Cooking...

I have been reading food blogs again... Why? I love to cook and eat, DUH. The latest that I have read is Big Man, Little Kitchen... Why? I love it when people can cook amazing things in small kitchens. That is what we have usually had to date. Although post rehab, I am hoping to have more... space that is. God knows, that I have tons of equipment and cookbooks... frightening amounts, really. But ultimately lack of space, never really stops a foodie. Or a foodie in training... Les filles fixed Fun Daddy and I dinner tonight.

Made completely of frozen food from Trader Joes. They picked it out... and organized themselves.. there was even an appetizer.. We had tempura vegetables.. then orange chicken over jasmine rice. very tasty... Oh and mango mochi for dessert. Yummy

But last night I cooked for real...

I made chicken pannini.

I started by making chicken paillards out of chicken tenders that I bought at the fruit market.. one tender is enough for one paninni (please note that my Italian sucks enough, that I can't remember how sandwich is spelled... I am a dope). Please note also that making paillards (which is a fancy French word for cutlettes) is so easy even a child can do it. Imelda, point of fact. Imelda loves taking a tender and smashing it between two pieces of waxed paper (which personally, I prefer to plastic wrap... to each their own) and smashing it with a heavy surfaces. In our household we use the base of my marble mortar.. a la mortar and pestle...

You can use one of those silly hammers if you want.. i have never had much luck with them... and mes filles tend to use them for some other nefarious purpose.. I recently started using the mortar of my pestle or some such foolishness... what did Danny Kaye say?

Hawkins: The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true. (from 1956's, The Court Jester).

So paillards were smashed, and breaded and lightly fried.

Then, eventually after Fun Daddy decided to come home, they were assembled into delicious paninni (there.. I have chosen a spelling..)

One side of the bread was schmeered with a sundried tomato spread.

Then I added provolone, the paillard, fresh mozzeralla, tomato slices, arugala and topped with the other slice of bread that contained my own version of dijionaise....

Now I grilled this delicious concoction on my griddle and weighted it with my cast iron blini pan (covered in reynolds wrap to protect the pan from needing to be cleaned..)

After a couple of minutes I flipped the now paninni... for a few minutes...

Presto!

Paninni!

Yummy! even les filles mangent les paninnis!

That is considered a good dinner Chez Maman!... and no microwave was required.