New Year New Food

With the start of the new year, I have been extremely busy.  I haven't been blogging about our food as much as I would have hoped. That's not to say Megan and I aren't eating well, because we certainly are! 

Megan has been a huge help lately. I have been working and staying in my office longer and not coming home until later in the night. This is mainly due to my dissertation that I am writing that is summing up my research over the past two years. I am on schedule, and just finished the first chapter of it, only 34 pages long! There's plenty of more writing to do (four chapters to be exact), but I am super grateful to have Megan's loving support. Not to mention she KILLED her HESI exam!!!

Here's a dinner we prepared together last week. Once again, it features my loving cast iron skillet. Megan started by preparing the vegetables. Some canned diced tomatoes, baby portabella mushrooms, onions and garlic. 

In the meantime, I seasoned some chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and Paul Prudhomme's Poultry Magic (amazing). I seared the breasts in a hot cast iron skillet to give them a nice crust.

As you can see I only seared the breasts, the center is still very rare. I removed the breasts from the skillet and seared the onions.

And then... red wine, of course. This is Three Wishes Cabernet Sauvignon.

After a generous amount of wine, I scrapped the bottom of the pan and let the wine cook a little bit.

Then I added the mushrooms and garlic.

Cooked those down a little bit..

Then added the canned tomatoes and some dried herbs: italian seasoning and extra oregano.

Put the breasts back in and covered them with the veggie mixture.

Popped it in the oven.

Twenty minutes later, the apartment smelled amazing as I took the skillet out of the oven.

While the chicken was baking, we cooked some corkscrew shaped pasta.

And served the chicken on top of the pasta.

The corkscrew shaped pasta was perfect for this meal, probably because of its large density of pasta per its small size. I don't think the meal would have been the same with a thinner pasta such as a spaghetti or linguine. So... have you taken my advice and bought a cast iron skillet yet? If not, it's seriously about time you do.

Ragin' Cajun

As many of you may know, my parents spent the last 2+ years in New Orleans, Louisiana. Recently, I spent the holiday break with them during their last days in New Orleans. On January 2nd, my dad and I finished packing up the moving truck and we headed back to Florida. However, I left with a couple of souvenirs. The first is Tony Chachere's Creole seasoning.

This seasoning is awesome, I put it basically on everything. You will have to wait for future blog posts to see the rest of the souvenirs, this is the star of this post.

Yesterday I took my PCAT, and now am awaiting anxiously to hear back from Pharmacy schools. Also today, I started to write my undergraduate dissertation which I will submit at the end of the semester in partial fulfillment to graduate with honors. My dissertation with encompass my experimental research over the past two years in organic electronics: light-emitting diodes and solar cells. The stack of books on my desk in my office seems to keep growing.

Back to the cajun talk. I have made it a task to utilize each "souvenir" I brought back from New Orleans in a dish to make it stand out on its own. So for this dinner, I started by cooking some linguine.

Then I cut up some boneless skinless chicken breasts into bite-size pieces. 

And then minced some onions and garlic.

And some tomatoes.

I started off by cooking the chicken in a cast iron skillet with a generous amount of the aforementioned Creole seasoning.

I set the chicken aside and cooked the garlic and onions.

OH! Here's another souvenir I forgot to mention, though it's not really unique to New Orleans. While I was in New Orleans, there is a wonderful Whole Foods near where my parents were staying. My mom received an email from Whole Foods about a wine deal that was only good for one day. The deal was a case of "Three Wishes" wine for $24. Yes, that's $2 a bottle. I grabbed one Chardonnay, one Merlot, and four Cabernet Sauvignon. My mom chose six wines for herself to complete the case.

Back to the cooking. I deglazed the skillet with the Three Wishes Chardonnay and then added the fresh tomatoes.

After cooking some of the wine out I added some half&half and a tad more Creole seasoning. 

After simmering the sauce for a while, I added the chicken back to the party to heat up.

My cast iron skillet wasn't big enough for the pasta, so I combined the pasta and the sauce in the stockpot.

Once it was nice and warm, I topped it with some parmesan cheese and commenced eating. 

This meal was awesome, not to mention quite spicy! For a little side note: if you don't have a cast iron skillet, you must buy one NOW. I picked up mine, a 12" Lodge pre-seasoned cast iron skillet with a mitt for the handle for $15 on Amazon. Probably my best kitchen purchase ever. The cast iron skillet can literally be used for anything, and it will never wear out. 

Dessert Hacks

Never neat, Lifehacker offers a tip on baking cupcakes without a disposable cup. Enjoy!