Wow, so last night I felt like I accomplished some kind of "Initiation"... or "Coming of Age"... or "Right of Passage"—are they all the same thing? .... yeah, I guess they are. And let me preface this by saying that is was a positive experience. Crazy, but positive! So basically last night my wife and I teamed up in the kitchen to make, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR meals last night for a full house. Why? Well, because we had a group of people with some diverse tastes, that's why.
First off was the homemade pizza, using a recipe that I've been using for several months now that is perhaps one of the best homemade recipes I have ever tried. It is simple, requires no waiting for the dough to rise, and only takes about 25 minutes in the oven. The recipe:
- 3 cups of all-purpose flour
- 1 .25 oz packet (or 2½ tsps.) of active yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon sugar
- 2 Tablespoon vegetable oil (though I usually use canola)
- 1 cup of warm water (110° - if you don't have a thermometer I usually adjust the faucet water while my hand is under it and wait until it is clearly getting warmer than my hand's temperature)
Mix the dry ingredients, then the oil and water until dough forms. Roll out, add sauce and cheese (I recommend Sargento 4-Cheese Pizzeria cheese... it's MAGIC) and place in the center of oven at 375° for 20-25 minutes. Voila!
For the sauce I used my family's recipe that we've been using for a very, very long time, involving tomato sauce, browned ground beef, oregano, parsley, garlic powder, and sugar/maple syrup to taste.
So that went into the oven. Check!
Next up... My famous moist and tender pan-made chicken!
Throw 1 tablespoon of butter and some olive oil into a skillet and let the butter melt. Meanwhile take a thawed chicken breast and dredge it in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, and garlic powder. Toss into the skillet and let the bottom cook for 1-2 minutes on Medium heat. Flip over, and cover skillet and let cook for 15 minutes (don't peek!). After 15 minutes, turn off the burner but leave the chicken where it is, still covered, for another 15 minutes. Afterward, lift lid, cut into chicken and make sure it is cooked through. If all goes well, you should have yourself a perfect slab of moist, tender chicken!
Along with this we boiled up some frozen corn and peas.
Next meal: Simple chicken noodle soup! Basically we just tossed some Chicken bouillon cubes into boiling water with noodles and let boil until the noodles got soft.
Finally: my Aunt Bonnie's brownies for dessert. The bestest homemade brownies in the world. Quite literally, I should think. Annnnnnd I am very sorry to say that I don't have the recipe on hand, but I will get it and post it on here soon, because you really must try it.
So yes... FOUR meals! The kitchen was a glorious mess with a deep aroma of mixed smells of herbs and spices and Italian and chicken and chocolate. Oh yes, and I almost forgot, at the end, along with the brownies, we decided to go for chocolate overkill and make my wife's homemade hot chocolate recipe—yes, you guessed it... "one of the best recipes in the world."
And then, of course, at the end was one of my favorite tasks: taking an impossible mess (which, the kitchen literally looked like one) and cleaning it allllll up!
So yes, it was Epic. And now I feel like I have an idea of what it's like to run a littlest tiniest mini-restaurant.
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