Caesar Club Sandwich {Barefoot Bloggers}

Posted in Food, Sandwiches by Shortbread

My Mother-in-Law tells my children that she’s 35. Once when my children asked how old I would be on my birthday and I told them, they said “Oh, you’ll be older than Granna!” Ummm, I don’t think so! I had to set them straight right away.

Having your turn come around to choose a recipe for everyone to make for the Barefoot Bloggers group is kind of like having a birthday. Having to choose from all those delicious-sounding Ina Garten recipes is like having to choose just one gift to ask for! After seeing this Caesar Club Sandwich, however, I really didn’t have to look much further. This recipe is full of all of my favorite things – roasted chicken, homemade caesar dressing, sun-dried tomatoes, pancetta, parmesan cheese, and arugula – piled high on crispy ciabatta bread. It sounded just perfect for the beginning of Spring.

And it was perfect. All the layers of flavor melded together to make one fabulous sandwich (anchovy paste and all). I even ate some of the leftovers the next day from the fridge, and they were still tasty. Perfect for a picnic or party, I know I will be making this again and again.

Caesar Club Sandwich

from Barefoot Contessa at Home

Ingredients

2 split (1 whole) chicken breasts, bone in, skin on
Good olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces thinly sliced pancetta
1 large garlic clove, chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons anchovy paste
1 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 1/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup good mayonnaise
1 large ciabatta bread
2 ounces baby arugula, washed and spun dry
12 sun-dried tomatoes, in oil
2 to 3 ounces Parmesan, shaved

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the chicken breasts on a sheet pan skin side up. Rub the chicken with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until cooked through. Cool slightly, discard the skin and bones, and slice the meat thickly. Set aside.

Meanwhile, place the pancetta on another sheet pan in a single layer. Roast for 10 to 15 minutes, until crisp. Set aside to drain on paper towels.

Place the garlic and parsley in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and process until minced. Add the anchovy paste, mustard, lemon juice, and mayonnaise and process again to make a smooth dressing. (Refrigerate the Caesar dressing if not using it immediately.)

Slice the ciabatta in half horizontally and separate the top from the bottom. Toast the bread in the oven, cut side up, for 5 to 7 minutes; cool slightly. Spread the cut sides of each piece with the Caesar dressing. Place half the arugula on the bottom piece of bread and then layer in order: the sun-dried tomatoes, shaved Parmesan, crispy pancetta, and sliced chicken. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and finish with another layer of arugula. Place the top slice of ciabatta on top and cut in thirds crosswise. Serve at room temperature.

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11Mar2010

Not Your Momma’s Meatloaf {Barefoot Bloggers}

Posted in Food, Meats by Shortbread

Meatloaf. It’s what’s for dinner. Or so I told my family. They weren’t thrilled at the idea, the husband having flashbacks of dry, tasteless meatloaf, and the children having flashes of television shows where meatloaf is the enemy of child-kind.

But the rule is ‘you have to taste it’ at my house, so they did. And guess what, Mikey? They liked it. This Ina Garten recipe for Individual Meat Loaves for this week’s Barefoot Bloggers turned out to be surprisingly delicious.

Here’s what I think made the difference: First, you begin with sauteed onions, cooked until soft so they melt into the meat instead of staying crunchy. Secondly, chicken broth is mixed in along with the other ingredients which keeps it from being too dry, like meatloaf sometimes tends to be.

Want to hear your husband say “this is the best meatloaf I’ve ever had”? Click here to get the recipe a give it a go.

1Mar2010

Sunlight At The End Of The Tunnel Baked Shrimp Scampi {Barefoot Bloggers}

Posted in Appetizers, Food, Seafood by Shortbread

Ahhh, it’s March. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a time when people were more sick of winter. Did you ever think there could be too much snow? And the disastrous things going on with the Earth – I know we are all praying that they will come to an end soon.

In my area we have had a cold, wet winter, and though not nearly as bad as other areas, it’s all relative to what you’re used to, I think. Even though March is always a tease – one warm day followed by a week of cold ones – at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel named winter.

So today I bring you some sunshine in the form of bright, lemony, and garlic-y Baked Shrimp Scampi. This dish comes from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics, her most recent cookbook. In a fun twist on traditional scampi, the shrimp is briefly marinated and then covered in a butter, herb, and breadcrumb mixture and baked. What you find after baking is a wonderful dish of shrimp scampi with a delicate, crispy topping. Very different and very delicious.

From the Barefoot Bloggers February selections, this recipe can be found here.

19Feb2010

Snowball Coconut Cupcakes {Barefoot Bloggers}

Posted in Desserts, Food by Shortbread

I’m not really that outdoors-y. It’s not that I don’t enjoy being outside – I love to sit outside in the sun, to take leisurely walks, read on the porch – you’re getting the idea, right? When it comes to hiking through the woods or sleeping in a tent, I’m just not into it.

I have similar feelings about snow. I think it’s beautiful and love to watch it falling and walk through it, making the first tracks afterward. And I might throw a few snowballs and help build a snowman, or even sled down the hill a few times, but by that time I’ve had my fill and I’m done. I’m happy to go inside and make the hot chocolate while everyone else runs around for hours on end.

When we lived in NC, it actually snowed often enough that I could get away with not going out every time, but here in SC we only get snow like this every, I don’t know, 7 or 8 years. So I get guilt-ed into staying out longer than I’d like. Sometimes you’ve gotta ‘take one for the team’, I guess.

I know a lot of you are really tired of looking at this:

Hopefully it’s melting, like this did the next day, and the worst is over. If you can stay in at all from the snow, make your way to the kitchen and bake these Coconut Cupcakes from Ina Garten’s The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook – they’re like little snowballs themselves, but taste way better.

Unlike other coconut cupcakes I’ve tried that have coconut flavored cake and icing, these have real coconut baked into a vanilla/almond flavored butter cake with cream cheese icing. “How good does that sound?”, as Ina would say. Let me just say, “Soooo good!”

Barefoot Blogger Jamie, of Jamie’s Green Kitchen was responsible for encouraging us to make these ridiculously delicious cupcakes, and you can get the recipe for them on her blog, or at the Food Network.

Did I say how ridiculously good these are? Oh yeah, I just can’t help it.

12Nov2009

Whew! Creme Brulee

Posted in Desserts by Shortbread

bb creme brulee

What mistake do you make in the kitchen most often? Omitting ingredients, forgetting to preheat the oven, or maybe not setting the timer? I’ve made all of these more than once, but I find the thing I do more than these is trying to cut a recipe in half, and forgetting by the end of the ingredient list that I’m halving the recipe and adding the whole amount of the last two or three things. Sometimes it ends in disaster. Sometimes not.