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​Somewhere along the way in my culinary life, I acquired some chicken recipes. The top of the recipe page says Broiled and Barbecued, however, I’m not sure if that’s the book’s name or the section of the cookbook. I do know that this particular recipe was exceptionally good, especially for the fall.
 
The recipe is a marinade made with apple cider, cider vinegar, scallions, honey, and steak sauce to name some of ingredients that might not be in your pantry. It takes approximately 25 minutes to prepare the marinade and a minimum of one hour for the chicken to marinate.
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Recently I mentioned I purchased some eggplants at the Union Square Greenmarket. Although the natural instinct is to make eggplant Parmesan, I thought I would change things up a bit and use the eggplant in place of pasta sheets to make lasagna. 

When I prepare eggplant, I use a mandoline to make the slices thin and uniform in thickness. I salt the slices and place them in a colander. The salt draws out the  moisture so that the eggplant will cook up crispier. After it sits for a bit, I blot the slices on a dish cloth and dust the slices in seasoned flour (salt and pepper only), egg wash, breadcrumbs and place the slices on a cookie sheet that I've coated vegetable oil using a pastry brush. I then spray the tops with additional oil so that the eggplant slices bake up crispy and brown. I prefer to bake my eggplant in a hot, 400 degree oven, rather than to stand over a frying pan filled with vegetable oil. For the lasagna, I sliced the eggplant length wise to long strips. 
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Cooler weather means heartier meals. My daughter wasn't going to use the green peppers from her CSA box, so they were passed on to me. I also had the peppers that I purchased at the Union Square Greenmarket last week. What to do with those peppers? A pair of those became roasted peppers, which were delicious in place on red leaf lettuce on my sandwich the other day. The other two became stuffed peppers for supper last night.
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Where have the last few weeks gone?  Although the weather has been rather warm and humid the last week or so, I've been cooking. The other evening I made lemon risotto with chicken.
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My daughter gave me a head of cabbage recently that I had to use fast. A recipe that came to mind was pulled pork.
 
The recipe I have is from my husband’s aunt that she found in her local paper in Suffolk, Virginia. I’ve had it for over 25 years and usually make it once or twice a year. It’s done in a crock pot, which is great. The ingredients are pretty common and the initially cooking instructions are to place the meat in the crock pot between 7 and 8 p.m. in the evening and have it cook through the night. However, the day that I made it I was home, so I started it at 11:30 a.m. The first round of cook was done at 7 p.m.

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My husband had a craving for pot roast. He thought I had his mother's recipe, I didn't, however, I did remember she used to  purchase rump roasts. My husband suggested using Lipton onion soup, but that didn't appeal to me. He wanted me to call his sister in North Carolina to see if she had their mother's recipe, but instead, I dug through my trove of recipes and found a basic pot roast  recipe that I haven't made in ages. 
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How are you adjusting to seeing the sunrise at approximately 6:30 a.m.? My husband and I are normally up at 5:30 a.m. and it's pitch black outside. There's only about 12 hours or so of daylight  during September it's decreasing each day.
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Recently I did some food shopping for the new parents. On my son-in-law's food shopping list for ShopRite, was a cut of meat called skirt steak. Skirt steak is from the diaphragm muscules of the cow. It is a long, thin cut of beef with more beef flavor than a flank steak.  I purchased Nature's Reserve grass fed beef (all natural, all vegetarian diet) for $4.99/lb. I've had skirt steak before, but I've never prepared it. ​

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Chocolate chip cookies are both mine and my husband's favorite cookie. However, sometimes we find them too sweet.  How do you keep your chocolate cravings satisfied yet tamper down the sweetness?


​meet donna

A former teacher, shop-a-holic, empty-nester redefining quick, family approved dinners.

​If you have questions or comments, click on the envelope icon above to contact me directly. 

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