Orzo Caprese Salad

One thing I like to do, to mix things up is adapt some of my favorite salads into a pasta side dish.  These work great for summertime gatherings, BBQ's and more...and add more of a filling quality to otherwise light salads.  This time I decided to work with Orzo Pasta because I like the texture and shape of the pasta, its very much like rice, but in pasta, and think it lends itself to a cool summer salad dish.

Orzo Caprese Salad

Here's what I used:

1 box orzo pasta
3 medium tomatoes, chopped
1/2 lb fresh mozzarella, cubed small
1/2 red onion, fine chopped
6-8 fresh basil leaves, rough chopped
4-5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp garlic salt
S&P

Here's what I did:

Set large pot to boil with liberal sprinkling of salt in water.  Cook orzo 8-10 minutes, or until al dente.  Drain and add olive oil to pasta, to keep small pieces from sticking.

Once pasta has cooled to a luke warm, add all ingredients, and salt and pepper to taste.  Serve warm or cold.

Crawfish Fettucine

Having an old friend stop by is reason to celebrate!  We used to live near Washington, DC in Arlington, VA and often had get together's, BBQ's, Bar Crawls, etc.  These days, we live in the suburbs, hence the "City 2 Burb" blog name.  Well, when Erika, an old friend from our "fun & lively" days stopped by yesterday, I knew I had to cook up something special for her.

She took leftovers.  Nick is eating leftovers today.  And I can't WAIT to warm up MY leftovers.  This was really yummy, slightly spicy, creamy, pretty (nice flash of color with the crawfish tails) and pretty simple.  I will say that you go through plenty of dishes with this recipe, but the end result is worth it, and while in the final stage of this recipe, you have time to clean the pots!  haha.

Crawfish Fettucine

Here's what I used:

2 lbs crawfish tails (Louisiana, if possible.  Chinese is ok, but not quite the same)
2 medium onions, chopped
1 1/2 tbsp dried parsley
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup butter, unsalted (no, this is not a Paula Deen recipe)
1 tsp jalapeno relish
6 oz Velveeta Cheese
1/3 cup half and half
Tony Chacheries Cajun Seasoning

S&P

1 lb Fettucine

1/3 cup shredded Parmesan Cheese

Here's what I did:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large saucepan, set butter to melt over medium heat.  Add onions and bell pepper and let cook until translucent, about 10 minutes.  Add garlic, parsley and crawfish tails, and stir to incorporate.  Let cook another 5-10 minutes.  Add Velveeta, cream and jalapeno relish and stir to incorporate.  Taste.  Add 1 tsp Tony Chacheries or other Cajun Seasoning, Salt and Pepper to taste.

Meanwhile, set a stock pot to boil, and cook Fettucine to al dente.  Drain and set aside.

Incorporate crawfish sauce and pasta, and then add them to a glass baking dish.  Sprinkle top with Parmesan, and bake for 15-20 minutes.

I served this with warm french bread.  It was really good.

Chicken Parmesan with Whole Wheat Spaghetti

I don't have a witty intro for this one.  Plain and simple I used the preparation from a favorite Barefoot Contessa Chicken Piccatta recipe, and then modified the second 1/2 of the recipe and went towards Chicken Parm vs. Chicken Piccatta.  It was yummy, and Sydney loved the pasta, which she calls "newls" (instead of noodles) and the chicken ends up with a crunchy exterior much like a crispy chicken finger.  :}

Chicken Parmesan

Here's what I used:

3-4 thin chicken breasts (or you can flatten regular ones with the bottom of a glass or w/ a meat pounder)

In three separate bowls for dredging:

1.  1 1/2 cups AP Flour
     1 tbsp kosher salt
     1/2 tbsp black pepper

2.  2 eggs, beaten
     1 tsp water

3.  2 cups italian bread crumbs

2/3 pound fresh mozzarella, sliced into thin rounds
2-3 tbsp olive oil

1 box whole wheat spaghetti
1 jar good pasta sauce (I used a sweet basil variety that we like)

Here's what I did:

The first step of this recipe is prep. 

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Wash and rinse chicken breasts, and then pat dry.  If you have regular chicken breasts (not thin), an easy way to flatten them is to put each breast into a large ziplock bag, or between saran wrap, and pound them flat with the flat bottom of a drinking glass or with a meat pounder device until the reach about 1/8" thick.

Set up the dredging stations as well, using three shallow bowls for the Flour, Egg Mixture and Bread Crumbs, in that order.

At this time I also set a large pot of water to boil for the pasta.

Once the chicken is prepped, dredge each piece in the flour, egg mixture and then bread crumbs.  Make sure that they are evenly coated and that no flour is showing through.  If there are spots that did not coat, redredge in egg and breadcrumbs until completely covered. 

In a non-stick skillet, brown chicken breasts for 2-3 minutes per side on medium heat with 2-3 tbsp of olive oil, or until just golden brown, and then set aside on a foil-lined cookie sheet.  I usually make enough for two skillets worth of chicken, so in between, I put my first batch in the oven, while the second batch cooks.  Once all chicken has been browned, add 2 mozzarella slices to the top of each chicken breast, and cook until cheese has melted and just started to brown on top.

Meanwhile, cook pasta to al dente and warm up your pasta sauce.

I plated about 1 cup of pasta alongside each chicken breast and topped with the sauce.  Sydney LOVED this, Nick loved it, and I really like it.  I usually shy away from recipes with pasta or breaded chicken, but this was healthy and the portions were perfect.  We also have leftovers.  You can easily reheat the chicken breasts in a toaster oven or regular oven at 350 for about 5 minutes.

Fresh Egg Pasta (Fettuccine) with Butter and Parmesan

Due to record snowfall and impending cabin fever, I gave Nick his Valentines Day Gift Early.  I figured it would only benefit me if I got some fresh pasta out of the deal.  Amazon was running a special on the Kitchen Aid Roller, Linguine and Spaghetti attachments, so I got that along with a pasta drying rack and the Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles. 

Nick started by reading the entire book of instructions, he likes to take his time and understand his new gadgets.  Once he had tried the attachments on the front of the mixer, he picked a recipe out of the book.

We agreed that he should keep the first go-round simple.  Mainly because during my THREE trips to the nearby grocery store in preparation for the 33" inches that would soon envelop our house, I had forgotten eggs,so we only had 3 eggs in the whole house.  One if the key ingredients to pasta, as well as several other meals that we've not had the ability to make due to our egg-lessness.

Finally, as an impulse more than a necessity, and due to lack of ingenuity on my part, I also ordered a pasta drying rack.  I don't know that there is a prettier culinary picture than fresh pasta hanging from one of these contraptions.  Beautiful.

For the dough, which last time we tried our hands at it, we did by hand with a mound of flour - this time we used the Kitchen Aid mixer. 

Fresh Egg Pasta

Here's what we used:

2 cups all-purpose flour (sifted)
3 large eggs, beaten

Here's what we did:

Using our Kitchen Aid standing mixer and flat paddle attachment, added flour and briefly pulsed to aerate the flour.  Then, added eggs, and mixed for about 30 seconds.  (Nick is a little particular, so he used a kitchen timer).  Removed formed dough, and added flour to our countertop and kneaded dough for 2 minutes.  At this point, we noticed that the dough was a little tough, so we added 1/2 tsp of water - which helped to loosen up the dough and make it more soft/pliable (you can do this by 1/2 tsp until the consistency is what you want).  Then Nick tightly wrapped the dough in saran wrap and allowed it to rest for 15 minutes (you can leave it for up to 2 hours).

At this point, Nick attached the manual pasta roller and set to the widest setting, #1.  He cut the dough into 6 pieces, and ran the first dough ball through, twice at each setting up to the 4th setting.  At this point and thickness, he was able the attachment for the Fettuccine attachment, and run each flattened dough strip through.  Once cut, we carefully moved the Fettuccine strands to the drying rack to rest.

Meanwhile, 4 quarts of water was rapidly boiling, and right before dropping the noodles in, we salted generously with kosher salt and allowed the pasta to cook for 2-3 minutes, until just al dente.  We then drained the pasta and returned it to the pot.

Fettuccine with Butter and Parmesan

Here's what we used:

5 tbsp unsalted butter

1/2 cup fresh grated parmesan (not the powdered stuff in your fridge)

Here's what we did:

Now that pasta is cooked, drained and sitting in the stock pot, add butter and parmesan and cook over low heat for 1 minute, tossing to combine ingredients. 

We divided this among 3 1/2 bowls (little one for Sydney) and enjoyed every....last....bite.  Fresh pasta is divine.  So good...