grill

Tongs

bowl

INGREDIENTS

The ingredients include chicken and a marinade. This time for fast and easy, I am using a premade Italian salad dressing. I will do this before my day starts at work and marinate them until lunch time. Then all I have to do is grill them quick, cut them up, and add them on top of the salad.

DIRECTIONS.

Trim and slice the chicken breast in half so they will cook evenly. I cut them length wise. I added them to the marinade in the zip top bag. Then into the fridge to marinate for 5 hours (over night work have been better) .

Grill the chicken on high, turning to keep from burning. Overcooked chicken is dry, so I carefully test with my instant read thermometer to make sure they aren’t overdone. Then, I bring them inside to rest. I now slice them into LARGE chunks. They are placed on top of the salad at the end.

CAESAR SALAD

INGEDIENTS

The ingredients for for the salad are romaine Lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes, seasoned croutons, and Caesar Dressing. If you use a bottled salad dressing, I recommend Marie’s. It’s usually found in the refrigerated section of the produce aisle. I like their Blue cheese dressing too.

DIRECTIONS

Chop the lettuce and add to the bowl. Peel the cucumbers using a vegetable peeler. Next, dice cucumber as shown into bite size pieces. Add cucumber to the bowl as shown below. Dice the tomatoes and, yuppers you guessed it, add them to the bowl. Now add the dressing. For this size salad, I used a whole jar of Marie’s salad dressing (not enough time to make it from scratch today).



Plate ad top with grilled chicken

Enjoy the cool refreshing salad for lunch of dinner! Until next time, Eat well, be happy and stay healthy!

Recipe

HAM AND EGG BREAKFAST SANDWICH

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I still make breakfast sandwiches when I’m in the mood. I don’t usually eat much for breakfast anymore. I just thought you might like this quick glimpse at a basic breakfast sandwich. This one is ham, egg, and cheese on toast. When I ate more as a teenager, this was turned into a club sandwich. The ham and cheese between two slices of toast, and then two eggs and another slice of toast on top. I might even add a bit of salt, pepper, and ketchup to make super messy with eggs over easy.

  • Start by making toast
  • Fry the deli ham in butter
  • melt butter in pan for the eggs
  • melty cheese on ham
  • Fry the eggs (I broke the yokes this time)
  • place ham and cheese on toast
  • flip the eggs
  • place eggs on ham and cheese
  • cover with toast and slice in half
Basic ham and egg breakfast sandwich

Enjoy with coffee or juice.

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Recipe

CHOPPED SALAD WITH GRILLED CHICKEN

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Welcome to Tuesday. Yesterday, I made a chopped salad for the crew at work.

GADGETS

Double bladed mezzaluna chopper

INGREDEINTS:

  • 3 heads Romaine Lettuce
  • 1 bag of baby spinach
  • 2 cucumbers
  • 1 can of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
  • 1/2 can black olives
  • 1/2 red onion
  • Salad dressing (ranch)

DIRECTIONS:

Coarsely chop romaine lettuce and add to bowl. Add baby spinach to bowl. Peel and slice two cucumbers and add to bowl. Add chickpeas and 1/2 can of black olives. Add 1/2 of chopped red onion to bowl. You can add the dressing now or wait and add it later.

Using the Mezzaluna chopper, chop the salad against the bottom and sides on the bowl. Turn the bowl and mix the salad together as you chop. Try and get the salad to be all the same small size pieces. They should about the size of a small fingernail. Do not over chop. Add diced chicken on top. Finish with a swirl of dressing on top.

Fished salad
Finished chopped salad in bowl
unchopped salad in bowl
Coarsely chopped cucumber and chopper
Chopped salad

Plate, dress, and enjoy….

The Drunken Chef (AKA – Russ)

© Russ Ahrens and The Magic of a Perfect Pairing,2023

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Beverages, Recipe

THE BELLINI COCKTAIL

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This is a beverage I believe started in Italy. Hence the preferred use of Prosecco in this cocktail. Plus, Prosecco is a sweeter champagne.

GADGETS

Champagne flutes

INGREDIENTS

4 to 6 ounces Prosecco

2 ounces of Peach nectar

DIRECTIONS

Start with 2 ounces of peach nectar in a champagne flute. I purchase Goya Peach nectar on sale for this drink and my sangria. Now, fill the champagne flute SLOWLY with Prosecco. The bubbling action of the champagne will mix the beverage together. Garnish with a slice of peach for an added flair of elegance.

Beverages, Recipe

Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice

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            I realized when writing my last post, BEVERAGES, it would take a while to get all my drink recipes posted. As an “old man”, or so I am referred to by Sam, I have a superfluous number of drinks stored up in the “old” noggin.  I hope that I can get them all written down before I kill those brain cells with alcohol.

            I have since created a BEVERAGE LIST to make ALL our lives easier at TMPP (The Magic of Perfect Pairing) in order to find a particular drink recipe. As we go through the year, I can add the links to various drinks there.

           Fresh squeezed orange juice is something I first did as a kid. I remember my youth fondly. I had it pretty good growing up.  I lived in the suburbs just outside NYC. If I was not outside playing with my friends in the neighborhood, then I was inside watching television. Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and The Electric Company were all relatively brand new shows on TV back then. I even remember watching Julia Child cooking and some guy called Jack LaLanne who did a physical fitness show. Why am I going off on this tangent? It’s because I don’t know where I got the idea from, but one day, probably some rainy dreary day when I was stuck inside, I decided to make fresh squeezed orange juice.

My mother did all the grocery shopping alone back then and occasionally she met my Aunt Betty and they went shopping together. That was great for us because we got to order Pizza for dinner. She usually went grocery shopping while I was at school, so pizza was not a regular meal in our house. She did however ALWAYS purchase whatever we liked to eat and then some. Like I said, I was lucky, we always had food on the table and always enough to eat. One of the things she purchased was fruit of all kinds. She liked pink grapefruit and apples. I liked Red Delicious Apples back then so there were always at least two of those in the fridge. There was also other fruit depending on what season it was. Oranges always seemed to be in the refrigerator as they were available year round. Navel oranges I think I remember best and ate one of those once in a blue moon. That leads me into the “fresh squeezed story”.

I knew my mother had a lemon juicer because I had seen her use it in the past.  It looked just like the one below pictured below from Amazon.

I dug the juicer out of a draw that was located under our stove. I can still hear the exasperation in my mother’s voice as clear as a bell as I opened the draw: “What are you doing now?” My reply was as if I did this everyday: “Just making Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice” Ma: “Oh Jeeze, I just cleaned up your mess from breakfast. Try not to make another mess, please.” I made a mess. I’m sure of that.

I retrieved an orange from the fridge and a knife from a drawer. I sliced open the orange just as I had watched my mother do with lemons.  Why was doing this? I have no idea, maybe I had just watched Julia Child on TV and got the crazy idea stuck in my head I was going to be a chef now. Heck, I was a kid. It’s what kids do. I squeezed both sides of the orange and poured the juice into a glass. I remember thinking; wow, that is not a lot of juice for one orange.  I did this over and over. Maybe it was three or four oranges later, but I did not fill the whole glass before I stopped. Squeezing oranges by hand was a lot of work. Did I mention these were navel oranges because they were. Not very “Juicy” navel oranges.

Soon, I had made a complete mess on the dining room table as my mother watched from the kitchen while doing other things. I decided now was a good time to taste my culinary delight. I tasted my newly made OJ concoction and it was terrible. I distinctly remember not wanting to drink it all but took more than one sip to be sure it was terrible.

Mom: “Now you’re not going to drink it? You’re wasting all those oranges.”

Me: “It’s gross. Not at all as good as Minute Maid.” We also used to get Tropicana Orange Juice before that. My mother was very brand loyal.

Mom: “Maybe it tastes different because those are not juice oranges.” Always the pragmatist my mother was.

Me: “Oh, maybe. I guess so.” and I poured the rest of the juice down the drain and helped clean up a little by throwing away the orange peels. My mother was stuck cleaning off the table and doing the dishes. She never complained though. Well, certainly not often.

Therefore, the first lesson in fresh squeezed juice is to use the right oranges. Good fresh squeezed orange juice comes from good fresh Florida Juice Oranges. They are not the best for eating and have pits but they have more juice then navels and are sweeter. They are also “chewier” if you try to eat one. Most navel oranges come from California by the way.

Whether it’s lemons, oranges, or limes, when juicing citrus fruit I always roll it on the counter under my hand before I cut it in half. I call this the “presqueeze”. I think it makes it easier to squeeze. I am usually squeezing lemons now as an adult more so then oranges.

I buy OJ in the container in the dairy aisle. I however do not always buy the same brand all the time. If it’s on sale, it will taste very good with a little vodka in it. Hence, the Screwdriver drink is next.

Well, until our next beverage recipe, be well, drink well, and have fun in the kitchen.

The Drunken Chef (Russ)

Also on INSTAGRAM @ DRUNCKENCHEF82

Beverages, Recipe

COFFEE

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INGREDIENTS:

7 to 9 Tablespoons of ground coffee

8 six once cups of filtered water (six once cups?! What? That is what those stupid lines are for! Who knew? So, a whole pot of coffee is not even a whole 8 cups! Why?!) So be careful, there are 8 ounces in 1 cup therefore ¾ cup = 6 ounces in America. I use the damn lines! Sheesh!

DIRECTIONS:

Let us start with the water. Bad water means bad coffee or bad tea. MOST commercial places always have a filter somewhere on the water line that leads into the back of the commercial coffee pot. If they don’t, they should! What do I do? I use the ice-cold water that is also filtered that comes out on my refrigerator/freezer. I fill the pot to the 8 “cup” mark that is located on the inside of the pot. Why cold water? Never cook with hot tap water. That is just nasty, eww. Cold water works better when used particularly with an electric percolator, like the one you own and never use because you purchased it for large parties but then put it in the back of the hall closet. Yes, that one works best when you start with cold water. Next, add a coffee filter to the basket. No one likes grounds in their cup. “It’s the Grim!” Well, that was tea in the bottom of the cup…if you read Harry Potter. I digress. Let’s add the coffee already as I’m falling asleep. Now, plug it in or turn it on and let it do its thing. Mine is manual so I actually have to turn on the stove to high. I have to remain close by and wait for it to start to perk. Annoying huh, but it’s cooking! Then when it starts to perk and I can see it, remember that little clear glass thingy on top? I turn the heat down to medium-low so it remains perky (perky get it? it’s coffee) Never mind, and set the timer for seven minutes. Now, if you like your coffee richer or more flavorful this is where the COOKING part comes in. You can adjust the recipe to YOUR taste. Start by increasing the time you cook the coffee by one or two minutes. Next, you can add a tablespoon or two to the seven already in there. Each time you try something new, make a note of what you did mentally, or if you’re your tired in the morning, make a note of it in your phone! Once you get a perfect pot of coffee, repeat the same steps! Wa-la, you’re cooking! After the seven minutes are up, I turn off the stove and let it stand so the coffee in the basket now filters all the way through (aka finished cooking/perking).

Recipe

Fettuccine Alfredo

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Welcome to the weekend. It’s Independence Day Weekend AKA 4th of July weekend here in the States. Everyone including me will be grilling. Last night, however, was not a grilling night. It was a cold, wet, and rainy night here in New York. So, I cooked indoors.

I made the last minute decision to make Fettuccine Alfredo. I had to stop at the local supermarket on my way home. It’s a new place and it’s expensive. Lucky for me, the quart of heavy cream was on sale. The rest was not. I didn’t buy much because of the high prices. I purchased two boxes of DeCecco fettuccine pasta. That is always more expensive, but it’s my new favorite dried pasta. I picked up a loaf of Italian bread and one head of garlic too. Butter I already had at home.

I went home and put up a pot of water to boil. The rest is in the recipe below. Enjoy, or like my Irish mother would say, “Mangiare”.

Fettuccine Alfredo

COOKING UTENSILS NEEDED

Heavy sauce pan

Small Whisk or fork

Measuring spoons

Measuring cup

INGREDIENTS:

1 package dry Fettuccine or Fresh Fettuccine Noodles

Alfredo Sauce

16 fluid ounces heavy whipping cream

6 tablespoons butter

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

½ cup grated Romano cheese

2 egg yolks

½ teaspoon minced garlic (optional)

Parsley (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Cook fettuccine according to directions, but before adding pasta to the boiling water, start the sauce.

Sauce: Melt butter or margarine in a saucepan over medium heat. Add garlic and simmer one minute. Add heavy cream to the butter. While the cream is still cold but over medium low heat, mix in beaten egg yolks, stirring constantly with a small whisk. Now, add the pasta to the water. Once the sauce comes to a simmer (DO NOT BOIL), add grated Parmesan cheese and grated Romano cheese. Stir constantly until melted. Simmer over low heat for 1 to 3 minutes stirring continuously. Garnish with additional grated Parmesan cheese, fresh black pepper, and Parsley if desired. Add milk or cream if sauce becomes too thick. pour over cooked pasta.

  • 3 cups Heavy Cream, butter, and garlic
  • 3 egg yokes because of 3 cups of cream

Add sauce to pasta and serve immediately, as sauce will thicken as it cools.

Serving Suggestions: add frozen artichoke hearts or asparagus tips to half the cream before adding egg yolk. Cook until artichokes/asparagus are tender, then add the rest of the cream and the egg yolk. For best results, use fresh pasta.

I served it with garlic bread rounds. They were buttered, garlic powdered and toasted on both sides.

The Drunken Chef (Russ)

Recipe

CHICKEN CORDON BLEU RECIPE

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Chicken Cordon Bleu

INGREDIENTS:

6 thin Chicken cutlets (3 whole cut in half)

6 slices Deli Ham

6 slices Swiss cheese

½ TO 1 cup Bread crumbs

2 Eggs (beaten)

2 tablespoons Butter

2 tablespoons flour

¼ cup frying oil peanut or veg

1 cup Chicken stock (for Chicken Gravy)

½ cup Flour (chicken coating)

1 teaspoon Paprika

2 tsp Dijon mustard

1/2 cup heavy cream (if not using jarred gravy)

DIRECTIONS

Pound chicken thin between two sheets of plastic wrap. Lay on top on slice of ham and one slice of Swiss cheese. Roll chicken and secure it with toothpicks if necessary. Dip in egg wash. Roll in flour that paprika has been added. Back to egg the wash and then into bread crumbs.

Flour
Flour and breadcrumbs

Fry in peanut or vegetable oil until golden brown. Place chicken in 9 x 13 Pyrex dish. Cover with two jars of bottled chicken gravy unless making it from scratch (see below).

Hot oil
Frying chicken

While the chicken cooks in the oven, make the pan sauce. Melt butter in the same with the chicken over medium heat. When butter is bubbling, add flour and cook until tan. Whisk in chicken broth and cook until thick. Thin out with heavy cream. Pour warm sauce over chicken.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes until hot and bubbling. The chicken should be at 160 degrees in the center when tested with an instant thermometer. Sever hot with extra sauce.