vie a la table

I’m secretly hoping that this is my last post that is a million words long.  I’ve been trying to think a lot about my ‘voice’ as a writer and how I want to appeal to those who are reading this and will read viealatable.  Do I want to sound professional, put together, cynical, laid back, flippant, youthful, experienced, organized, boring, analytical… ?  All I know so far is that my voice will evolve as I write more and more; and my knowledge and skill will show more and more as my education continues and evolves.  Feedback is always appreciated.

My last meal for the school project was a non-vegetarian meal.  I was most excited (and nervous) about this meal because 1. it was the most complicated and 2. i was making it for my ENTIRE family.

…side note – we all talk about this in school, how people get really excited for us to cook for them and they expect so much… but sometimes they forget that we don’t have an education yet.  I haven’t even cooked anything at school yet!  it’s okay, we still like to cook for you all!

So, the first course (appetizer) was pretty simple – a Greek style pizza with an olive oil base, feta, tomatoes, oregano and prosciutto.

Recommended by a friend from school, I used Trader Joe’s herb pizza dough.. having never used pizza dough before, i wasn’t prepared to make my own.

The topping for the pizza was pretty simple because I decided to do it all as one pre-mixed mash.  First I blanched the tomatoes, peeled the skin and cleaned the inside before giving them a rough chop.  Then mixed those with the crumbled feta, chopped oregano and sliced prosciutto.  After forming the pizza rounds, they each got about a teaspoon of olive oil and the topping before the cooking action.

The only other part to this dish was the arugula.  The pizza was plated on top, but was meant to be eaten with the arugula on top.  It gave an already fresh tasting pizza an even fresher kick.

The main dish was what I was most excited for… mainly just because I love stuffed chicken, cheese and olives.

I’ve had trouble stuffing chicken before.  I’ll slice it too thinly on the bottom and it will leak out, or too thinly on the top and the flavors aren’t infused enough.  Well, this time, I thought I’d slice down on the chicken breast about 1/4″ then in on each side about 1/2″.  This way, it had a solid bottom base and was deep enough to really pack in the flavor.

The mixture was basic – goat cheese, a touch of milk, chopped olive mixture and chopped fresh sage.  Stuffed with about 3TB of mixture each, they roasted up nicely getting some perfect browning under the broiler.

The dessert for this meal was simple but delicious.  I liked the idea of lemon sorbet with a small sugar chip or something, so we used puff pastry (phyllo) dough (about 5 sheets) and topped it with sugar for a nice and lite pastry chip.  yum!

Special thanks goes out to my family for eating my food and to my mom for supplying some monetary factors… without which, this dinner may have never happened.  Special thanks to my sous chef – mom, I couldn’t have done it without your help.  Also, I feel God in this Chili’s tonight.

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food, photos, school, wil by wil