In which we find the Buffalo's Wings.

There has been much cooking since last I posted. Never y'all fear.

On Friday, we had planned to entertain some friends with macaroni & cheese, beer, and board games, but those plans fell through. Instead, Jesse and I went to a personal favorite restaurant, French Roast, for steak frites, steak au poivre, and creme brulee. It was fabulous.

Saturday night I worked late, as will be the norm until June.

Sunday, after working again, I made Friday night's Roni Cheese. I feel like this was my best crispy crust ever, mostly because I think the sauce didn't reduce enough, which meant that it could sit under the broiler a little longer to get crispy. Plus, I used freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano as opposed to canned or pre-grated parm. Huge difference, I feel.
Anyways, it was pretty delicious and while I'm sad that we couldn't have Steele and Laura over for dinner to enjoy it too, at least it was delicious.

Monday, I made a recipe from Rachael Ray's 365 No Repeats, which is one of my older, and favorite cookbooks. It was: Fresh Tomato and Basil Chicken, with Super-Creamy Polenta.

I love polenta. Especially when into the polenta, you stir Mascarpone and Parmigiano. It's like eating grits for dinner!!! Plus, the chicken cooked itself into this really nice sauce, and there were grape tomatoes included.... and it was lovely.

Last night, after the shopping, I made a full menu from Rachael's 2,4,6,8 which consisted of Bollywood Inspired chickpea and Tomato soup, and spicy chicken patties in a pita. Also, while in Trader Joe's, I saw some beautiful orange and yellow tomatoes. I bought them, and sliced them with some red onion, salt, pepper, and olive oil as an appetizer.
Jesse is wary of tomatoes, so he wasn't 100% enthusiastic about it -- although he ended up enjoying the salad (which he doesn't think is a salad, because it only had two vegetables in it, and no leafy green..... discuss....) I think.

The soup was very nice, and I think if I'd used lamb instead of chicken, the patties would have been great. Ground chicken as a rule is pretty dry when you make it into a patty, since you have to cook it all the way through. But with lamb or something, it would have been a little moister, a little nicer, but it was still nice.

Tonight, I made Buffalo Chicken pizza. We made the crust with some Hefeweizen, which was pretty badass. I do love beer crust, because it's a little airier, although the beer doesn't really get a chance to develop the same flavor as beer bread, but it does give lots of bubbles and stuff, and a great consistency. The chicken element was generated by grilling the chicken and then tossing it with some jarred buffalo sauce and butter.... then baked it with some jack cheese, blue cheese, and scallions.

It was yum-tastic. I'm very proud of it.

I love making pizza. The crusts are generally varied, and the toppings of course vary -- you never get the same pizza twice and I love that. I feel that regularity with pizza is overrated when you make it at home. When you order it, of course, your pizza should be similar each time. But basically I like the quirks in pizza, the air bubbles and the burnt toppings and the cheese that stretches all over the place... it's better. It's way better than regular old boring pizza.

And in other news, tomorrow I starve, and Friday, the Burger Meister returns!!!