If Ronald McDonald was Italian...

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my brother came to town and I made polenta cakes. Well I had to come up with some ideas for what to do with the leftovers. You have already seen Grilled Polenta Cakes with Bruschetta Topping here is what I did with the last couple of polenta cakes. Egg McMuffins Italian style.

Egg McPolenta
1 fried egg
1 slice fresh mozzarella
1 slice of tomato, 2 if you are using Roma tomatoes
1 slice prosciutto
1 polenta cake, I cut the cake in half so I had a top and bottom "bun" but only ended up eating 1 of the pieces
1 tsp olive oil

This recipe is for one serving just multiply it by the number of people you are serving.

Heat the olive oil in a nonstick frying pan, over medium heat. Add the polenta cake pieces and heat through. Remove and set aside while you fry the egg. To keep the egg the shape of the polenta I cracked it into a round cookie cutter a little smaller than then polenta cake. Spray the cookie cutter with non-stick spray for easy removal. After egg is fried place prosciutto on polenta then mozzarella, tomato and egg.

Grilled Asian Seafood

Grilled Asian Seafood
12 shrimp, peeled and deveined
8 scallops
juice of 2 limes
1 tbs sesame oil
2 tsp sesame seeds

Put the seafood, lime juice and sesame oil in a resealable bag and set it aside for 15 minutes but not longer than 30 minutes. Toss them on the grill and cook until done, about 4 to 5 minutes. I like to put small things on 2 skewers to make them easy to turn. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and plate.

Grilled Polenta Cakes with Bruschetta Topping

My brother, Bob, came to visit me this past weekend. He wanted me to recreate the dinner that I blogged about when I went to Paula's from Bell' Alimento for a cooking lesson. Now what do you do with leftover polenta cakes? I narrowed my options down to grilling them or putting frosting on them setting them on a paper plate and leaving them in the break room at work. The second would have been funnier but I am glad I went with the first. I think my co-workers are glad I opted for the first option as well.

Grilled Polenta Cakes with Bruschetta Topping

Tomato Topping
2 tomatoes, cut into a small dice
2 tbs Kalamata olives, sliced
1 clove garlic, minced
4 basil leaves, cut into fine ribbons
Olive oil to cover the mixture

Polenta Cakes
Preheat the grill to medium high.
Make a batch of Paula's Polenta Cakes right up to the point where you you get the saute pan.
Take the polenta cakes and put them on a well oiled grill, to prevent them from sticking. Cook until polenta has good grill marks and then flip and repeat.
Top each polenta cake with the tomato mixture.

Grilled Chicken Caprese

I have a new food obsession. My brother wanted my old treadmill and wanted to know what I would charge him for it. I think my answer surprised him, dried Michigan cherries. I became addicted to these while in MI in January. I now have 20 pounds of dried cherries, anybody got any good dried cherry recipes?

While my brother was here I took him to an Italian restaurant food supplier that is open to the public. Of course I had to stock up on a few things including fresh mozzarella. Here is one of the recipes I came up with.

Grilled Chicken Caprese
This recipe is per person as it is easy to double, triple, quadruple, etc.
1 chicken breast, cut 3/4 of the way through, so it opens like a book
1 slice fresh mozzarella. you may have to cut in half and place end to end if you have a narrow chicken breast
1 slice of tomato, you may have to cut in half and place end to end if you have a narrow chicken breast
Basil leaves to lay on top of mozzarella
Olive oil to drizzle on breast
Salt and pepper

Preheat grill to medium high.

Drizzle olive oil on the breasts and sprinkle with salt and pepper. On one side of the cut breast put the mozzarella piece(s), tomato piece(s) and basil. Preheat grill to medium high.

Drizzle olive oil on the breasts and sprinkle with salt and pepper. On one side of the cut breast put the mozzarella piece(s), tomato piece(s) and basil. Fold other half of breast over the side with ingredients. Grill until meat is cooked to the desired doneness. Enjoy!

The next post will be the polenta cake in the picture next to the Grilled Caprese Chicken.

Berry Tart My Easter Dessert

This year Easter was going to be a little strange for my wife and I. None of our 3 children would be home for Easter, our first childless holiday in 26 years. But then out of the blue we get an email from my best friend from college. She is bringing her husband, 2 children and one of their friends to Durham to check out colleges and they wanted to get together for dinner. So I got to make a big Easter dinner after all. Our dessert was this berry tart. I made it several years ago and it was very good. The recipe os from Perfect Light Desserts by Nick Malgieri, yes he wrote a healthy cookbook.

Berry Tart

Sweet Pastry Crust

1 cup all-purpose flour
3 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbs unsalted butter, cold and cut into 6 pieces
1 large egg
1 tbs cold water

Combine the dry ingredients in a food processor. Pulse to mix ingredients.

Add butter and pulse 12 times.

Add the egg and water and pulse until dough forms a ball.

Pour dough onto a floured surface.

Form the dough into a disk. Then wrap it in plastic.

Refrigerate for 3 hours to 3 days. You can use immediately but dough will be a little soft.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Before you use the dough unwrap it and gently knead it on a floured surface. Then form it into a disk again and roll it out into a 11 to 12 inch disk. Transfer to a 8 or 9 inch fluted tart pan. Press on bottom and sides and cut off any excess dough.

Poke holes in bottom of tart with a fork, about every 1/2 inch. Place tart on center rack and bake for 15 minutes, or until it just starts to turn golden brown. Do not over bake or crust becomes very hard.

Cool tart on a rack.

Pastry Cream Filling

1 cup fat-free milk, I usually use 1%
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbs all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbs unsalted butter, softened

Combine the milk and 1/2 of the sugar in a small nonreactive saucepan. Bring to boil over low heat. Combine rest of sugar and the flour in a small mixing bowl and whisk together to mix. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time. When the milk boils whisk in 1/3 of the egg mixture. Return the rest of the mixture to a boil. Whisking constantly add the rest of the egg mixture in a slow steady stream. Keep whisking until the pastry cream thickens and comes to a boil with large bubbles bursting at the surface. Whisk for 20 seconds longer and remove from heat. Add the vanilla and the butter. Pour the filling into a glass bowl and cover with plastic wrap touching the surface of the cream so a film does not form. Refrigerate until you are ready to assemble the tart.

Finishing the Tart

3 1/2-pints of raspberries or a mixture of raspberries, blueberries and strawberries
2 tbs powdered sugar

Pour the cream in the tart shell and spread evenly. Arrange the berries on top. Sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Berry Tart

This recipe coming later this week

Cooking Class with Paula from Bell Alimento

As I write this my wife, Annette and I are exactly 1 month away from celebrating our 27th Anniversary. The very first meal that I ever cooked for her was Chicken Marsala. Last night I went to a cooking class held by Paula Jones from bell'alimento. The menu consisted of bruschetta, make sure you pronounce it brus-ket-a or Paula will threaten you with bodily harm, Caprese Salad, Chicken Marsala, Polenta Cakes, Creamy Polenta with Sun Dried Tomatoes, Cauliflower au Gratin and Chocolate Cake. I have linked to each of the recipes she has published if you want to check them out, they are all excellent. You might ask why would I attend a cooking class for a recipe that I have been cooking for 27 years, for lots of reasons. The first reason is that I have been drooling over Paula's recipes for the last six months or so and this gave me an opportunity to try one. The second the recipe that I make is called Chicken Marsala but it calls for a dry white wine not Marsala. In fact it probably took me 20 years before I realized Marsala was a wine. Obviously my recipe, handed down from my dad, is not authentic but it is good. I had to taste the real thing. Last night I did get a taste of the real thing and I will not make my version again. OMG that chicken was good.


Paula puts a lot of energy into blogging, unlike myself who does it as a hobby. Her blog is currently in the running for Saveur's Best Blog Award. So go out there and cast a vote for her she deserves it. She is also a featured contributor to Paula Deen.com. The difference between Paula Jones and Paula Deen is that Jones uses olive oil and Deen uses butter.


The class consisted of 4 of Paula's friends and my wife and I. That means 6 women and I were all in one kitchen cooking. I think I am going to have to recruit a couple of men the next time I go to Paula's for a class. I think it is safe to say we all had a good time. The class was a good size as we all got to do a few hands on jobs in preparing the meal, but nobody was so busy you couldn't stop what you were doing and watch somebody else if something was being demonstrated or to taste something as it was being passed around. Here is a photo of Paula and I, Paula is working on the cauliflower and I was working on the chicken. Notice how neither of us are looking at the camera, a trait that a lot of bloggers seem to have. Look at our food not us.


The first thing that I have to tell you is us city folk need a GPS to find her house. The second thing is that for some reason GPS is off by about 3 tenths of a mile because I can guarantee you Paula does not live in the middle of a field. Just use the country directions subdivision is right after the 2 horse farms you can't miss it, unless you are using a GPS.

The platter was piled with bruschetta, maybe I should spell it brus-ket-a so she doesn't hunt me down and the wine was open. After the introductions we started on the cake as it took the longest to cook, so we had to get it in the oven. The cake turned out so moist, chocolatey and delicious and it was easy. Of course you had to have and espresso with that cake.


Then we moved onto the side dishes. Paula had the cauliflower assembled when we got there, as it was not listed as part of the class. We made the polenta for the polenta cakes or so we thought. Since the polenta has to be cooled Paula already had a batch made for the polenta cakes our polenta was served as creamy polenta with sun dried tomatoes, another bonus that was not on the menu. That gave a couple of people who had never had polenta the opportunity to try it 2 ways. Both polentas were good but I liked the cakes the best.


The last item on the agenda was the main course, Chicken Marsala. As I mentioned earlier this chicken was fantastic far more flavor than the version I make or should I say used to make. The recipe was again very easy slice the chicken, pound it thin and fry it. Then make a sauce from wine and mushrooms. I was just thinking since the bad version of Chicken Marsala won me my wife, I wonder if I can get a new kitchen with this version, hmmm. Well a guy can dream can't he. Happy anniversary a little early honey and thanks for coming to the cooking class with me. I'll end with a picture of my wife and I in Venice on our 25th Anniversary, because my wife is either taking these pictures or has her back to us in all of the other pictures.