New Menu Monday: Italian Chicken and Stuffing Bake (a recipe with potential…)

italian-stuffing-chicken-LifeInTheLofthouse-e1410538520279Here’s a great recipe to try. It’s great because it is forgiving.
Italian Chicken and Stuffing Bake from the food site LifeInTheLofthouse.com

It’s perfect for illustrating all the reasons why a recipe can go wrong… like, if someone feels like swapping ingredients and decide to not follow certain/most instructions, for instance. Experienced cooks, comfortable in the kitchen, should be able to monkey around with ingredients and directions. Experienced, comfortable cooks also get to botch things up, too. Also, someone would have liked to have posted this yesterday (New Menu Monday), but someone’s son monopolized the desktop all evening for an “I swear, I’ll be done in ten minutes, mom, it’s easy” assignment.

IMG_8058Let’s take these simple ingredients:

  • 1 (14 oz.) can diced tomatoes, undrained
  • 1 (6 oz.) package stuffing mix for Chicken
  • 1/2 cup water (or broth)
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1-1/2 lbs. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
  • 1/3 cup prepared basil pesto
  • 1 cup  shredded mozzarella cheese

If you decide to use four enormous whole chicken breasts, not chopped, swap a different kind of stuffing mix instead of the typical national brand, add the cheese in the wrong place and you will have to cook everything for twice as long as the directions, you might have some issues.

Oops!

But, these are good flavors that go well together which stand up to Scattered Home Chef Syndrome… something I seem to suffer from. Yep.

Here’s what I did to mess up this recipe:

1. Use waaaay too much meat.
1. Use waaaay too much meat.
2. Pesto on top, no problem here.
2. Pesto on top, no problem here.
Mix tomatoes, water, stuffing... check.
3. Mix tomatoes, garlic, water, stuffing… check. (see that cheese? Yeah, forgot to put it on the chicken at this point)
Stuffing mix on chicken...
4. Stuffing mix on chicken…
...and cheese on top. Oops.
…and cheese on top. Oops.
Try to flip the stuffing and cheese... succeed in mixing them instead.
Try to flip the stuffing and cheese… succeed in mixing them instead.
Bake 375 30 minutes. JK, bake one hour.
5. Bake 375 30 minutes …one hour. Worry that stuffing is too dry and chicken is under cooked.
Enjoy the flavors of tender, pesto chicken (not under baked), and cheesy stuffing even though it is in the wrong spot.
6. Enjoy the flavors of tender, pesto chicken (not under baked), and cheesy stuffing even though it is in the wrong spot. I would use more cheese next time.

Homemade Ricotta? Sounds too Good to be True… Take #1

SeriousEats.com is one of my go-to web sites for anything in the food and cooking world. I love, Love, LOVE their test recipes, food tourism articles, product reviews… love it all.

Photo from, and links to, SeriousEats.com Fresh Ricotta Recipe
Photo from, and links to, SeriousEats.com Fresh Ricotta Recipe

One of my favorite contributors is J. Kenji López-Alt and his “Food Lab” articles are kitchen chemistry at its best… my favorite type of food reading. Tonight I tried a recipe he worked on in detail five years ago- “Fresh Ricotta in 5 minutes or Less.”

Maybe doubling the recipe put things out of whack? Might the larger volume of milk thrown off how long the milk should have been brought up to the specified 165 degrees? All I know is, more than double the microwaving time wasn’t the only issue. The milk initially started coagulating just fine, but then the mass of curds just fell apart.

From four cups of whole milk I netted about half a cup of ricotta curds. And a kitchen that smelled distinctly of baby barf. You fellow parents know exactly what I mean.

P.U.

One big, stinky mess.
One big, stinky mess.
Here's the haul! About a half cup of ricotta after about an hour of fussing with micro-curds
Here’s the haul! 1/2 c. ricotta from 1 hour of fussing with micro-curds

I am not finished with you, oh Great Stinky Experiment, if Kenji says I can do this, then, by gosh, I CAN! I will repeat this soon… very soon.

💩💩💩 Essential Emojis for Communicating with Your Teen:

IMG_8022Are you annoyed with your teen for spending waaaaay too long in the bathroom?

Looking to elicit a laugh from the loo?

Share this with them the next time they text you from the throne, and maybe your teen might reply to you, too:

IMG_8038Bonus: see here, an actual text conversation from teen who received this very emoji and subsequently replied to her mother!!!

Hey, Vinnie! What’s Today’s Special?

Cruised through Tumblr today and came across SpecialBored, the home of Vinnie’s Pizza on Tumblr. 

  
For a good laugh, go visit!

specialbored.tumblr.com.special boards from vinnie’s pizza in brooklyn by sean berthiaume”

As seen on Jimmy Kimmel, so you know it’s good!

  
 

“ERMAHGERD, PERZZA! (I know it’s old but I just wanted to)”

Comedy Outing with Your Teen- Big Laugh or Big Mistake…

It was a hit, whew!

A couple months ago, I took The Boy to an R rated movie that I thought would be all right… That was kind of not a smart thing to do.

Clearly, I have not learned my lesson- we took The Girl to see a bunch of comedians downtown since the headliner is a friend of The Husband. This is a first for us… The Mad House Comedy Club downtown in Horton Plaza is an 18 and up and some of the comedy can be pretty crass and off-colored.

What saved us was missing a few of the acts since one of us forgot her ID and we had to drive all the heck the way back home to get it (insert epic eye roll and long suffering parental sigh here). We missed a couple of the more outrageously raunchy acts this way. Am I a good parent, or what?!?

Fortunately, Johnny Cardinale does a show that isn’t cringe-worthy at all for a parent to see with their (college-aged) kid. The music set he does complete with guitar is fabulous and particularly why we wanted The Girl to see his act.

Thanks for a another great evening, Johnny!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfJUbYNDiSk