Saturday, August 22, 2009

pardon my french

Day five of mushroom week.
I have to say, there are so many times in a week when I think "I just cannot cook tonight." And we go to Subway. Well, not soooo many times. It's typical for us to eat at Subway one night a week. It costs $11.80. I don't think that's too excessive. On the other night(s) if I don't want to cook we eat grilled cheese or eggs or quesadillas or something like that.
This week I haven't given myself that option. I'm on a mission. Zach even tried convincing me last night that we could go out somewhere and eat something with mushrooms in it. But that wasn't the challenge, now was it Zach?!?! But he was starving (because he's too busy thinking in the middle of the day to eat lunch. I love him and his brains.) and what I had in mind for dinner wasn't exactly kid friendly, and it would take a bit to cook, so I made the Zach and the boys grilled cheese sandwiches when Zach came home from work. They all loved it. And Max started signing "more" for the first time. I don't know if there's anything cuter than a baby's fat fists pounding together for more food.
Here's the boys playing together after dinner:


Awww. About five second later Quinn pushed Max over.
So after we put the boys to bed I made dinner for just the two of us. It was our date night and I had been looking forward to it alllllll day. All summer actually. Because on the 20th Project Runway's new season started (finally) meaning on the 21st we would be able to watch it online. Hallelujah! We love that stinkin' show. And yes, I said WE. Zach actually loves it. Which makes me love him even more! Dangit, I'm supposed to be talking about food. Here's our awesome mushroom littered meal:



First, a spinach and romaine salad with mushrooms, cucumbers (from Margie), and avocado. Poppyseed dressing for me, Ranch and feta for Zach. That was a dang good salad.



Then for our entree I made a most delicious chicken cordon blue.


"But wait," you say, "there aren't any mushrooms in chicken cordon bleu!" Well, there are in this house. Before adding cream to the pan to make the sauce I sauteed some chopped mushrooms till they were nice and brown. Then I added the cream and whisked it till it was thick and saucy. YUM. Zach had never had chicken cordon bleu other than the little ones you get from Schwan's. He took the first bite and said, "Woah, that's REALLY good." Aw yeah.

I did make just a few changes to the recipe, and have a few changes I will make next time:
I would add some salt and pepper to the flour and paprika. Definitely.
Use a thinner chicken breast so that you get more of the ham and swiss flavor. Mm.
Instead of using bouillon granuals I just used 1/4 cup white wine (instead of the 1/2 cup) and 1/4 cup of chicken broth.
I also didn't have any corn starch so I just used a little flour.



I definitely recommend this recipe (fyi: click on chicken cordon bleu up there and it'll come up). It really didn't take very long to put together. Maybe 45 minutes start to finish. This may become another regular at our house.

Two more days of mushroom week.
Any suggestions for next week??? :)

2 comments:

Kristin, Scott, Emily and Eric said...

ZUCCHINI!!! I would give you a whole basket load if you came to my house. I also made a super delicious recipe with it last night. :) I'm sure if you ask around, people would very willingly give you their extra zucchini this time of year. Oh yeah, and I have a recipe for Zucchini Chocolate Cake. Delish!

Kristin :)

Anonymous said...

Do you guys like Thai food? I have an awesome recipe for a sauce that I like to make, and, actually, put on a pizza. I saute up a bunch of mushrooms and mix the thai sauce in, then put it on a pizza, making sure the crust comes up on the sides b/c the sauce is thin going on and dribbles off. Let me know if you want to try it and I'll send you the rec (pronounced "ress").