Restaurant Week in DC; 701 Penn

Let me just say this: I have eaten at some wonderful restaurants. Som

e very upscale and very classy places. Just because a place is upscale does not in any way mean the food is good. I’ve been disappointed a time or two.

This week is Restaurant Week in DC. Lots of cities have Restaurant week, it’s a good opportunity to try out a sample menu from a nice place. Here, restaurant week lunch is $20.15 and dinner

s at $30.15. Considering these places the normal price can run two

or three times that, it’s an awesome opportunity.

A few friends and I went to 701 Penn this week and enjoyed a lovely experience. The décor is really my taste, browns, pale blues, really perfectly put together. A

nd the wait staff was really top notch, can’t sa enough good things about them.

For starters I ordered the crispy calamari salad, which was fantastic. Out of the group, we decided my app rocked the house. One of my friends ordered the fennel soup, and another the baby spinach salad with pears and bacon…which was also yummy.

Second course I ordered a poached cod served on a bed of lentils, baby green beans, red peppers, a few sliced grapes and a white wine reduction foam…which I was terribly excited to try since on Top Chef they put foam on everything. One of my friends had the fried chicken with grits and collards, I had a sample of it…wow. Actually we all wished we’d had that. The cod was good but it wasn’t so heavenly as their fried chicken.

Dessert was a brown butter brownie but it was more like a blondie with a soft chocolate ganache on top and sesame seed brittle on top of that. It was sooo yumm. One of my coworkers ordered a lemon cheesecake topped with a lemon gelee and a meringue…something like that.

Overall, I’d definitely go back to try their regular menu instead of the pared down Restaurant Week menu. Definitely worth a trip back.

New Years Day Dinner...Chicken Cordon Bleu

For 2.5 years I’ve dated the same guy (which, in and of itself is a great feat). During those 2.5 years, I never once cooked him a meal. By now, you’re probably in awe of me if you’re a woman or mad at me if you’re a man.

There was no real reason, mostly our schedules were crazy, we didn’t have time…we’d grab something and go to his place or mine or eat at a restaurant…the point is, I never had to cook.

Finally, decided it was time…I researched recipes, I wanted to have something laden with yummyness…something that would knock his socks off.

Yea, not so much. The chicken was overdone, the rice was undercooked…the beans..don’t get me started. I made copious excuses. He told me it wasn’t bad…awww what a horrible thing to say! May as well as said ‘I didn’t eat lunch and my blood sugar was low so it’s better than a diabetic coma’.

Anyhoo since then I’ve made him breakfast twice (which I rocked) and then, for New Years Day I made dinner again…which turned out pretty well: chicken cordon bleu and orzo with parmesan and roasted red peppers.

Ingredients for the chicken:

1 pack THIN chicken breasts (I bought thing chicken breasts but they weren’t thin enough so I ended up having to pound them out more. With a bottle of olive oil. Because I’m lame and don’t have a meat mallet.

¼ lb of ham (I used smoked ham from the sandwich mean section of the store, I didn’t use quite a whole pack, so I’m guessing its about ¼ lb

1 slice of swiss cheese for every piece of chicken (I should have said that for the ham…duh

3 or 4 eggs, beaten

About 2 cups breadcrumbs

About 2 cups Flour

A heavy liberal splash of oil…I use canola but I don’t think it really matters

A handful of toothpicks

How I did it:

• If the chicken isn’t thin enough, cover it with plastic wrap and beat it with (preferably) a meat mallet…or whatever else you have on hand that is really heavy
• Beat the eggs
• Put the flour in a bowl or plate
• Put the breadcrumbs in a bowl or plate
• Pour the oil into the pan and begin heating up (sidenote: I actually prepared ALL the chicken first, then put them into the pan at the same time so I could control the cooking time better.
• Place a piece of cheese on top of a slice of ham, roll into a vertical
• Place vertically onto a piece of chicken and roll/wrap the chicken around it. Because I’m lame and didn’t properly thin my meat, it wasn’t a perfect thing.
• Fasten with toothpicks so ALL of the ham and cheese is covered. This happens to be important because the idea of chicken cordon bleu is that when you cut into it, the cheese oozes out. YUM
• I generally needed 3 toothpicks per chicken piece
• The chicken will be moist, so dip into the flour thoroughly
• Next dip into the egg
• Next coat with breadcrumbs
• Put into the hot pan ( to test if the pan is hot enough, put a few drops of breadcrumbs into the oil..they should sizzle)
• COVER
• Keep this on a moderate heat…not high…maybe a medium high…you want to chicken to hae a nice crust but also actually cook and be moist…hence why I covered it with a lid
• Turn after a few minutes…you will want to keep a close eye on this.
• Since you can’t cut into it to test doneness, if you have one, use a meat thermometer…much better than ruining the awesome chicken-ham-swiss combo

Serve…some recipes I saw called for serving with a béchamel sauce…I didn’t…and don’t regret it. This was awesome on its own.

Ingredients for the Orzo

½ box of Orzo (I made half a box but ended up with lots of leftovers. Shoulda made a whole box

½ stick butter

¼ cup chopped roasted red peppers (you can buy these in most grocery stores any more. They usually are in the

A about ¼ cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

How I did it:

• Boil the orzo, drain and return to pain
• Slice up the butter and throw it into the pot
• Add the chopped red peppers, stir and let set over medium low heat for about 5 minutes
• Throw in most of the parmesan, stir
• Serve and top with a few sprinkles more of cheese
• You MAY need some salt…but parmesan is a salty cheese so taste before adding

And that was our meal. We drank some white wine during the meal. Wait, actually I drink wine, but he didn’t. lol. It was super yummy and the chicken is a bit time consuming…it was not that bad and well worth the effort.

New Year, New Blog

This isn't my only blog. My other blog rambles on at length about my crazy family, busy job and social events. My real passions are cooking and writing. Figured it was time to create a blog to combine them both so here it is.

I love to cook, love to bake but I'm not *that* good at either. I can make the heck out of some cookies but I'm probably going to burn half of them.

There's a lot of recipes and blogs I read with fantastic ideas but it seems half the time like things get left out. That combined with my inability to follow directions 100% of the time and my easily distracted brain makes cooking an adventure and sometimes a danger.

I digress...It's 2010 and I began this year craving french toast. Actually I ended

2009 craving French toast but held off cooking it until Jan 1. had houseguests who were told we'd be going for breakfast at 11 but since they slept in and I was bored, went to the grocery store and bought the makings for it.

When I got home and finally woke up my guests at noon and informed them I was making French toast, the wife of the couple demanded to know how I was making it.

And of course she had her input...I hate input when I'm cooking. Stubborn...yes, but I'm going to use a recipe or a variant the way I want to, don't need no stinking help.

So here's how I did it and let me tell you, it came out really crazy tasty:

Ingredients:

Loaf of challah bread 9as it turns out, bread is the key)

3 eggs

1.5 cups of half n half

3 tsp cinnamon

Raw sugar (the brown stuff

Crisco for the pan)

How I did it:

• Beat the mess out of the eggs, the add the half n half and cinnamon. I mean really beat it...don't want egg chunks on the toast
• turned a frying pan on medium high
• Put about a tablespoon of butter flavor crisco in the pan and while that was heating, sliced the challah into moderately thick slices. Nothing too thick or too thin. Methinks this is a negotiable thing based on preference.
• I didn't start dunking the bread slices until the pan was relatively hot.
• I dipped each piece into the egg and half n half mixture until coated on each side, let the excess drip off (held it with a fork so it would drip off) then placed in the pan
• Once I placed a piece in the pan, I sprinkled a little raw sugar on the top, not a ton but a little to give a little caramelized sugary goodness
• Cooked each side for 3-4 minutes then removed to a plate on the back of the stove so the French toast would stay warm.

And that's that. It was very well received considering it was my first try at French toast. I made too much and it's in the fridge now...so I plan on taking it to work with me this coming week. Mmmm breakfast all week...a nice change from bagels!