cheese

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

June 5, 2013

Lately Albany John and I have been on the same page diet-wise. I feel like usually we have different dietary goals, but lately we’ve been syncing in what we’re craving, which is nice.

Basically, it’s eat the less crap and more good food diet. And by diet, I mean the stuff we are eating, not “I have to lose weight so I’m eating 1,200 calories per day” diet.

We’re mainly eating more protein and veggies, less dairy, and very few grains compared to how we previously ate. I think lifestyle has something to do with it. I do a decent amount of weight training, and the more weights I lift, the less my body seems to crave simple/refined carbs. As you might be able to tell from my posts, the past year has dropped significantly in how many baked goods I make. We just don’t eat a ton of bread or white carby type things any more. It’s weird, but in a good way. I never thought I’d NOT have a bread craving, you know? Don’t get me wrong, I still will mow the hell out of a baguette from the Placid Baker, but the days of having bread as a main component of dinner are few and far between.

We had some ricotta and mozzarella in the fridge. And I had been having this craving for stuffed chicken breasts for a while; so I picked up some chicken breasts, fatty capicola, and store-cured ham from Roma. We already had some ricotta and mozzarella in the fridge, so Albany John butterflied the breast and slathered away.

Things of beauty. The chicken breast at Roma aren’t exactly cheap at $6.99/lb, but they are Murray’s which taste miles better than the $1.99/lb stuff that goes on sale at the supermarket. Roma also has a discount/membership card, where if you put $50 or more on a pre-paid card, you get 20% more. so $50 = $60, $100 = $120. I’ve been doing this for a while, so it brings the breasts down closer to $5.59/lb. I figure if something is going to be a main part of my diet, it may as well be tasty. I don’t want to be one of those people sucking down tasteless chicken just because they want to eat meat, and lots of it.

Albany John rolled these up with some fresh basil leaves and trussed them before roasting. These were 2 breast pieces (or one whole chicken’s breast), and fairly large.

I like this rolled & stuffed poultry breast type meal lately. It keeps the breasts juicy, and adds even more flavor. A friend came over for dinner, and we still had enough for a light lunch the next day.

Tour de Mozz and Melba

December 7, 2012

bloggers, cheese, fried, local, restaurant

2 Comments

This past weekend Daniel B. put on a mini Tour de Mozzarella Sticks & Melba Sauce. Read his post for thoughtfulness and insight, picks from each location and some minimal commentary are below:

TJ’s Cafe was the first stop of the day. 2 orders of sticks (3 pieces per order) came out to a little over $15 with tax. These were big honkin’ slabs and not sticks, with an almost-too-perfect not-at-all-greasy crust. Crisp, like a fish stick, almost.

The mozzarella was some of the most flavorful and melty of the bunch. The melba was enjoyable, but I may have added a squeeze of lime to it to a little contrast.

FWIW, we also ran into Todd as we were heading out, who was a very genuine guy and mentioned how they really try to stay consistent with their recipes for their customers, down to maintaining the same brands in their recipes. Albany John & I had talked about consistency (and inconsistencies) in dishes and foods earlier in the day, so it was nice to hear the importance of consistency talked about by a local restaurant owner.

Next up was Ralph’s Tavern just up the road on Central Ave. These were my favorite mozzarella sticks of the tour – salty and greasy in just the right way, with just a whisper of a breading between stick and eater.

Gooey goodness. $6.25 for 6 sticks.

Next up was the Across the Street Pub, which I’d never been to before – it’s the 2nd floor. These were some of the least pleasant of the bunch, which means they were still passable, but you can find them in your grocer’s freezer section. These were the only pre-made sticks of the tour. Kind of a bummer at $6.50. At least they were small.

These had a garlicky breading, so they didn’t go so well with the raspberry sauce. This cheese was also the toughest and chewiest.

Graney’s was next. The last time I was in here was after watching a local rugby game years ago, and there wasn’t much eating going on then. These win for largest sticks of the tour. I forget how much these were, but it was reasonable.

These also had a garlicky breading, so the raspberry sauce wasn’t such a great combo.

So much melty-ness! The final stop was Beff’s, which also featured some rather large mozzarella sticks. They had the best raspberry sauce of the bunch – it had a citrus/lime note in it to keep the raspberry sauce from being too cloyingly sweet. The breading was fairly thick and crunchy.
They also brought out some of the marinara sauce, but I found it to be tinny & unpleasant.

The sticks were best enjoyed here piping hot – they had a very short half-life.
Woo, pull!

Overall, this was a fun quickie-tour. It was by no means comprehensive, but we covered some good ground, and I’m pleased that so many of these places made their sticks in their own kitchens. I found a few new taverns to visit. I am thinking I will have to stop in to TJ’s Cafe and Ralph’s for some of their other fare as well.

Comfort Kitchen Bloggers Dinner

July 30, 2012

bloggers, burger, cheese, fried, frugal, local, restaurant

3 Comments

The Comfort Kitchen held an after hours snacking session for some local bloggers. Many thanks to Jen for the invite! First off – location. They’re at 454 Broadway in Saratoga Springs. This is like a mini-mall. I’d never been inside before. It’s on the bottom floor.

First up were tater tots made on-site. Dude. These were awesome. Solid fry job, nicely moist & fluffy potato interior. Def get some awesome sauce with these. Yup, one of their sauces is Awesome Sauce.

Next up were black bean patties.

The chipotle mayo on here really makes this veggie burger sing. It has a ton of flavor in that one little streak, so even mayo-haters like me have to admit its deliciousness.

Non-veggie burgers up next, hee hee. Sliders – a whole tray of ‘em! Comfort Kitchen gets their meat ground every two days. Rory, the owner, also goes out to market to buy his groceries – they don’t receive deliveries by truck.

Mac & Cheese, two ways. Pulled pork on the left, 4 cheese on the right. I was digging the pulled pork mac & cheese a little more than the 4 cheese. They used rotini pasta (spirals) instead of elbows – it’s a little thicker and holds the sauce better than elbow.

Ah, true love. Mac & cheese & a slider on a potato roll.

I loved, loved, loved that there was some pink to the slider. Rory says their default for burgers is medium, so just let them know if you want them cooked more or less. The grind was great – not too fine, but smaller than sausage chunks. Tons of savory flavor, too.For dessert, they made a cheeky treat – strawberry shortcake ice cream sandwiches: Rory’s nod to strawberry shortcake ice cream on a stick that we all grew up eating as kids. YES. So good, especially the crumbs made with dehydrated strawberries.
While your food will be prepared by incredibly good looking people, you won’t have to sacrifice your first born to eat here. Nothing on the menu is over $9. The space is basic and clean, with some Comfort Kitchen cartoons on the walls. They’re only open for lunch (until 7 pm), and man, after seeing tacos on the menu, I think I’ve got to mosey my way back to Comfort Kitchen and give those a shot.

Wine & Cheese Dinner with the Cheese Traveler

April 9, 2012

bar, beverage, bloggers, cheese, Chicken, fried, local, review

Mac & Cheese Bowl 2012

February 20, 2012

cheese, local, pasta

1 Comment

Congratulations to Christian Noe for winning the 2nd people’s competition at the 3rd Annual Mac & Cheese Bowl at the Albany Marriott.

Overall, the event raised a bunch of money for the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, so excellent on that account.

Here is the assembly line at 677 Prime’s station for hamburger mac & cheese.

An innovative take on it, for sure. I arrived at 11 am on the nose, and it was already packed with people and only got more crowded as the minutes flew by. Not for the claustrophobic, that’s for sure!

One of my favorite stations – Valente’s mac & cheese. I got a huge chunk of crab in my sample, and it was one of the best I tried. My other favorite tie for first was DP Brasserie/Yono’s ducky mac & cheese.

My least fave? Taste’s – instant frowny face. Their flavors didn’t make my mouth happy at all.
Albany John snapped a few action shots for me.
Like these mac & cheese enthusiasts.
Steve announcing the Judge’s Choice (aka, Christian Noe).
The Standard’s presentation for their tex-mex mac & cheese.

Henry’s in Waterford

May 27, 2011

cheese, local, markets, pork

5 Comments

I got a flyers advertising Henry’s Market in Waterford (42 Saratoga Ave), touting smoked meats. So in! It’s just a little further north of Cohoes after 787 ends. I think this place used to be a hot dog store before it was Henry’s.

It’s not as big as Roma’s. I was a little underwhelmed. None of the meats in the deli cases were covered, which meant for some really grey looking hamburgers, and some really dried out raw chickens.

The sausages looked pretty decent. It seems like there was a lot of extra air space. I don’t think Roma’s covers their meats either, but they don’t have issues with dried out meats like at Henry’s. Albany John mentioned something to someone behind the counter, and they were just like “Oh. Yeah.”

They had some desserts and smoked cheeses. Mmmm, smoked cheeeese.

Here is the smoked section. Oh, and some raw stuff too. The organization could use a little bit of improvement. Maybe. The sausages here looked REALLY dried out and unappetizing. Some things were vacuum sealed.

I love smoke, so we decided to get a little bit of food to try out. I wasn’t really impressed with a lot of the store’s presentation of meats (c’mon, it’s meat! treat it with some respect! don’t let it get all sad and dried out. do people buy meat that’s really dried out on the exterior?).

Ham steak, and some smoked cheese. I think it was gouda. The gouda was… not so good-a. A little too soft and mushy. Not a lot of smoky flavor.

Here’s the ham steak. It was pretty tasty, but I would have liked a little extra smoke in there.

So, the ham was okay. Henry, maybe you could check with Roma about how to keep your meat from drying out on the exterior. I can only imagine it would help sales and bring you more money. This is coming from someone who walks into Rolf’s Pork Store thinking “Okay. I’ll just get one kielbasa for my picnic of 3 people.” and then walks out with $30 in various delicious meats.

May Potluck

May 23, 2011

beef, bloggers, bread, cheese, grilling, local, sausage, veggies

10 Comments

This past Saturday, we had a potluck with the Albany Eats! crew! I gave somewhat short notice, but Jerry, Cassie, Sue, R & M, 3rd Auntie, Jon in Albany, & JoJo, were nice enough to come out on a not too rainy day.

Oh, and evidently the covered area in Prospect Park was reserved that day, so we just moved up the hill. Uh, I promise I’ll at least TRY to scout out the next location a little better, mmkay, guys? On the plus side, we had some sweet music to rock out to.

Albany John grilled some flank steaks on his new portable Weber grill.

I made blondies with cacao nibs.

Jerry brought some bomb-ass olive oils to drizzle over bread, greens, and cheese. Mmmmm. He’s ever so kindly written them up here. Thank goodness, cause all I know is that I liked the 3rd olive oil best. I think it was Arbequina. Nice – I’ll have to try it out again.

Sue brought chicken taco bites! I love little bites like this. They’re so time consuming to make, but so tasty! Great job, Sue!

Third Auntie (a long time reader and commenter) brought her homemade pesto with pasta and asparagus. Mmmm. Yummy! I was so psyched I got to finally meet my 3rd Auntie! She’s a blast – you’ll be lucky to meet her, too.

Cassie’s dessert bars! So good! The coconut ones on the end had my name on them. So coconutty! These were a big hit. Well, everything was a big hit, but you know what I mean. Dessert! Everyone loves it!

JON MADE HIS OWN SAUSAGES!!! I never thought I’d be able to taste some of Jon’s handiwork, but HOORAAAYYYY! I did. These were some delicious sweet italian sausages. Great coarse grind on them. Damnit Jon, now I need to learn how to make sausages.

Grilling, eating. Albany John about to put his second flank steak on the grill.

Rochelle’s bread pudding just past the weber grill on the left hand side. So creamy on the inside, and nicely crisp on the outside. Girlie knows how to make some bread pudding. So creamy. Yet so bready. Yum.

I forgot to take pics of Jojo’s tasty tea & fruit salad (and Trader Joe’s sparkling pink lemonade – squee!), but they were a wonderful addition. Really refreshing and tasty.

I can’t believe how well everything worked out. We had a good spread, not like, 4 dozen burgers and a sack of chips. So many tasty different items! And people who are way better at planning than I am and brought extra forks and plates. Man, I have the best readers in the world. You guys bring awesome food and stuff to eat off of them.

Sooooo, if you would like to be a part of the next potluck you can shoot me an email. If you already have, I’m just going to continue jamming up your email and invite you again, though. I’m tentatively planning Sunday, June 26th just to give you a little over 1 month of notice, and partially because my June is pretty freaking full already.

It was great seeing you all! Thanks for all of the good eats and times!

DeFazio’s to end Passover

April 28, 2011

bloggers, cheese, local, pizza, recommendations, restaurant, review

2 Comments

Met up with Capitol to Capital and the FUSSYlittleFAMILY to celebrate(?)/break the end of Passover with some leavened wheat. DeFazio’s Pizzeria (266 4th St, Troy, NY) for some sweet pizzas and BYOB (in this case, beer).

We started off with a large eggplant & spinach pizza and a small cheese. The eggplant was fried, but airy and not at all greasy. Good amount of cheese, but maybe it was just me, but I thought it could use a touch of salt. Easily remedied with a hearty shaking of cheese, though!

Somehow we ordered another small cheese pizza on their multigrain dough. It’s still in the works, so it’s not officially on the menu yet (and they only had small sizes available the night we were there). We just wanted one plain cheese on multigrain, but this worked out to our benefit since 2 small pies and two large pies (one more comin up) was just enough for 6 adults and two kids.

The regular white crust might be my fave, but the multigrain is a pretty close second. It’s a totally different kind of crust beast than the original. It’s flatter and a bit denser, with bits of nutty grains and such in the crust to add a crunchy little something every now and then.

Albany John loves DeFazio’s whole wheat crust. I’m less of a fan of it since it’s tougher than the standard (pillowy soft and delectable) white crust. But this multigrain could be a good midpoint for us.

Our final pizza de la resistance was a kalamata and hot sausage pie. The Profussor wanted something of a recreation of DeFazio’s pie from the final leg of the Tournament of Pizza we judged last year. Mainly, those briny and delicious kalamatas. Pizza flashbacks in such a good way.

The kalamatas were okay, but not as briny as they were in the TOP pie. Daniel B. mentioned that these looked chopped and not hand pitted and plump like they were on the winning pie. Either way, still pretty good. But I think that TOP pie is going to be my white buffalo pizza for a while.

All of the dough was cooked well. No gumminess/undercooked dough. Although I might become one of those pizza obsessives who specifically asks for some burnished and blackened edges on my subsequent pies.

Good pizza, good people, good times! What more can you ask for?

Vegan Pizza

March 16, 2011

cheese, new food, pizza, vegan

2 Comments

You know those fish that you can stick in a tank and will eat pretty much anything, like the algae off the sides of the tank? Those sucker fish? I’ve got to be the sucker fish of my family. If no one wants it, I’ll probably take it and do something with it. My sister bought a ton of Daiya cheese a few months ago when she took a break from her raw food diet. I think she had to, or something like that. She made some gluten-free, vegan pizza, and since then there have been several baggies of shredded cheeze sitting in my mom’s freezer. The cheeze bags got the boot from Mom’s freezer into mine recently.

I figured I’d give vegan pizza a go. Why not? Daiya’s got great reviews online for vegan cheese. And hey, if I can have pizza and call it healthy and good for me, well, sign me right the hell up.

The Daiya mozzarella style shreds vegan cheese looks like shreds of parmesan cheese, and has a kind of cheesey smell. It would be hard to tell it apart from regular shreds of mozzarella (the cheapie bagged kind), or parmesan.

Made a crust primarily of bread flour. Chewy thin crust on a pizza stone. Albany John whipped together a chunky sauce out of canned tomatoes. 550F pizza stone for 6 minutes.

Holy moly – it really melted! It looks pretty much like mozzarella cheese. Flavor-wise… um. It was okay. I think a little goes a long way. It didn’t really taste like mozzarella. The first bite I was like “Woah. This is melty and kinda cheesey. Maybe it’s kind of like mozza-oh no. It’s different.”.
There’s a coconutty-sweet end to it, and it tastes more like a melty/warm sweet cream cheese with extra tang, yet has the pull and meltiness of mozzarella. It was kind of a mind freak for someone who’s used to eating the real stuff. After reading the ingredients label, coconut oil is one of the ingredients, so at least my brain’s not making that flavor up out of no where.

I think Daiya vegan “mozzarella” cheese is really close to mozzarella for people that can’t eat mozzarella and don’t know/remember what it tastes like. If you eat mozzarella, you’ll be able to spot the difference in flavor. If you don’t eat mozzarella for whatever dietary reason but really want to, you’ll be like “Oh, shit! It’s mozzarella! Halleluja, Daiya!”.

I’m still gonna keep it in my freezer, just ’cause I think pizza might not be the best application for me because the sweet flavor is so blatantly obvious (which makes me mildly disconcerted the entire time I’m eating it since I’m like “Hmm. It’s just a little off,”). Truthfully, I hope my sister will be like “I’m not eating raw food on XYZ day,” and then I can be all like “I’m making you vegan, gluten-free pizza, biatch!” in the near future and then I can feed her something that she likes. Okay, and I might have a problem with hoarding things in my freezer, but it’s edible, so how is that really a problem?

Still, I’m really impressed with its melting properties. I think I will try to find a sweeter application to use it with. Have you tried this stuff before? Any suggestions?

2nd Anniversary

October 6, 2010

BBQ, cheese, Chicken, holiday, local, pasta, pork, recommendations, restaurant, review

1 Comment

I’m a woman who firmly believes in saying important things with meat. Things like “Sorry I ran over your cat,” “Officer, I swear, I’ve only had one drink,” and “It was like that when I got here”.

Happy second wedding anniversary is also a pretty okay way to say it with meat.

Albany John and I had the main dishes for our wedding catered by Capital Q, namely some pulled pork and brisket. Nothing crazy, since we thought we’d have around 80 people showing up, but I think we had about half that. If I’d known that, I would have sprung for ribs for the group, but hey, on the plus side, we didn’t have to cook for about two weeks after our wedding, and that was after all of our guests had gone.

So we headed over on our anniversary this year and picked up some take out.

Jalapeno mac and cheese. $2 for the small. This isn’t mac and cheese from a box. There is a ton of cheese on here, and I was surprised by the texture differences in the mac and cheese, considering it sits on the side dish steam table. I loved the craggy hunks of cheese that were on the edges of some of it, and the crunchy bread crumbs. The jalapenos added juuust the right amount of kick.

And I should have ordered a medium or large because I had just gone into the kitchen when Albany John goes … “Um, I ate about half of the macaroni and cheese. It’s REALLY good.” Evidently leaving a little less than 1/3 is “about half” in Albany John land.

We also got some cheese and jalapeno grit fries that we wolfed down in the car on the way home. Not at all greasy, plenty crisp, and well worth the $2 as well.

Here is a half rack of chipotle lime ribs ($13.50). So good.They’re lightly sauced, and at first I wasn’t quite sure there was much flavor, but the chipotle sneaks up on you, and the lime is more of a perk to the sauce than an obvious flavor.

So good. So good.

But these babies are my favorite. A half rack of memphis ribs ($13.50). Did I mention these ribs are huge and not of the babyback variety? Man, $13.50 will get you a lot of ribs. When someone from the south says “Y’all are hungry, hunh?” Maybe that should be a sign of how many ribs you’re ordering.

They have a wonderful smoky flavor imparted in each rib, with the ends (lefty parts in the pic above) becoming almost jerky-like on the outside, giving way to melt-in-your-mouth moist meat underneath.

Albany John also tossed in a half wet chicken ($8). I didn’t really touch this one because of the call of the ribs. It’s a very powerful call.

I think in total, it was something like $38.50 for everything above. Not too shabby, eh?

Yeah, we had leftovers for the next day, too. BBQ leftovers are probably some of the best leftovers ever.

—Albany Eats!

Documenting the foodings of a local. With a grain of salt.

Archive

cheese

Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Tour de Mozz and Melba

Comfort Kitchen Bloggers Dinner

Wine & Cheese Dinner with the Cheese Traveler

Mac & Cheese Bowl 2012

Henry’s in Waterford

May Potluck

DeFazio’s to end Passover

Vegan Pizza

2nd Anniversary

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