monday/tuesday meal #3

what it SHOULD look like

there’s a reason they create recipes.  i think it must be so the people who don’t know how to cook, can actually create something somewhat edible.  right?

i learned 2 major things from attempting this week’s meal- 1. try to follow the recipe.  if they say melt the cheese, THEN add in other mixture, there’s probably a reason for it, and 2. cheese sauce is hard to make.

for this week’s meal I chose to do a kraft cooking with philly recipe!  “Creamy PHILLY pesto chicken”, with baked green beans.  Again, not a lot of ingredients, not a huge cook time, so it looked pretty easy.  and essentially it was.

http://www.cookingwithphilly.ca/philadelphia2/page?PagecRef=609&currpage=1&rid=15948

you take your chicken, and you cook it up in a frying pan until done.  easy.

next you are supposed to take the cream cheese and cook it on medium heat until melted.  surprisingly enough, it takes a little while for it to actually melt.  first it got kind of gloopy, and it stuck to my spoon quite a bit.  i got tired of waiting for the cream cheese to melt, so i threw in the next ingredients right away.  and so the not following the recipe begins.

gloopy grossness

i added the pesto, and broth all together with the clumpy cheese, and stirred.  i stopped stirring a couple of times to talk to matt, and to take pictures, and realized i should have been whisking instead of stirring.  does it make a difference i wondered?  who knows.  i do know however, that it wasn’t really a sauce as much as it was a clumpy stew-like mess.  realizing it wasn’t really as saucy as it should be, i added more broth.  did that help?  not really.  it evaporated pretty quickly…and i swear i had it on low- not even medium!

anyways, let’s talk about the green beans.  they were super easy.  like really really easy.  and for this, i didn’t follow a recipe at all, i just threw them in a dish, put some oil on them, seasoning, lemon juice, then baked them for a half hour or so.  they turned out really good.  oh, i also sprinkled some bread crumbs on the top hoping to add a bit of a crunchy crust, but i didn’t put enough on it.  they turned out really well anyways!

mmmmmm

so, chicken with clumpy cheese topping, and baked green beans in oil, seasoning and lemon juice.  great tuesday meal if i do say so myself! 🙂

how it turned out!

whisk count for tuesday/monday meals: 2 recipes so far! 😛 (that count is for you lyndsay!)

and don’t worry laura- i haven’t forgotten about the recipe  you sent me! can’t wait to try it!

ok blue jays let’s play ball!

circa nineteen ninety-something!

the summer is winding down (sadly!), and i’m getting busier and busier trying to jam in friend time, and wedding time.  monday meals is again going to have to wait until tomorrow, as i’m off to see the jays cream the yankees tonight! (that’s right heather, you heard me!) 

haven’t 100% decided what to make yet, but it might be something easier than the last 2 weeks….and with less mess- which i know matt will appreciate.

see y’all tomorrow.

flattery out.

tuesday meal…still in progress.

the finished product!

things i have learned from making quiche:

1. make sure your pie plate fits the ready-made pie crust you bought from the grocery store

2. onions can actually make you “cry”

3. make sure you don’t put too much milk/egg mixture in your pie crust, unless you are looking forward to cleaning your oven the next day

4.  what exactly a sauce pan is

sigh.  (is it just me, or is that how i start out most of my posts?!)

alright, so i worked until 10 last night, which is why monday meals is on tuesday this week.  i started pretty late tonight, and as of 10pm, the quiche is still baking! (i started an hour and a half ago!)

i actually followed a recipe this week, which is linked below.  pretty easy instructions, pretty simple ingredients.  broccoli, cheese, milk, onion, garlic, butter and eggs.  simple enough no?

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easy-Broccoli-Quiche/Detail.aspx

so i basically grabbed a sauce pan (for those of you that don’t know- a sauce pan is kind of like a frying pan, but wil higher edges.  i did not know that before!), and put butter, onions and garlic in it.  pretty soon, the kitchen smelled great.  next went the broccoli.  still smelling good!

mmmmmmmmmm!

next i put the store-bought pie crust into the only empty pie plate i could find; my usual was already in use with cheesecake from the weekend!  it was clear that the pie crust was too big for the plate.  so i just pushed it in.  problem solved.  after the broccoli mixture had cooked a bit i poured it into the pie crust.  next i mixed eggs, and milk together with a whisk (who knew i would use it so much eh Lyndsay?!).  my next step is where all my problems started.

so when i pushed in the pie crust to fit the pie plate it didn’t really occur to me that i would probably need to adjust the amount of egg mixture going in.  i emptied the whole mixture into the pie crust, and immediately there was a flood!  egg was friggen everywhere.  i went through like half a paper towel roll, no exaggeration.  i tried to drain stuff out, but didn’t want to lose any cheese!

floooooooooooood!

so when i thought i had it under control, i picked it up and put it in the oven.  5 minutes later i went to check to see what it was doing… egg flood all over the bottom of the oven.  like all over the oven.  did i take it out?  nope.  i just left it to bake. 🙂

i guess the oven could have used a good scrub anyways...

so 30 minutes later, it’s clearly still not ready (directions said to cook for 30 minutes or until centre is set).  so i left it for another 5, then another 5, then another….you get where i’m going here.  the pie crust was brown, but the middle was still a little watery!  tip for those thinking they will attempt it in the future- maybe don’t use skim milk?!  also, make sure you don’t over fill your pie crust!  the stupid thing baked for about an hour, before i had to take it out so the crust wouldn’t burn.  as of right now i still haven’t eaten anything- its cooling.  it’s also 10:14pm.  what did matt have for dinner you ask?  cinnamon toast crunch.  he’s also already in bed.

personally it still smells super good, so i am still excited to eat it, but i’m not expecting anything spectacular.

monday meals #2:  meh.  i’ll let you know how it actually tasted as soon as i get to eat it!

UPDATE: the quiche is a little moist still, but great!  pretty flavourful 🙂