wan-na find something?

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

smitten

so the other day, my friend lilcee forwarded me an awesome link to a high school musical 3-themed party. it was fantastic, and i can't wait to show it to the teen.

but then i started perusing the rest of the site, and somehow stumbled upon the most fabulous food blog - smitten kitchen. i ended up bookmarking so many recipes, and drooling over the delish-looking entrees and desserts that are featured.

last night, i decided to tackle something easy - chicken marsala (photo courtesy of smitten kitchen, since i wasn't able to take my own, as usual). i've tried to make this dish before, but it never turned out very well. and i also had to laugh at my wine-ignorant self as i asked the dude at trader joe's to help me find marsala wine. i seriously had no idea what kind of wine it was, and smirked when he presented me with two bottles with "marsala" in big ass capital letters across the label. i even had to choose between sweet and dry - i just crossed my fingers and went with the latter.

i'd picked up a bag of this at the grocery store last week:

and i was excited to give it a shot. i've never had chicken marsala with anything but mashed potatoes, and although the hub had given up carbs till thanksgiving, i made an executive decision on his behalf and popped the bag in the microwave. i don't have a hand mixer, nor a potato masher, but i busted out one of my whisks and hoped for the best.

as the mushroom-and-wine sauce simmered on the stove, i added milk and [way too much] butter to the steamed potatoes and found that my simple balloon whisk did the job quite well. i tossed in a little salt, took a taste, and made a mental note to pick up another bag (or two) of the magical potatoes. talk about easy - the part i like the least about making mashed potatoes is peeling and cooking. this is fabulous.

i placed fluffy mounds of potatoes on our plates, nestled chicken cutlets into the center, and topped the whole thing with gobs of mushrooms and that yummy sauce. the hub proclaimed the dish "really, really good," the whole house smelled lovely, and the bean enjoyed her bites of chicken. even mollydog got in on the dinner, as the bean snuck pieces down to her under her high chair. ha!

so if you're looking for a yummy, easy dinner, this one is highly recommended. mmm, i almost wish there were leftovers. and i hate leftovers.

10 comments:

  1. Usually I'm out of the loop - but at least I've known about Smitten Kitchen for a couple years now ;-)

    Have you found the Pioneer Woman's blog? You might like that too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. awesome. I love the photos, I never noticed smitten kitchen. The food looks divine.

    That's the great thing about learning to cook new things. You'll find a new ingredient and be forever much smarter.

    I worry bagged mashed potatoes taste like powder. Good to know. I'll be picking some up soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I looooooove leftovers! Our refrigerator is packed with leftovers! Leftovers is all we ever eat! I'm going to take ALL the leftovers! You want some? No! Too slow!

    [swiping a tall tower of boxes full of leftovers and running away]

    ReplyDelete
  4. [dead]

    The food looks delish. I may have to try out that bagged mashed potato some time.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I had no idea that the monkey was crazy about leftovers. Or just crazy in general. ;)

    I saw the HSM3 pics and had thought of the teen but now that she was the teen, for some reason I thought she would think it was immature. goes to show how much i know kids. =)

    ReplyDelete
  6. That sounds tasty! I saw that HSM3 party and thought of the teen too. :) Too funny.

    Um, that monkey cracks me up!

    ReplyDelete
  7. you are behind the times re: smitten. but we'll forgive you!

    and if you want to venture out, there's a gnocchi recipe that is pretty good. but that would require you to peel the potatoes.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I can't wait to try this recipe out. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. i didn't know about smitten either! gotta add it to my GR. i'm so drooling over that recipe. yum!

    and i'm giggling over your wine snafu. ;)

    ReplyDelete

i heart comments. i wan-na hear what you have to say.
um, i think.

heading out to the big apple

like most of our best vacations, our christmastime trip to NYC was kind of a last-minute decision.  i don't even think there were six we...