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December 18, 2004
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Tonight we made Chicken Cordon Bleu one of my favorite dishes.
It's also one I have seen maligned in sad and evil ways:
The most evil by far was done by a fellow cook I worked with who believed he was "God's gift to cooking." He dredged the unflattened chicken breasts in flour, added the ham and cheese, rolled it up and dropped it in the deep fryer to seal it in. Those of you who are familiar with restaurant deep friers know how long that would take to cook the chicken thoroughly (I didn't try it, so I don't know if it was fully cooked.)
As if to add insult to injury, he then made a cream sauce and poured it into the serving pan over the greasy chicken. The final result crusty brown chicken breast peeking out from a two inch lake of yellowish cream sauce, with pools of grease reflecting the flourescent lights from the cafeteria ceiling above. (shudder)
The second, less deadly but terribly disappointing entry was the Chicken Cordon Bleu sandwich from Jack in the Box. For starters, it was done on plain grilled chicken, which was dry and tough. The "we don't make it until you order it rule" (which means assemble it, not cook) left the overcooked warm chicken breast unable to melt the swiss cheese on the sandwhich. Finally, the supposed "creamy garlic parmesian" sauce tasted a lot like Ranch dressing to me.
The most acceptable food item using the name Chicken Cordon Bleu is the institutional pre-frozen type with processed chicken. They're not great, but at least they're tasty.
Homemade Chicken Cordon Bleu on the other hand is not that hard to make and is delicious! I made a slight error this time around, I breaded the chicken prior to rolling it up. This led to some excess cheese leakage from the the chicken, but the final result was still excellent!
posted by John at 7:21 PM
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Live Life Uncomplicated?
 I was browsing the wine isle in the grocery store a few days ago (Note: I grew up in NY state and still find it weird to be able to buy wine and hard liquor in a grocery store! (California)), and there was a bottle of wine on sale for $2.99. Since we're still at the very beginning of developing our 'wine tongues' (I think I just made that up?), I figured it was a good thing to try the really cheap wines as WELL as the more expensive ones to give ourselves a larger range of experiences. I'd had Sutter Home Merlot before, but never a (red) Zinfandel, so I tossed it in the cart.
I know that Zinfandels are pretty mild wines, but I haven't yet determined if this was 'mild' or 'bland'. It wasn't terrible at all, but mostly just tasted like, well, generic wine, and it didn't pack any kind of a punch. John's opinion is similar, "Drinkable, but not very interesting." I suppose that's why the back of the label says, "Our zinfandel is the simple choice to compliment life's everyday moments. Enjoy Sutter Home wines and live life uncomplicated." (Shouldn't that be 'uncomplicatedly' (if that's a word) since it's describing the verb 'live'?) Anyway, we give Sutter Home credit for being so... accurate in their labeling, and thank the grocery store for not making us invest too much for the experience, which was still enjoyable after all was said and done.
posted by Kristen at 3:52 PM
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December 16, 2004
Top O' the Muffin to Ya!
 On cold mornings I love to whip up a box of Jiffy Muffin Mix. I tried the Apple Cinnamon for the first time the other day, very apple-y but kind of light on the cinnamon. Next time I'm definitely adding some cinnamon myself.
BTW if you have extra sour cream around, substitute it for the milk, it gives them a nice boost.
posted by John at 8:25 PM
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Christmas Cookies
 Looking for some new Christmas Cookie recipes this year? Well, of course, you can always check through the Food Follies Cookie Recipe section, but I also just ran across another good resource, All Homemade Cookies, which is worth a good look-see!
posted by Kristen at 2:07 PM
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December 12, 2004
Guac... what?
 I'm usually a basic Lay's potato chip type of person - I like potatos, oil, and salt in my chips, and not much else. But for some ungodly reason I thought I should branch out a bit and try some of the flavors I'd been dismissing for so long now, so during a sale, I bought a bag of Lay's "Cool Guacamole" flavored chips.
First of all, they are a really weird dusted green color that's obviously artificial. Second, the major identifiable flavors are jalapeno and lime juice and MSG. (Which always makes me swell up like a balloon, so I have a personal vendetta against it.) Thirdly, there's absolutely no avocado in it whatsoever. The flavor itself was "okay", but there are too many other factors running against them at this point. So, as you can tell, I'm going back to my plain Lay's, thank you very much. If you're the kind of person that loves flavored chips, then you may like them - just don't expect anything at all close to guacamole!
 Speaking of guacamole, John brought home a couple of lovely, photogenic avocados the other day, which I photographed and then 'designed' and made them into t-shirts and cards, and posters and such! (Click on the graphic to see this image on the products in the Food Follies shop.) It's oddly difficult to photograph food in a way that makes it look like it's supposed to. I remember taking a photo once of a baked ziti that was fresh out of the oven and looked SO good, but the photo came out looking like beige shiny plastic (melted cheese) slopped over bumpy red stuff. Ahhh, well - it was better to eat than take pictures of anyway - LOL!
posted by Kristen at 11:36 AM
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