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I am not usually a fan of Swiss cheese.

But Gruyere is just so perfectly pleasant. I love it.

Yesterday Shaun L. and I threw together some asian cuisine for dinner. We made a sweet and sour pork and it surpassed all expectations.

Basic ingredients
Pork
Green pepper
Red pepper
Onion
Pineapple
Carrots
Celery
egg
Flour
Tomato Paste
Soy Sauce
Vinegar
Sugar
Corn Starch
Various Oils
Orange Juice

After coating the pork in some flour and egg, we fried it. Then softened the veggies and added the last 7 ingredients as a sauce. The sauce thickened slightly and we served it over rice with a side of broccoli.

It was heaven.

I think we’re going to get back into the habit of making delicious dinners.

And American for “Staggeringly Delicious.”

When I was a kid my mom used to occasionally make us Calzones for lunch. It’d be a long calzone cut into thin slices and filled with such delicious combos as ham and cheese or meatball and sauce.

Well, yesterday I tried making some Calzones following my mother’s instructions. And they came out near flawless. The idea is simple enough. Buy some frozen meatballs and some pizza dough. Let the dough sit for an hour or two to rise, thaw the meatballs, and then roll into a long strip. Perhaps about 30 centimeters wide and 60 centimeters long.

Throw some meatballs, sauce, and cheese in there and roll. It’s even more exciting if you do multiple layers.

Put it in the oven at 190 C (375 F) for 15-20 minutes and you’ll be good to go.

You’ll know it’s reached its maximum potential for delicious if you tap the calzone and it knocks as if hollow. So delicious!

I like peanut butter. Heck, I love peanut butter.

But the fat content is pretty darn high. So awhile ago I decided to try a reduced fat peanut butter. First I went for Skippy. But it tasted of gross. Jiff was next. Also bad. And then we sampled the store brand.

Somehow, the ShopRite folks seems to have gotten it just right. This stuff is epic. If slathered on some country wheat bread, it’s heaven.

Absolute heaven.

Steve visited last night!

Steve is a good friend from high school. you may remember him from various past stories of MikeDiDonato.com including his festive wedding last August and the raucous bachelor party in Montreal where he spent hours in the emergency room for a busted back.

update: his back is better and his marriage is going just fine.

He picked me up at work and we drove back to the House of Rock to make some delicious eggplant parmesan. A+ my friends, A+. Fried battered eggplant covered in three types of cheese and a tomato basil sauce… it wasn’t so much a meal as heaven in a 9×13 glass baking dish.

Following the meal, we had some ice cream: dulche de leche.

Great company, great food, great night.

Without meaning to, I believe I’ve turned this day into a day of fruit.

Today’s menu includes: grapefruit, watermelon, orange, apple, banana, and raisins.

I don’t know when it happened. But at some point in the last 15 years I started liking Mustard.

On Saturday Night, Liz and I whipped up a Japanese chicken dish that turned out great.

It was simple enough.

2-3 chicken breasts
2 med onions
oil for stir frying
60 milliliters of water
the same of soy
a little fish oil
a little veggie bullion

The real recipe called for a few other ethnic specific ingredients, but they were not easily found at the local stop and shop.

Stir fry the chicken. Once brown, remove from the wok and throw in onions. Once softened, add the rest and let it reach a boil. Once it boils, add the chicken. Cook for 3 minutes, and serve over rice!

Easy and Fast!

Mike D’s rock climbing food ratings:
Deliciousness: 5.9
Difficulty: 5.6

It has been a week of food!

Tuesday night I got home from Kung Fu a bit early and Jesse and I decided to make yet another delicious meal out of the ‘essential asian’ cookbook. Our fridge is pretty stocked, but even still, I figured it’d be best to choose a recipe that didn’t require too many unusual ingredients.

I found the perfect one: Chinese Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup.

Wow.

First of all, even if you don’t consider yourself a cook, you can make this. It’s extremely simple and the result was wonderful.

Ingredients:
1 Chicken Breast
3 Cups Chicken Broth
1 Cup Creamed Corn
2 Egg Whites
1 T corn starch
Some Salt
Some Scallions
Some Soy Sauce

Directions:
1. Mince the meat in a food processor or with lots of cutting.

2. Whip the egg whites until they froth to a peak.

3. Fold the egg into the chicken mince. Add a teaspoon or so of salt.

4. Pour the broth into a pan and bring to a boil.

5. Add creamed corn. Mix the T of corn starch with a bit of water and then add to the pot. it should thicken.

6. Once the broth thickens, lower the temp slightly and add the chicken egg mixture. Cook for 3 minutes stirring, do not let it boil.

7. Serve with a little soy sauce splashed on top and a couple scallions cut along the diagonal.

I had a photo, unfortunately it seems I mistakenly deleted it. I’ll grab one next time.

Total time from start to finish: maybe 25 min

Mike D’s rock climbing ratings:
Difficulty: 5.3
Deliciousness: 5.10a

Last week while I was in Texas I had a most amazing tomato basil soup. This got me inspired and I decided to try to make my own version on Sunday.

But, I couldn’t just have Tomato Basil soup, so I talked to my mom and the two of us found a great recipe for Apricot Almond Chicken Salad.

This lunch was A+
I highly recommend it.

The soup came from this recipe. I did add the full portions of cream and butter and it actually did make a difference. I was hoping to be able to get away with half the butter and 3/4 of the cream. No dice.

The chicken salad recipe was excellent, healthy, and extremely easy.

Dried Apricots
Toasted Almonds
Celery
Cooked Diced Chicken
Some light mayo mixed with nonfat milk
Rosemary
Scallions

And that’s it! Blend it, chill it, and serve on a bed of lettuce with fresh grapes, or on a slab of wheat bread. Either way, it’s amazing.

Mike D’s Rockclimbing food ratings:

Tomato Soup:
Difficulty: 5.9-
Deliciousness: 5.10

Chicekn Salad:
Difficulty: 5.7
Deliciousness: 5.10

A week ago Saturday, Jesse and I dug a bit deeper into the ‘Essential Asian’ cookbook. This time we went to the Thailand chapter and tried a green curry.

It came out Awesome.

Basics:

Green curry paste
Coconut milk
Chicken
Onion
Green beans
Brown sugar
Fish sauce
Lime Juice
Oil

I don’t think I’m missing any big ingredients up there. We served it on a bed of rice.

I used some Indian Saag (spinach) curry because I couldn’t find any Thai curry at the food store. It worked well though. That is certain.

Here’s a photo of the final product.

This will be made again.

Difficulty: 5.6 R (r means gear placement is tough to find. This fits perfectly because some of the ingredients were not easily accessible)
Deliciousness: 5.10c

I’d developed a fast easy tasty chicken dish great for bringing to lunch.

Ingredients:
chicken
oil
white cooking wine
ketchup
salt
lemon juice
cornstarch
sugar

Directions:
Throw chicken in pan with a little olive oil. Cook one side until white. Flip.
Add a little cooking wine.
Add a little ketchup and a small bit of salt
Sprinkle some sugar over the top
Add a comfortable dose of lemon juice
add cornstarch to thicken the sauce
cook until it starts to brown

it’s pretty good.

Sunday evening post climbing (tomorrow’s feature) Pete, Jesse, and I returned to the House of Rock to make some food. We opened up my new Essential Asian cookbook, flipped to “Laos and Cambodia” and found a recipe for Spicy Fried Fish. The basic premise was such. Cut up some white fish, coat with egg and a flour-cumin-coriander mix and then fry in oil. Separately make up some hot sauce and serve.

The strange thing was, the sauce wasn’t spicy. It didn’t even have any spicy ingredients in it.
Sauce Ingredients:

sesame oil
garlic
ginger
onion
spring onion (scallions)
fish sauce
soy sauce
brown sugar
water

please tell me where the ‘hot’ is suppose to come from.

Anyway, here are some photos.

Pete taking control of the frying pan.

A shot with strange perspective that looks more like a mini-mike d standing on the counter next to a giant Jesse. Jesse meanwhile is contemplating the inner workings of a cheese grater.

This is the start to the spicy sauce that wasn’t very spicy.

The final product in all its glory!

I would give this dish the following rock climber ratings:

Difficulty: 5.9
Deliciousness: 5.8-

Really, the ‘difficult’ rating might be biased. The dish wasn’t hard to prepare, it was just annoying. I really don’t enjoy putting batter on fried foods pre-frying. Maybe there’s a better way to do it, but my way always ends up with my hands covered in batter and my egg and flour mixtures running out prematurely.

It was tasty, but I don’t think I’ll try it again.

The fried rice recipe that I mentioned briefly in yesterday’s post ended up being very simple, quick, and delish.

Chinese Fried Rice

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 med onion (cut into 8 wedges)
4 scallions (cut into small pieces on the diagonal)
8 oz. ham (sliced into long thin strips)
3-4 T peanut oil
2 T soy sauce
1 3/4 cup long grain brown rice
1/4 Cup frozen peas

STEP 1: cook the rice, then chill the rice. The recipe says chill it overnight… I settled for 20 minutes in the freezer.
STEP 2: throw 2T of oil into a wok.
STEP 3: mix the eggs, adding some salt and pepper to season
STEP 4: throw eggs in wok. spread the egg out by swishing it around the wok until it just starts to solidify into a thin patty. Then separate with a spatula, scrambled eggs style. Remove eggs and set aside.
STEP 5: Throw in the onion. Keep ‘em in there until they start to become transparent.
STEP 6: Add ham. Fry for 1 min.
STEP 7: Add the rest of the oil, then the rice and peas. fry for 3 min.
STEP 8: Add scallions, egg, and soy sauce. Cook until heated through.
STEP 9: Serve, and enjoy.

It should be noted that I ended up using white basmati rice instead because we had it on hand. Also, the real recipe called for prawns to be added. I did not. It was still excellent.

Mike D’s food climbing ratings:
Deliciousness: 5.8+
Difficulty: 5.5

For a tasty breakfast saute some red peppers and add one full eggs and two egg whites. Scramble a bit and then add a teaspoon or two of honey.

Simple and delicious.

To prep for the AWESOME Christmas cookie exchange that my workplace will be having at the end of December, I decided to do a little cookie baking on Saturday night.

Ruth and Old Man Schenk came by first to go climbing and second to help with the masterful cookies.

We made Stained Glass Cookies. It’s relatively simple, though mildly tedious. All that you gotta do is make a butter, sugar, and honey batter. Add some flour. Freeze it until the dough is workable then cut into fun star shapes.

Then cut out a second shape in the middle of the first.

Fill the centers with crushed life savers and then cook in the oven at 325 for about 5-7 minutes. The life savers melt and become somewhat translucent hard candy ’stained glass.’

They are pretty to look at, but overall, not a fun or delicious cookie to bake.

Difficulty: 5.9-
Deliciousness: 5.6
Prettiness: 5.11c
Annoyingness: 5.11c

Yesterday I felt like cooking. I haven’t really made a homecooked meal in awhile and needed to feed that fever. So I pulled out the cook book that Theresa put together for me a few years back and decided to make my Nana’s famous Porcupine Meatballs.

What’s fun about these little guys is that you put uncooked rice into the meat. After forming the meat into balls you pour some tomato soup over them, cover with aluminum foil, and bake for an hour at 350.

The rice cooks and expands so that the meatballs look like little porcupines. The tomato soup adds a wonderful flavor and the surplus soup can be used as a sauce for the meatballs afterwards.

This recipe is very fulfilling. I would recommend trying it out.

Nana Folger’s Porcupine Meatballs

Pre-heat the oven to 350

Mix in large bowl:
1.5 lbs ground beef
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup rice
1 small onion, diced
healthy dose of freshly ground pepper

Form the meat into balls and put in a 9×13 pan. Mix a can of condensed tomato soup with the required amount of water* and pour over the meatballs.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees F.

*Presumably you could also just use 2 cups of rich creamy tomato soup. I trust you’ll do what needs to be done.

Enjoy!

Yesterday, Jon, Tom, & Mykal came to the House of Rock for a bakefest like none before.

We baked a lot of food including:
Peach Cobbler
White Chocolate Challah Bread Pudding
Homemade Crackers
Mocha Cake
Sugar Bread (with whole sugar cubes!)
Spinach Souffle’
Almond Macaroons
Ultimate Oatmeal Cookies

Fun was had. Check out some pictures!

Tom’s Hazelnut mocha cake was created from scratch. We had some trouble with the first batch of frosting and had to try a second time. Apparently cakes are tough to make, so kudos to Tom for his stellar efforts.

Here, Jon is stirring the batter for the oatmeal cookies. Notice the look of determination!

Here’s a sampler of some of the creations. That’s White Chocolate Challah Bread Pudding at the bottom of the picture.

And here’s a video of some marzipan that was probably sitting around too long.

This week while I was in Texas, Jesse decided to make some dinner.

The plan was for a sausage and pasta medly. He threw some water on the oven, defrosted some sausage, and started cutting up some peppers and onions to put into the mix.

He grabbed a yellow and red pepper, as well as some home grown peppers that Thomas had brought from his folk’s place. In retrospect, we realize that one of these may have been the infamous habanero pepper. The habanero is known for its ability to kill or knock out anyone under 9 years of age who lives north of the Mason Dixon line.

Jesse cut those peppers and added them to the sauce and sausage that was now simmering on the range. It wasn’t long before the scent of fire touched his unexpecting face. He didn’t describe it as being overly noxious, but he recognized the burn and knew to dilute his dinner with additional sauce.

The dinner was cooked, and the dinner was ate, and the dinner was delicious.

After dinner, Jesse washed his hands. But it wasn’t long before a rogue finger found its way to Jesse’s face. He rubbed his eye. And Pain exploded.

Think Hindenburg, except instead of a zepplin, Jesse’s face.

First his face turned red. Then it started to swell. He ran to the bathroom and soaked his face in water… to no avail. He had to wait it out.

and wait he did. Finally around 11:00pm, his face had calmed down to comfortable levels and he was ready for bed. But before bed, he had to use the bathroom.

One would think that after washing his hands so many times his hands would be free from the hot pepper’s oils of pain. One would think that after so many hours surely the burning agent would be gone.

Sadly no. After using the bathroom, Jesse experienced 3 or so more hours of very personal pain.

I made a great lunch today. I threw some frozen stir fried veggies into a pan with some onion, soy sauce, and olive oil.

I simmed those for a bit while I cut up some flank steak.

I then removed the veggies and started cooking the steak. Not 3 minutes into the cooking, I poured orange juice over the steak. I let that come to a boil and then I thickened the sauce with a cornstarch/water mix.

Once the steak was cooked through, I threw the veggies back in the pan.

It was quick, easy, and very tasty.

Last night we made dinner. THIS was the dinner we made.

your job (it’s not too tough) is to guess the theme.

The answer may be in the comments!

Awhile ago, I posted a post about Werther’s Original Coffee Flavored Hard Candy. I had tried one, and it was delicious. Recently, I’ve received a few e-mails from people across our Nation asking where I had found these. They too had tasted the candy gold and had searched to find no additional sources of the candy.

Werther’s website? No dice! There’s no information on the Coffee flavored gem.

Stop & Shop and ShopRite trips also proved fruitless. Candy eisles everywhere were leaving me disappointed.

So I called up Storck. Storck is the parent company to Werther’s and their U.S. location is in Chicago, IL. I spoke to a woman named Debbie. our conversation went something like this:

mike d: Good morning Debbie. I have a question about the Werther’s Original Candy.
Debbie: ok, what’s your question?
mike d: I believe I tried a werther’s original that was coffee flavored–
Debbie: yes.
mike d: They exist?
Debbie: yes they do.
mike d: Where can I find them?

She then passed me on to a woman named Linda who worked at the New England distribution center. She’s going to get back to me next week with more information.

If you yourself are interested in finding the coffee flavored werther’s original candy, feel free to call up the U.S. office in Chicago. Tell them that Mike D. sent you, and that you’re looking for local distribution information for the coffee flavored werther’s original candy.

The phone number:
1 312 467-5700

On Sunday I decided to make a bunch of mini-chicken dishes that I could have during the week when I’m deeply desiring a delicious dinner/lunch, but too tired to make one.

Clockwise from the top left:

Chicken with chili flavoring
olive oil, onion, tomatos, chili sauce, salt, cumin, peprika, garlic, chili powder

Chicken with Indian flavoring
peanut oil, ginger, garlic, garam marsala, something else, tumeric

Balsamic Honey Chicken
olive oil, balsamic viniger (reduced), honey, pepper

Chinese Chicken
sesame oil, oyster sauce, worcestershire Sauce, five spice

We were out of Soy sauce, otherwise I would have used the foolproof trifecta of taste: soy, oyster, and worcestershire. Give it a shot, it’s a personal fave.

NOTE: It is only upon review that I realized that my “feature” picture looks WICKED nasty. I assure you the actual chicken dishes taste much better.

Last Sunday Pam stopped by to visit me in CT. As I stood unprepared in the kitchen, I realized I needed to make some dinner… AND FAST!

This was the perfect time to call upon my new Jacque Pepin’ book “Fast food my way.” This time, I made the lavash bread pizza.

It was beyond simple, and the end result was an elegant delicious pizza. Throw down some Lavash bread (find it by the deli at your local S&S) and add some olive oil to each side. Cut up some tomatos and toss ‘em on. Add some mozerella, some sauce if it suits you… and you’re good to go. 4-8 minutes in a 475 degree oven and you have delicious crispy crust pizza. It was nearly gormet!

In Jacque’s version, you add some fresh basil and parmesian on top after it comes out of the oven. I forgot to pick up basil so we skipped that step. It was still delicious though, and extremely fast.

I give it four stars.