recipe – Page 7 – Fervent Foodie

Yogurt Biscuits & NASCAR

March 21, 2012 5 Comments

My dad is a huge NASCAR fan.

Don’t judge.

When I moved to Charlotte, I made my dad a promise: if he (hater of all things urban) made the trek down to the Queen City, I (the darling bribing daughter) would take him to the Charlotte Motor Speedway for the NASCAR racing experience. Honestly, the thought of my dear dad whipping around the racetrack at speeds of over 150 miles per hour was borderline gut-wrenching, but I figured if seeing his daughter wasn’t incentive enough to come to Charlotte, surely NASCAR would get him here.

Features, My Favs, Recipes

Easy Tomato Basil Bruschetta Recipe

March 13, 2012 20 Comments

In my family, it’s customary to tell embarrassing stories about your friends and loved ones when celebrating a big life moment. Weddings, graduations, birthdays–whatever the case may be, nothing shows you care like a little rib jabbin. Given this, I feel obligated to tell an embarrassing story about my fellow Charlotte Food Blogger, Brooke, who is expecting TWINS!

When I first met Brooke, the brains of Baking with Basil, she was just a few months pregnant (and nowhere near the size she is in this photo). We crammed into a car with Vanessa and Jamie and headed west for the Food Blog Forum in Nashville.

On the trip we shared some close sleeping quarters, so I was sure to warn the gals about my peculiar sleeping habits. You know, the sleep talking, sporadic sleep walking, and the occasional mid-night fisticuffs I engage in. I shared a bed with Brooke, so I had purposeful intentions of being on my best sleep behavior so as not to disturb the wee ones. In the middle of the night I went in for one of my trademark flip-and-rolls and accidentally booty bumped Brooke right in the belly. I remember the instant horror that washed over me as I bolted upright in the bed trying to determine if I had in any way injured the mama or the cargo. I held my breath waiting for a sign, or a sound, or a grunt of some sort, but Brooke didn’t budge. After a few terrifying minutes, I laid back down as straight and stiff as possible all the while clinging to the edge of the bed so as not to stray back into baby territory. I don’t think I slept the rest of the night.

Crap… wasn’t I supposed to be embarrassing Brooke here?!

My Favs, Recipes

Baked Balsamic Chicken with Fresh Mozzarella and Basil Pesto

February 23, 2012 12 Comments

We walked nearly 20 miles during our weekend in Savannah (according to my Fitbit, that is), and our aimless meandering about the city included a dozen or so passes by Paula Dean’s Lady and Sons restaurant. I’ve liked Paula Dean since the first time I stumbled upon her TV show. I adore her southern charm, youthful excitement, and penchant for using a stick of butter (or two) in every friggin recipe. When it comes to ingredients, I don’t possess Paula’s steadfast dedication to any one particular item, but rather four: onions, garlic, Frank’s Red Hot, and balsamic vinegar. These are my four superstars, and I believe any one of them can take a meal from blah to brilliant. In another life, I’ll write cookbooks dedicated to each of them. Promise.

Tonight’s dinner was all about *BALSAMIC VINEGAR*

Come.to.mama.

Baked Balsamic Chicken with Fresh Mozzarella and Basil Pesto (serves 4)

Adapted from Eat, Live, Run Grilled Balsamic Chicken with Mozzarella and Pesto

4 chicken breasts (about 1.5 lbs, or 6 ounces each)
2 cups balsamic vinegar, divided
4 large cloves garlic
4 ounces mozzarella (preferably fresh)
1/4 cup prepared pesto (try my basil almond pesto recipe)
S&P
Dried oregano

Step One: Season chicken breasts with S&P. Place chicken, 4 cloves garlic (minced OR roughly chopped, your call), and one cup of balsamic in a ziploc baggie or Tupperware and marinate in fridge for 1 hour. Don’t exceed the one hour mark as the vinegar may start to break down the chicken in weird ways.

Step Two: While the chicken marinates, heat 1 cup of balsamic vinegar over medium high heat for 15-20 minutes until liquid has reduced by half. Remove from heat, and use a spatula to pour the reduction into a small bowl or serving pitcher to cool.

Step Three: Cover a baking sheet with foil and coat with cooking spray. Remove chicken from balsamic marinade, place on prepared baking sheet, and bake at 375 for 25 minutes, flipping halfway through. Remove chicken from oven and turn on the oven broiler. Top each chicken breast with a slice of fresh mozzarella cheese then sprinkle with S&P and dried oregano. Leaving the oven door slightly ajar, broil chicken for 4 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Top each breast with 1 tbsp pesto and a drizzle of the balsamic reduction.

“I’d rather die with a potato in my mouth than a piece of lettuce.” – Paula Deen

Recipes

Chicken Pesto Paninis

February 7, 2012 9 Comments

It’s Thursday–the day I spend approximately two to three hours scouring the internet, flipping through cookbooks, and rifling through my big black book in search of amazing recipes and/or inspiration for things to cook this weekend. It’s a ritual that borders somewhere between dedication and obsession.

Nothing cheeses me off more than spending all those hours (HOURS!) researching on top of shelling out my hard earned moo-lah on ingredients, taking the time to cook the darned thing, and having it turn out to be a flop. After trying one-too-many frown-evoking recipes, I adopted a new blog bylaw in 2012: only post recipes that I would recommend (without hesitation) to a friend. Even though I painstakingly snap photos of everything I cook, if it ain’t delicious, it ain’t going on the blog. Jarrod knows exactly what I mean when I ask if a dish is “blog worthy,” and he’s pretty truthful about so-so meals (in a I’m-just-glad-you-cooked-please-don’t-make-me-do-this sort of way).

When he REALLY likes something, he doesn’t hesitate to let me know. Like this Chicken Pesto Panini, for instance, which he declared the BEST SANDWICH OF HIS LIFE.

If those aren’t fighting words, I don’t know what are.

Recipes

How to halve a spaghetti squash without losing a finger.

January 30, 2012 27 Comments

Right or wrong, perfect sense or nonsense, I often do things a certain way simply because that’s the way I’ve always done them. A prime example is my method for tying shoes. I remember attempting to learn the whole bunny goes round the tree and jumps in the hole spiel on a wooden practice shoe back in elementary school. I’d memorized the story line, but my bunny wanted nothing to do with that stinkin’ tree and my index finger kept messing up the loop-around (I blame it on my big hands). Honestly, I didn’t see what the big deal was. For weeks I’d been using my own method (the make-two-bunny-ears-then-crisscross-then-fold-one-under-and-pull-to-tighten approach) and my shoes were staying on just fine.

I have a lot of these little quirks, especially in the kitchen, where it’s well established that my knife skills border on horrifying (trust me, you’d shudder if you saw me chop an onion), but hey, I get the job done. Even though I’ve nearly severed several fingers over the years, not to mention the time I impaled my pinky with a steak knife while slicing a bagel, I’d never really given much thought to the dangerous method I employed to halve a spaghetti squash. I always proceeded in cutting a spaghetti squash as if it were a giant rock-hard avocado—with a knife painstakingly seesawing around the perimeter of the squash. I’m not sure what events occurred that caused my subconscious to one day realize this was a horrible HORRIBLE idea. I’m just thankful it did before I’d involuntarily amputated something.

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